The Unclad Soul

Writer and producer David E. Kelley’s HBO series, “Big Little Lies,” is a powerhouse revelation of modern-day marriage. Though the series is often outrageous and extreme in the happenings between people, it does provide a slice of life today experienced by many couples. Set along the gorgeous beachfront town of Monterey, California, it shows how complex relationships can be, and how wounded, damaged people wade through their pain often with incredible courage and sometimes with self-defeating denial. The cast is a brilliant group of actors, including Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgard, Jeffrey Nordling, Adam Scott, Zoe Kravitz, Meryl Streep, and others. I don’t think as a society, we have ever come to grips with the reality of just how strenuous and effortful marriage almost always is. Or, as far as that goes, any serious couple relationship. But marriage poses its own unique set of challenges. Perhaps Einstein said it best, ...

While on the walking/bike trail this morning, Billy Joel’s “The Piano Man,” began playing through my earbuds. This was one of my late brother Jim’s favorite songs. We often talked about it. So, when it started playing, I raised my index finger to the sky and said, “This one is for you, Jim, wherever you are or aren’t.” Death has always been a mystery to me. Eternal life, the idea of immortality after this life, is something I can’t explain or even comprehend. As a minister, I was, over the years, with many people who were dying and, in some instances, who died in my presence. There is a profound change in the body at death, an emptying of life. The human spirit leaves, you can almost see it happening, and disappears into the inscrutable and is gone forever. Where does that spirit go? I’m not certain. As a Christian, I want to believe our essence, our spirit finds rest somewhere beautiful. But, in spite of those classic Bible verses and the long history of Christiani...

For the past three summers, my daughter Ingrid and I and her family, have gone to the beach in Destin, Florida. This summer, because of scheduling conflicts and other special family events, we didn’t get to go. And I have to say, I miss the ocean. One of the first things I do when I get there is to walk out into the clear emerald water and stare out over the horizon. The scene is vast and mesmerizing. What is out there, far beyond what I can see? I wonder. Giant ships sail slowly by in the distance. A speed boat will move across the waves now and then, far enough out you can barely see the people on deck. Seagulls fill the sky and the noise they make is not at all disturbing but adds to the beauty in front of me. They seem to be singing as they dip toward the beach in search of food. But on farther out, past any sight of boats or ships, the ocean remains, enormous and limitless, disappearing from view. Loren Eisley, the brilliant anthropologist, once said, “If the...

I would encourage every American to watch the Ken Burns series, The West. It is available on Netflix and PBS. What you learn from this extraordinary documentary is that the White Man has, from the beginning of his presence here, done everything in his power to prevent first, the Native American Indians, then the Mexicans, then the Blacks, then the Asians, from ever being given the right to be legally assimilated into the free function of American society. The White Man is an immigrant. Unless you have Native American blood in you, you did not come from this land. Your ancestors brought you here from somewhere else. Whites came to this country from Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. This land did not belong to them, they stumbled onto it and then they took it to be their own. Many came here fleeing religious persecution, poverty, disease, lack of economic opportunity, and the freedom to build a life for themselves and their families. ...

There is a wonderful native American tale told in the Ken Burns series, The West. Seven siblings are playing. Six girls and one boy. The boy pretends he’s a bear chasing the girls and they pretend to be afraid. Then the boy actually becomes a bear and the girls are then actually frightened. They run past a tree, and the tree tells them to climb up, that it will keep them safe. The girls climb into the tree. The bear claws all the bark off the base of the tree. But the tree only rises higher carrying the girls into the sky until they become stars in the Big Dipper. The greatest lessons in life always bring us back to nature, to the land and the sky, to the place of our origin. What happens when our peers, our protectors, turn against us? We run to the safety of what we instinctively know to be good and right. We go into the arms of nature, to what we can see and feel. And, we also go into the mystery of the spirit world, into what we know deep inside us is of authentic value....

Intelligence is more than education. Even higher education. It is more than book learning. Intelligence, for me, is about character, integrity, the ability to weigh information, to believe things that affirm life and people. Today, intelligence is mocked as snobbery, pretension, acting as though one is better than others. It’s true there are those who act intelligent who are guilty of that. But those people are basically insecure and fearful of being found out just how little they know. Intelligent people want to know things. They are open to new ideas, to change, and to evolving themselves and their beliefs. People who make fun of intelligence, who see it as arrogance and elitism, are typically those who are clueless about the world. They have few experiences in society working with people different from themselves. They are anchored to a culture, a mindset, that is often limited, provincial, and resistant to anyone or anything outside their safe zone. There woul...

“When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me / Speaking words of wisdom, let it be / And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me / Speaking words of wisdom, let it be… And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree / There will be an answer, let it be / For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see / There will be an answer, let it be… And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me / Shine until tomorrow, let it be / I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me / Speaking words of wisdom, let it be / Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be / There will be an answer, let it be…” That is a song written by Paul McCartney after the death of his mother, Mary. She had come to him in a dream at a difficult time in his life and told him to let it be, that things would be okay Let it be. For the longest time, I thought that was all the song was about, ...