The Unclad Soul

In the long search for life’s meaning, and its joy, there is stumbling and pause; error, setbacks, and defeat. There are times when, despite our best efforts, we never find the path, and we stay too long on the mistaken road. There are times of deep anguish and a sense of loss that moves all the way into that space that defines us, and leaves us doubting our worth. Love for or from another that languishes and dies. The faded memories of a time when we thought there could be no end to the feelings of togetherness and rightness. We learn the dreams and innocence of our youth are often replaced with the hard realities of adulthood. We discover that those blissful days when the world seemed safe and home was love and people were kind, don’t protect us from a world where it all can become phony, selfish, and mean. When others we trust, even love, betray our loyalty and leave us in something broken and pointless. We experiment with relationships, with marriage, with intimacy, an...

The Hulu series, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a scalding, brutal, at times sickening portrayal of life in some future totalitarian and theocratic state in New England known as Gilead. The storylines are so reprehensible they leave one churning with rage and shattered with sorrow. They offer a glimpse into a horrifying future that may not be impossible to imagine. Gilead is growing childless. Those in charge have devised a way to repopulate the state. Women of childbearing age are simply taken off the streets or out of their homes and proclaimed handmaids for commanders, slick and morally compromised men who have wives unable to conceive. A handmaid is chosen for them, even if she is already married and has children of her own. They are permanently separated from her. She has no rights. Her only existence is to serve the elite couple she is assigned to. The lead character in this inhuman existence is June (Elizabeth Moss), whose name is changed to Offred. Once a month, in the mo...

The president and vice president want to establish a Space Force. The president has signed legislation for a military budget of more than $700 billion dollars. The number is staggering. And the motives within it alarming. There is not a single threat facing us that warrants such a ridiculous idea as a Space Force. What does seriously threaten us is global warming, world poverty, national weather disasters, economic inequality, racial division, the destruction of public education, congressional greed and corruption, a future Stock Market collapse, the arrogant aggression against terrorist groups and the killing of their innocent women and children. Those are the real threats. Those are the things that may end up destroying us as a nation and maybe even the world. And yet, pennies are thrown at these problems, and in some instances, nothing at all is being done to address the dire situations created by these threats. We are not being led by smart people. Money is a ...

I have a friend in Los Angeles who asked me to partner with her on a book project. She is a bright, gifted writer, with a personal story of pain and abuse. She is a gay woman who grew up in a strict Christian home filled with rules and moral demands. Though she knew at a young age she was gay, she had no way of processing that with her parents. When she finally did come out to them, which was an act of enormous courage, she was rebuked, sent to a physician who sexually abused her, and later was put in a mental facility to be treated, not for the abuse she endured, but because she was gay. She grew up in the church, attending services three times a week, doing her best to follow all the rules while still trying to deal with her sexual identity. The church provided no support for her struggle. No affirmation for her as a gay person. Only condemnation. Her parents participated in her rejection. She eventually left home, estranged from her family, and deeply hurt and bitter to...

And now, the struggle for authenticity beckons. The fight for what is real in our world, in our nation, and in ourselves, that fight exists whether we participate in it or not. War is real. Syria is real. Children dying, their small bodies broken in pieces, blood running from their frail faces. That is real. Iraq is real. Afghanistan. Yemen. The horror that stalks the days there, the screams heard through the nights. The innocent brutalized. The cities decimated. Those are all real. We ignore it. We pretend those things are far away from here, that we are not a part of it, that we have no responsibility for it. We close our eyes, our minds, our hearts to it. I can’t turn away, can you? And here, in dear old America, our flag sags under the weight of our mutual shame. Reagan’s tired description of us, “a shining city on a hill,” rings discordant, empty, false. We do not shine; we are tarnished with the stains of our selfishness, our shallow cravings, our racism and ...

José Rizal, a physician, writer, and a peace advocate during the Spanish-American War wrote: “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.” Merriam-Webster defines a tyrant as “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution…an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power.” We normally think of tyrants as madmen, vicious and violent dictators who brutalize their people, often with beatings, imprisonment, and death. And there have been and still are leaders of countries with those characteristics. But tyrants can also be less than that. They can simply be those who lead by manipulation, deceit, and mocking rhetoric, who, as Merriam-Webster put it, rule “unrestrained by law or constitution.” But whatever stripe of tyrant one may be, they cannot stay in power, as Rizal said, “without slaves.” What does that mean? It means those who do as they are told. Those who follow without consideration of their own best interests or the interests of others....

I am fascinated with TV series that deal with the seedier side of life. I loved The Sopranos. And Peaky Blinders. Also, Boardwalk Empire, Gypsy, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Nurse Jackie. These shows and others like them portray people caught in their human frailties. They are deeply flawed people, wounded, sometimes by their own poor choices in life and sometimes by people who betrayed or used or mistreated them in some profoundly cruel way. I am currently making my way through Showtime’s series, “Ray Donovan.” Soon to begin its 6 th season, the series centers around the Donovan family, a father and three sons mired in old hurts, deception, corruption, and crime. Ray (Liev Schreiber) is the middle son, a “fixer” for L.A.’s elite crowd of Hollywood stars, producers, financiers, and old money people who inevitably cross the line into affairs gone wrong, crooked payoffs, illegal deals, and so forth. Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight) is the father, an old-schoo...