Reflections of a Boston Lawyer

To quote the Charlie Brown song, "Christmas time is here."  Every year at this time I contemplate the meaning of the holiday that is really two holidays - the religious celebration of Jesus' birth, and the secular celebration of the winter solstice.  As a young man, I often despaired at the commercialism that distracted the world from the "true meaning" of Christmas, and in later years I have come to new understandings of that truth. I also have often distinguished between what I consider "true Christianity" and the distortions of that perceived truth that occur in many religious circles.  In that vernacular, "true Christianity" should reflect the teachings and example of Jesus.  When I look at the Biblical Jesus, I see a person of extraordinary love, wisdom, integrity and faith.  He taught and exemplified compassion, acceptance, mercy, forgiveness, selflessness and inclusivity.  The stories of his birth in a manger, his life among the po

Like many people, I've been thinking a lot about lessons to be learned from this week's national elections.  Then I remembered this post I wrote 2-1/2 years ago.  I believe that my prediction then that the Republican Party's shift to the right, occasioned by the rise of the Tea Party movement, would hurt it in the long run has proved true.  I also expect that the party will get the message, and that we will soon witness a messy but definite move towards more moderate positions that will eventually make it a force to be reckoned with again.  Until then, we should expect a great deal of finger pointing, soul searching, self-assessment and shaking out of the more radical elements.   I plan to write more soon about why, quite apart from who won and who lost, this election gives me so much hope for America.

Early this summer I went to a Cape Cod bookstore in search of a good summer read.  I walked out with a history book called "America's Great Debate," written by Fergus M. Bordewich.  It tells the compelling story of the debates in Congress that led up to the Civil War, including whether slavery should be permitted to spread to the western territories as they were being considered for statehood.  The book, which I highly recommend, serves as a stirring reminder that the divisions we see in our country today are not unusual.  Rather, America has always faced political division, and once was carried by it to the extreme consequence of a war between the states. I have not finished the book, but am in a chapter describing how Southerners in Congress were beginning to call for secession in 1850 as Northerners wanted to admit California as a state under laws that would outlaw slavery within its borders.  As the calls for secession became louder, Daniel Webster gave a rousing sp

We are a great nation.  We just landed a fully functional rover with pinpoint accuracy inside a crater on Mars.  We won the most medals of any country in the just-concluded summer olympics.  We are capable of much, and we achieve much. We are now embarking on yet another contest for the highest office of the land.  On one side stands the incumbent who rode into office on promises of hope and change, and who has kept about as many promises as his opponents were powerless to prevent.  On the other lurches capitalism's poster child, a very high net worth businessman whose claim to office is his purported ability to fix the economy that was broken during his party's last presidential term.  At the vice presidential level, a seasoned former senator with extensive experience in foreign policy and four years in executive office is pitted against a bright and charismatic young congressman with clear, if controversial, ideas about economic policy but who, like his running mate, lacks

Yesterday I walked into a Cape Cod golf shop that had music playing in the background.  Not just any music, but the song "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan.  The song first appeared in 1965, and I've been in awe of it for more than 40 years.  It is an anti-love song, venomous in its resentment of the unidentified person it attacks.  It is the voice of an angry young man, directed at the target of its rage and pulling no punches.  Yet like so much of Dylan's writing, it surprises by taking familiar words or phrases and turning them into something new and, in this case, startling.  (As I write this, a silly Dylan phrase, "the sun isn't yellow, it's chicken," comes to mind.)  Nowhere does Dylan accomplish this turn of phrase more effectively than in the last two stanzas: I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes.  And just for that one moment, I could be you.  Yes I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes.  Y