Some Scratchings

It is a most notable part of the human experience that we get itches. And often, these sometimes infuriating itches are just out of reach, even with our best efforts at gymnastic contortions. Worse yet, at the most inopportune times a powerful itch will present itself on a part of our anatomy we dare not deal with in public. Time stands still. Will we ever be able to get alone to find relief? Yet, the great neurologists of the world haven't really a clue what causes an itch or what obscure physiologic process is going on during a prickling torment of our corpus. But we all know intimately the vast pleasure derived from a simple one-hundred percent effective, and low-cost cure: scratching.

One of the most perverse pleasures in life can be the scratching of an itch until it hurts. Anyone who has engaged in botanical warfare with poison ivy knows, don't they? What about those who have thrashed around on their beds with a peeling sunburn? The most excruciating experience of my childhood followed a trip to the beach where I had become an unwitting luncheon for some kind of biting sand flies. For certain, Einstein or Hawking could have done a major study that infinitely long night about the stopping of cosmic time, while I convulsed in my itchy nocturnal torment. Are we all relating yet? Good.

Alas, there is another kind of itching for which a good scratch with long fingernails is of no therapeutic value; that deeper inner itch of the soul, a spiritual one that seems fiendishly inaccessible to any simple remedy, like the unrelenting itch in the depths of my soul deriving from the fact that all my family has died and I feel very alone in the world. Life is full of severe challenges for most, if not all of us. It is in these that the fertile ground of "If onlys" often gets tilled. From this ground we often harvest great sorrow and regret, failing to move on past our challenges.

It is said that challenge produces vast growth. You may already know that at an intellectual level. I did. I recall the New Testament verse in the epistle of James that essentially says to "count it all joy when you encounter various trials, that you may be made perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." It's pretty tough to do if those trials include being told you have a terminal disease, losing your eyesight in a freak accident, coming home to an empty house to find a note from your wife saying she's left with the kids, or finding you are down-sized seven weeks before you would have been eligible for a thirty-year pension. Instead of rising to the occasion, we crumble inside, and sometimes on the outside.

Yet, it's true. We can become better for these insults on our psychic landscape. A severe itch of any kind represents a major challenge for you, whether you are out in public and can't politely scratch or have a deep inner need you can't quite reach on your own. An itch is beneficial in that it's often a powerful motivator to action and creativity, be it an itch of my corpus from sand flies or something much deeper. It's the latter kind of itch we're after here. My soul itch has motivated me to make a journey I would never have sought out, yet I am now far richer for the experience. On this journey I have found some priceless nuggets of gold in my own life and in the lives I met along the way. I have found many astounding examples of beauty, hope, strength, faith, and creativity in those travelling with me.

Many of the deeper itches in my soul have been beyond my reach but well within the reach of others I have met on my journey. They have their own itches beyond their reach, yet within my easy reach. Together, we have found great relief. We have been jointly challenged to new strength, hope, faith, and possibilities. Perhaps you can join us vicariously through these pages and also gain some relief from your own tormenting soul itches. It is my sincere hope that after reading our stories you will have found a bit more inner strength, had a few laughs, cracked a few smiles, grown in faith, stood a bit taller, and stopped scratching, if but for a short while.

An army of experts, scientists, consultants, writers, and policy makers are all too happy to quantify and elaborate on the angst of soul that exists in the modern era. Some truly beneficial texts have been written about the roles of technology, epidemics, time, increased mobility, complexity, and myriad other factors in creating legions of people who feel disconnected, isolated, fragmented, hurried, depressed, and otherwise ill of soul. For certain I have felt disconnected, isolated, fragmented, hurried, depressed, and otherwise ill of soul. Sometimes profoundly so. Odds are you have as well.

I have often gotten perverse pleasure from reading lots of these technical books about how bad modern life has become. Perhaps I covertly distill out of them the idea that it's not all my fault that my soul feels really yucky at more times than I want to admit. Any of you do this?

Yet, you don't need another "how-to" book telling you how to scratch your soul either. What you need is a tube of super-duper ointment that you know will work on those deep places. Instead, I wish to simply share with you this ointment, distilled from the pure essence of many beautiful lives in my world, It really does work if applied correctly. It's been field tested.
Many lament the loss of community in our modern age. The remedy for your itch for community and connection may be as near as your jumper cables or the bookstore cafe that opened up last week down the street from your house; maybe even on the public bus you vowed to never need. I've seen community form in the aromatic swirls of a shoe repair.

With our challenging times, many of us are overly serious about ourselves and life. I will never be accused of being a clown or party animal, yet I have found laughs are to be had in the most unlikely places. Sometimes they even land at my feet. My soul has smiled many times because of a small playful cat.

There are lots of good people out there. The problem is their goodness doesn't usually sell newspapers or increase Arbitron ratings for news casts. But these modern-day saints will show your soul a better way. They can be found in trains, botanical gardens, nursing homes, Olympic stadiums, or even attached to holiday lamp posts. Once in a while they wear fur coats.

The great appeal of the movie classic "The Wizard of Oz" is the magic throughout. There, anything is possible. The first occurrence of color in film making took place when Dorothy opened the front door of her aunt's house in the Land of the Munchkins. If we take the time to look for them, moments of magic will present themselves often. Sometimes, they will sit right down next to you on the #75 bus. Sometimes, it's delivered to your garage.

In a fast-food culture where tycoons make billions selling it and kids growing begging for it, the best food sometimes comes from a crippled old lady or wrapped in saffron leatherette. It will feed your soul as well as your body.

Many people are locked into a daily struggle to simply survive. They don't have the luxury of seeking out self-actualization experiences or gaining cosmic understanding of the universe. Yet, sometimes such experiences come to those of us locked in such struggle. I've seen transcendent experiences appear suspended on a stainless steel strand between two mountains, caught up in a cumulus thunderhead, and even shine brightly in a windowless room. Anything is possible.

May you find relief.