When I retired a little over two years I go, I intended to make this site more a reflection of a true journal. I meant to write here more frequently in the open and free and unconscious manner that I write in the private journal where I write every day. But I found it impossible to do so. I could not forget the presence of a reader the way I can in the private journal. Another way of saying this is that I could not be as fully honest here as I needed to be. I had to go and stay in that other “secret place.” For honesty is what I craved the most. That secret place consisting not only of my private journal but also of the need to withdraw from public view, is where I can see and discover the truths of my internal world. The seeing and discovering would not be as clear if these were done in front of others where the need for attention and admiration clouds the starkness required by the vision. I would like to think that the self-enclosure, the hiding from public view, is not totally egocentric for it is there in the secret place where the characters and images and thoughts of my novels are born. I don’t go to the secret place with the utilitarian goal of harvesting the discoveries for my public work. That kind of ulterior motive would no longer make the secret place the kind of honest space it needs to be. The priority of the secret place needs to always be a greater awareness of my soul, the hidden as well as the more obvious parts. What is found there may or may not be shared, but if it is, the content that becomes public, is always a byproduct, a gift even, of the primary intent of self-discovery. These past two years, the secret place has been the foundation for my more public work, the hidden bedrock on which I build the structures that I share with others.  I wrote a novel entitled Disappeared during my two years of retirement. Disappeared is the story of Sara, a young journalist from Juárez, Mexico investigating the disappearance of hundreds of young women in that city. It is also the story of Emiliano, Sara’s younger brother, a soccer star, an ambitious young entrepreneur determined to be financially successful in Mexico. Each of them must face the difficult decision whether to cross without documents into the United States in the face of threats against their lives and their souls. This novel was written even as I felt in that secret place the hatred of many Americans for the Latino immigrant. It was in that secret place where my own anger and sadness were seen and allowed to endure without judgment and it was there that they were allowed to transform, slowly and painfully into the creative force needed to write the novel. A creative force that I have no name for other than love.
May 30, 2017
January 1, 2017
2017 Resolutions
Be a tree.
Live and know, suffer and enjoy
The spot of earth you are planted.
Root down each day for the deep moist soil of your soul
And draw from there the sap of love.
Be strong in your stillness,
But let the wind sway you as it will.
Be a shelter.
Provide shade.
Let others find rest and solace in you.
Don’t worry about whatever fruits you may bear.
Seek to be a good tree and the good fruits will come.
Be a friend of time and its seasons.
Shine bright in spring,
Glow steady in summer,
Mourn joyfully in autumn,
Let go of all that is seen in winter
To grow once more.
September 13, 2016
Friendship, Love, Marriage
The following is an excerpt from reflections delivered at Anna Stork and Bart Kloosterboer’s wedding, August 13, 2016, Zeist The Netherlands.
I know that it is customary in a wedding to talk about love but I would like to talk to you about friendship. The word love can cause confusion. When used in the context of a relationship the word love is heavy with different kind of expectations. There is the expectation that there are certain feelings that should be felt when one is in love and if they are not felt all the time then maybe there is no love. There is the expectation that the person we love should fit an image of goodness and perfection that we carry in our head. There is the expectation that he or she love us unconditionally despite our own imperfections.
Compared to the complexity of love, friendship is refreshingly simple. A friend is someone you like to spend time with. Sometimes a friendship is founded on shared interests and sometimes a friend respects the interest of the other friend even he or she doesn’t share it. A friend is someone you trust and feel comfortable talking about anything. You also feel comfortable being silent together. Â There is a connection in friendship, but there is also a sense of freedom that exists between friends. The ties between friends are not chains. They are threads and if they are not broken it is only because the friends do not want them broken. The ties that bind friends are renewed and chosen again and again, every time friends decide to spend time together. Â Friendship is, when you stop to think about it, a very delicate balance between separateness and togetherness, between holding on to someone and letting them go.
I talk about friendship not only because our images of friendship are clearer than they are about love but also because I want you to remember this. When the hard times come, and they will come, just be friends. Find your way back to friendship. Peel away the expectations that you have about love or marriage until you get to the core of friendship that is the nucleus of your relationship. When things are hard, act toward the other the way you would act toward a good friend and go from there. Of course, marriage involves ties that are different than the simple ties of friendship. But you should always keep in mind that the ties of love are in addition to the ties of friendship and not instead of.
And what are the additional ties of love? Mutual need and mutual responsibility — those are the ties that require special promises made in the presence of others. A rite is a special day, like today, and it is special because of the seriousness of the ties are being re-affirmed  in the presence of the people that you love and that love you.
Recognizing that you need the other is not the same as saying that you can’t live without the other. What it means is that you recognize that you need the other person to help you be the person, the full and complete human being, that you are capable of being. Each of you needs the other person to help you fulfill an individual and separate purpose. Â Needing each other does not mean that you are traveling on the same path, much less that you are traveling the same path on the back of the other. It means that you are traveling side by side on your own individual paths giving each other encouragement and picking the other person up when they falter. I have a purpose that only I can fulfill but I need your help to get there. That is the tie of need that exists in marriage. And the tie of responsibility is this: I will be next to you as you travel the path of your purpose and I will wait for you if you fall behind, and I will pick you up when you fall and I will encourage you when you lose hope and most of all, I will remind you of your purpose, when you get distracted or when you forget it.
You must, each of you find your own purpose. Â I’ve discovered that for a purpose to be life giving it must have three qualities. It must be useful to others. It must make you a kinder person and finally, it must open you up to mystery. Your purpose must not be so narrow that it leaves out the invisible, which is to say, the realm of the spiritual. It is the spiritual, all those things in the universe that we know to be real but cannot see or touch or sometimes even understand that will open windows and bring fresh air and sunshine to your marriage. And so my hope is that your ties of friendship and love, which are invisible but real, be a living force of grace always recognized as present by your heart-Â for all that is essential is invisible to the eyes.
