Reflections of a Boston Lawyer

When I was a teenager, having been raised in a Christian tradition, I began to ask two overarching questions:  Who is Jesus? and How should I live?  Decades later, I still ask them, although the farther I progress in life's journey, the more I focus on the first.  Was Jesus simply a wise and compassionate first century Jew, the Son of God, or something in between?  Are the gospels to be taken literally, or can we learn from their historical context?  I have read books by classic Christian scholars like C.S. Lewis and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more recently by historical critics like Kung, Borg and Spong (the resemblances in their names escaping me until I juxtaposed them now).  All ask the same questions, all revere Jesus, and yet all have different answers about who he was and what it all means. Every year at this time, as we reflect on the nativity stories, I am propelled back to these questions of faith.  Having chosen law school over seminary as a young man (though having mi

I am enjoying a quiet night at home, reflecting once again on the meaning of the approaching holiday.  I was contemplating how I miss the sense of wonder that I had for Christmas as a child, or even as a young adult.  Then, as if on cue, a friend posted a stunningly beautiful rendition of "O Holy Night," which happened to be performed in a very familiar space.  Rather than craft another blog post like the one I wrote last year , I will give you the wonderful gift of this performance .  Peace.

There is a scene early in Mel Brooks' film "Blazing Saddles" where a new sheriff comes to an all-white town.  The townspeople are decked out to greet him, one of the town leaders practices his welcoming speech, and the band is playing, when the sheriff rides up on his horse.  The fanfare abruptly ends when everyone realizes that the sheriff is black.  As the sheriff begins to make his prepared remarks to the racist crowd, some of the town folk pull out their guns and aim for his head.  In a moment of ironic genius, the sheriff puts his own gun to his head, and tells everyone to put their guns down or the [racial epithet] will get it.  The townspeople are somehow fooled by the ruse, and put down their guns so the sheriff won't get hurt.  The sheriff then manages to get away, still holding himself hostage, and finally remarks to the camera how dumb these people are. As I have watched the Republican fiasco in Congress, I can't help but think of this scene.  In the

There's a blue moon tonight.  I saw it hanging over the Cape Cod bay like a giant, illuminated baseball, just daring us to take a swing. It reminded me of the band Cowboy Junkies and their version of the song "Blue Moon" on the Trinity Sessions album released in the 1980s.  I remember hearing it at a party, played by some of the cooler people from the church we belonged to at the time, a group that included one of the young, female associate pastors who was married to a young corporate lawyer from my alma mater.  Like his wife, he had a Harvard Divinity degree and preferred classical music but was intrigued by these strange new sounds.  And that memory reminded me of a night in the early 80s when I hung out with some law school friends who lived in Boston at the time, and one of them brought a copy of Julia Fordham's first album, and as it played he danced by himself in some bizarre but innocent way.  These are the things I remember, quiet but edgy music played at n

Sometime last year I was approached by an ambitious student at my alma mater .  She was organizing a TEDx program at the college on the topic of integrity , and asked if I would be one of the presenters.  I gladly agreed to do it, although I had no immediate ideas of what I would talk about.  After thinking about it for several months, I came to recognize an opportunity to brag about the good work lawyers do, in contrast to the negative public image our profession has earned.  Having served as President of the Boston Bar Association , I was privy to a number of worthy projects that many volunteer lawyers engage in every day.  So I enlisted the help of one of the marketing directors at my law firm and the communications director of the BBA to put together some slides for a talk about lawyers with integrity.  I also followed the advice of someone at my firm that I needed to make at least part of the talk personal, yet I didn't want to boast about myself, especially when I knew so

My father was a musician.  He played tenor saxophone in a swing band in the late 1930s and early 1940s.  He loved music, especially the music of that era.  I think he learned to play in high school.  I'm not sure where he found the time.  He had after-school jobs from the time he was about 13, working at the Farmers' Market in Rochester, New York, and helping his father deliver coal.  But he learned, and he kept that saxophone even after he quit the band to make a more productive living. My parents made sure that their children learned music.  My mother never played an instrument, but she loved to sing, and would sing to us on car trips and at home when we were very young.  They signed us (my sisters and me) up for piano lessons around the time we each entered first or second grade.  They didn't have a lot of money then, but they must have seen musical skills as important to our happiness and success. I enjoyed piano lessons for a while, but after four years I told my m

So much has already been said, and will be said, about this week's tragic events in Boston that I don't know where to begin.  For now, I just want to acknowledge the victims, to whom all of our hearts go out, as well as the heroes:  the EMTs and medical professionals who saved lives with their courageous, selfless and tireless efforts; our civic leaders, and especially Governor Patrick, Mayor Menino and Police Chief Ed Davis, for their outstanding leadership through the crisis; the many police officers, FBI agents, and other responders who did such an amazing job identifying and neutralizing the suspects; and the people of Boston and its surrounding communities who stood by bravely and cooperated with the directives they received from the officials involved in the hunt.  I have never been prouder of our city or more thankful for those whose job it is to protect us.  Thank you, one and all! There is still much that we don't know, and I will watch with interest as new infor

Dear friends, This has been quite a week.  Today is Easter Sunday, and a few days ago the Supreme Court heard arguments in the same-sex marriage cases.  The religious right (has that term become interchangeable with "evangelicals"?) opposes same-sex marriage, arguing that homosexuality is against God's law and that same-sex marriage threatens the institution of marriage.  I know that includes some of you. There was a time, much earlier in my life, decades before anyone thought seriously about same-sex marriage, when I accepted the view that God loves homosexuals, but that homosexual conduct was sinful behavior.  During my senior year in college, I was placed in the middle of a conflict between the campus Christian fellowship that I helped lead and a member of the gay Christian community.  Although I was the one voice of dissent among the fellowship's leaders concerning how to resolve the conflict, once the decision was made, I dutifully followed the evangelical

The man sat in the center seat; I sat on the aisle.  The passengers continued to embark, and we both had to get up for the young woman who had the window seat.  The man seemed agitated, and I found him quite annoying.  He squirmed in his seat, often reaching for something in his back pocket (his wallet I think).  Every time he did, he intruded on my limited space, which forced me to have to lean into the aisle to avoid contact.  Even when he sat still, his elbows crossed the imaginary line, sometimes poking me in the stomach, other times just touching my arm.  He was not a large man, but he took up more space than his size would suggest.  I guessed that he was in his mid-forties, Hispanic, sporting a mustache and seemingly oblivious to his frequent impositions. Several times as we waited for our delayed flight he would make and receive calls and send and receive text messages on the cell phone that he clutched as his last connection to the ground.  His voice and fingers were animate