The Unclad Soul

There is an insightful comment from the novelist Virginia Woolf in her search for purpose in life. She had often come to detours and dead ends. There were high moments of discovery and low times of nagging self-doubt. In a personal essay she concluded, “What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with the years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.” It is such a magnificent comment. Most of us at some point in our lives, often in mid-life or our later years, look back over it all and wonder what any of it meant. We see people we loved for the wrong reasons. Relationships that ended badly. Pathways we should have never taken. Choices we knew were questionable but made them anyway often with regret. We see good times, laughter and celebrations, deep love; that fun concert, the hila...

The poet, Tyler Kent White has written, “I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in this world You will eventually become it.” It is a promise I cling to. When I lived in Hamilton, Texas, a small town in the central part of the state, I often took to the countryside. When small-town life got to me—yes, there are political divides and social conflicts and elitism there, too--; when the strain of ministry seemed overwhelming to me because of unexpected deaths and divorces and fixed old beliefs and my own inner questions; I would hit the walking trail East of town. Or, I would drive through groves of trees along dirt roads out North across rickety bridges and the sight of grazing cattle on the other side. I would bird hunt with friends and fish in the tanks on their property. I never killed anything I didn’t eat. But it wasn’t the hunting and the fishing that refreshed me, though I did enjoy it. It was simply being in the country, in natu...

Dear God, Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Help us in the hour of our need. The lessons you taught us about kindness, tolerance, and acceptance of others, have lost their value in our day. The love you demonstrated has been ignored and replaced with political power, religious hypocrisy, and a spirit of meanness and self-righteous arrogance. We are not, as your followers or as good Americans, guided by the Beatitudes, but by branding forces of money and greed. We ignore the lesson of the Good Samaritan and, like the priest and the Levite who simply walked on by not wanting to get involved with the wounded victim, we too, are self-absorbed and blasphemous in our indifference to the hurting of others. You taught us to love the little children, to care for the poor and forgotten, to stand up to evil, especially when it is disguised as Christianity, as God’s Will, as faith, and yes, as patriotism. I know you cannot make us do what is right and honorable. To believe in you i...

The burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France this week captured the attention of the world. Immediately afterward, billionaires came forward to donate millions of dollars to restore the historic church. Stunned crowds formed near the Cathedral for days. People wept. They looked on in alarm, broken-hearted by the scene. What was it about that event that created so much emotional sorrow and distress? Some have criticized the news coverage, the horror of people, and even the billionaire donors, saying it was after all just a building. And a building in disrepair, vulnerable to just such a tragedy. No one’s faith was destroyed in the fire. No one, thankfully, was injured. Most of the historic pieces of art were saved. The basic structure remains. Why then were so many so upset? For me, it was the desecration of beauty. Though the fire seems to have been accidental, it still destroyed significant parts of a masterpiece of architecture, genius, and skill. ...

Beyond the expanding urban cities, and past the secluded rural towns, awaits the wilderness. That is where I want to go; what naturalist and environmental philosopher John Muir called, “the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed” places. They are Thoreau’s, Walden Pond. They are conservationist Ansel Adams,’ Kings Canyon where the giant General Grant tree grows, or the Sierra Nevada, where groves of the massive sequoia rise into the sky, the tallest trees in the world. Those great places also exist in poet Mary Oliver’s nature settings, who said of flowers, “There is nothing in the world that can be said against them.” Wouldn’t it be nice for a change, to be there? A place where nothing could be said against anyone. I want to follow an overgrown trail that leads into a deep green forest and hear and feel the sounds of the earth. I’m looking for wildness, for untouched beauty, for scenes of nature’s glory abandoned and left alone in the quiet. I seek the mountain, the riv...

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said in one of his Fireside Chats, “The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.” President John Kennedy said, “For only the President represents the national interest. Upon him alone converge all the needs and aspirations of all parts of the country and all nations of the world.” President Lyndon Johnson once referred to the White House as “that house of decisions.” Moral leadership. The interest of the nation and the world. Critical decision making. Those are some of the most important responsibilities of the president of the United States. The presidency is not about brand; it’s not about endless rallies of off the cuff speeches filled with jokes and taunts. It was never intended to be a place of chaos, disorganized strategies, or useless press conferences where a spokesperson and not the preside...

Let me see if I can say this another way. HELP!! I’m trying. I’m trying like crazy to be reasonable about our country. What am I missing? What is it about our nasty national mood that seems okay with so many people? Can we agree that it’s not a good way to live if we hate others? Can we say it’s alright to try and get along with people of another race, another religion than ours, a different sexual orientation, people from other countries and cultures? Isn’t that the smart thing to do? Or, if you like this better, the Christian thing to do? Why is hate thought to be such a formidable force and love is considered weakness? What is it that makes us want to be macho, keep our guns close, to be seen as invincible, to be the badass in the crowd; while being a person of integrity, a man of character, a gentle person with compassion is seen as some kind of wimp, a pantywaist to be dismissed as a coward? I can’t get that Old Testament verse out of my head, the one where th...