Tag: writing

Texas Local Government: Sovereignty, Delegation, Fragmentation, and the State’s Return to Planning

.Reading time 11 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Only Two Sovereigns

Any serious discussion of Texas local government must begin with a foundational constitutional fact:

In the United States, there are only two levels of sovereign government:
the federal government and the states.

That is the full list.

Counties, cities, school districts, special districts, authorities, councils, boards, and commissions are not sovereign. They possess no inherent authority. They exist only because a state legislature has chosen to delegate specific powers to them, and those powers may be expanded, limited, preempted, reorganized, or withdrawn entirely.

Texas local government is therefore not a story of decentralization.
It is a story of delegated administration, followed—inevitably—by state-directed coordination when delegation produced excessive fragmentation.

The State of Texas as Sovereign and System Designer

The State of Texas is sovereign within its constitutional sphere. That sovereignty includes the authority to:

  • Create local governments
  • Define and limit their powers
  • Redraw or freeze their boundaries
  • Preempt their ordinances
  • Reorganize or abolish them

Local governments are not junior partners in sovereignty. They are instruments through which the state governs a vast and diverse territory.

From the beginning, Texas made a defining structural choice:
rather than consolidate government as complexity increased, it would delegate narrowly, preserve local identity, and retain sovereignty at the state level. That choice explains the layered system that followed.

Counties: The First Subdivision of State Power

Counties were Texas’s original subdivision of state authority, adopted after independence and statehood from Anglo-American legal traditions.

They were designed for a frontier world:

  • Sparse population
  • Horseback travel
  • Local courts
  • Recordkeeping
  • Elections
  • Law enforcement

During the 19th century, Texas rapidly carved itself into counties so residents could reach a county seat in roughly a day’s travel. By the early 20th century, the county map had largely frozen at 254 counties, a number that remains unchanged today.

Counties are constitutional entities, but they are governed strictly by Dillon’s Rule. They have no inherent powers, no residual authority, and little flexibility to adapt structurally. Once the county map was locked in place, counties became increasingly mismatched to Texas’s urbanizing reality—too small in some areas, too weak in others, and too rigid everywhere.

Rather than consolidate counties, Texas chose to work around them.

Dillon’s Rule: The Legal Engine of Delegation

The doctrine that made this system possible is Dillon’s Rule, named after John Forrest Dillon (1831–1914), Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court and later a professor at Columbia Law School. His 1872 treatise, Commentaries on the Law of Municipal Corporations, emerged during a period of explosive city growth and widespread municipal corruption.

Dillon rejected the notion that local governments possessed inherent authority. He articulated a rule designed to preserve state supremacy:

A local government may exercise only
(1) powers expressly granted by the legislature,
(2) powers necessarily implied from those grants, and
(3) powers essential to its declared purpose—not merely convenient, but indispensable.
Any reasonable doubt is resolved against the local government.

Texas did not merely adopt Dillon’s Rule; it embedded it structurally. Counties, special districts, ISDs, and authorities operate squarely under Dillon’s Rule. Even cities escape it only partially through home-rule charters, and only to the extent the Legislature allows.

Dillon’s Rule explains why Texas governance favors many narrow entities over few powerful ones.

Cities: Delegated Urban Management, Not Local Sovereignty

As towns grew denser, counties proved incapable of providing urban services. The state responded by authorizing cities to manage:

  • Police and fire protection
  • Streets and utilities
  • Zoning and land use
  • Local infrastructure

Cities are therefore delegated urban managers, not sovereign governments.

Texas later adopted home-rule charters to give larger cities greater flexibility, but home rule is widely misunderstood. It does not reverse Dillon’s Rule. It merely allows cities to act unless prohibited—while preserving the Legislature’s power to preempt, override, or limit local authority at any time.

Recent state preemption is not a breakdown of the system. It is the system operating as designed.

Independent School Districts: Function Over Geography

Education exposed the limits of place-based governance earlier than any other function.

Counties were too uneven.
Cities were too political.
Education required stability, long planning horizons, and uniform oversight.

Texas responded by removing education from both counties and cities and creating Independent School Districts.

ISDs are:

  • Single-purpose governments
  • Granted independent taxing authority
  • Authorized to issue bonds
  • Subject to state curriculum and accountability mandates

ISDs do not answer to cities or counties. They answer directly to the state. This was one of Texas’s earliest and clearest moves toward functional specialization over territorial governance.

Special Districts: Precision Instead of Consolidation

As Texas industrialized and urbanized in the 20th century, the Legislature faced increasingly specific problems:

  • Flood control
  • Water supply
  • Drainage
  • Fire protection
  • Hospitals
  • Ports and navigation

Rather than expand general-purpose governments, Texas created special districts—single-mission entities with narrow authority and dedicated funding streams.

Special districts are not accidental inefficiencies. They reflect a deliberate state preference:

Solve problems with precision, not with consolidation.

The result was effectiveness and speed, at the cost of growing fragmentation.

MUDs and Authorities: Growth and Risk as State Policy

Municipal Utility Districts and authorities are often mistaken for private or quasi-private entities. Legally, they are governments.

MUDs:

  • Are created under state law
  • Levy taxes
  • Issue bonds
  • Are governed by elected boards
  • Provide essential infrastructure

They allow the state to:

  • Enable development before cities arrive
  • Finance infrastructure without municipal debt
  • Shift costs to future residents
  • Avoid restructuring counties

Similarly, transit authorities, toll authorities, housing authorities, and local government corporations exist to isolate risk, bypass constitutional debt limits, and accelerate projects. These are not loopholes. They are state-designed instruments.

The Consequence: Functional Fragmentation

By the mid-20th century, Texas governance had become highly functional—and deeply fragmented:

  • Fixed counties
  • Expanding cities
  • Independent ISDs
  • Thousands of special districts
  • Authorities operating alongside cities
  • Infrastructure crossing every boundary

The system worked locally, but failed regionally.

No entity could plan coherently across jurisdictions. Funding decisions conflicted. Infrastructure systems overlapped. Federal requirements could not be met cleanly. At this point, Texas made another defining choice.

It did not consolidate governments.
It pulled planning and coordination back upward, closer to the state.

Councils of Governments: State-Authorized Coordination

Beginning in the 1960s, Texas authorized Councils of Governments (COGs) to address fragmentation.

Today:

  • 24 COGs cover the entire state
  • Each spans multiple counties
  • Membership includes cities, counties, ISDs, and districts

COGs:

  • Have no taxing authority
  • Have no regulatory power
  • Have no police power

They exist to coordinate, not to govern—to reconnect what delegation had scattered. Their weakness is intentional. They sit conceptually just beneath the state, not beneath local governments.

MPOs: Transportation Planning Pulled Upward

Transportation forced an even clearer pull-back.

Texas has 25 Metropolitan Planning Organizations, designated by the state to comply with federal law. MPOs plan, prioritize, and allocate federal transportation funding. They do not build roads, levy taxes, or override governments.

MPOs act as planning membranes between federal mandates and Texas’s fragmented local structure.

Water: Where Texas Explicitly Rejected Fragmentation

Water planning most clearly demonstrates the limits of local delegation.

Texas spans 15 major river basins, with annual rainfall ranging from under 10 inches in the west to over 50 inches in the east. Water ignores counties, cities, ISDs, and districts entirely.

Texas responded by creating:

  • Approximately 23 river authorities, organized by watershed
  • 16 Regional Water Planning Areas, overseen by the Texas Water Development Board
  • A unified State Water Plan, adopted by the Legislature

Regional Water Planning Groups govern planning, not operations. Funding eligibility flows from compliance. This is state-directed regional planning with local execution.

Texas also created 95+ Groundwater Conservation Districts, organized by aquifer rather than politics—another instance of function overriding geography.

Public Health and Other Quiet Pull-Backs

Public health produced the same result. Disease ignores jurisdictional lines. Texas authorized county, city-county, and multi-county health districts to exercise delegated state police powers regionally.

The same pattern appears elsewhere:

  • Emergency management regions
  • Workforce development boards
  • Judicial administrative regions
  • 20 Education Service Centers
  • Air-quality nonattainment regions

Each represents the same logic:

  1. Delegation fragments
  2. Fragmentation impairs system performance
  3. The state restores coordination without transferring sovereignty

Final Synthesis

Texas local government did not evolve haphazardly. It followed a consistent philosophy:

  • Preserve sovereignty at the state level
  • Delegate functions narrowly
  • Avoid consolidation
  • Specialize relentlessly
  • Pull planning back upward when fragmentation becomes unmanageable

What appears complex or chaotic is actually layered intent.

Services are delegated downward.
Planning is pulled back upward.
Sovereignty never moves.

That tension—between delegation and coordination—is not a flaw in Texas government.
It is its defining structural feature.

For Those Weary of Yet One More Survey

.Reading time 8 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI (Suggested by Becky Brooks)

Here is a funny, light-hearted, non-offensive survey designed as if a city or organization created it, full of the same bureaucratic absurdity but tailored for someone who’s just spent a couple of weeks in jail.

It is intentionally ridiculous — the kind of tone-deaf survey a city might send, trying to measure the “customer experience.”

⸻

POST-INCARCERATION CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY

Because your feedback helps us improve the parts of the experience we had no intention of improving.

Thank you for recently spending 10–45 days with us!

Your stay matters to us, and we’d love your thoughts.

Please take 3–90 minutes to complete this survey.

⸻

SECTION 1 — OVERALL EXPERIENCE

1. How satisfied were you with your recent incarceration?

    •    ☐ Very Satisfied

    •    ☐ Satisfied

    •    ☐ Neutral (emotionally or spiritually)

    •    ☐ Dissatisfied

    •    ☐ Very Dissatisfied

    •    ☐ I would like to speak to the manager of jail, please

2. Would you recommend our facility to friends or family?

    •    ☐ Yes, absolutely

    •    ☐ Only if they deserve it

    •    ☐ No, but I might recommend it to my ex

3. Did your stay meet your expectations?

    •    ☐ It exceeded them, shockingly

    •    ☐ It met them, sadly

    •    ☐ What expectations?

    •    ☐ I didn’t expect any of this

⸻

SECTION 2 — ACCOMMODATIONS

4. How would you rate the comfort of your sleeping arrangements?

    •    ☐ Five stars (would book again on Expedia)

    •    ☐ Three stars (I’ve slept on worse couches)

    •    ☐ One star (my back may sue you)

    •    ☐ Zero stars (please never ask this again)

5. How would you describe room service?

    •    ☐ Prompt and professional

    •    ☐ Present

    •    ☐ Sporadic

    •    ☐ I was unaware room service was an option

    •    ☐ Wait… was that what breakfast was supposed to be?

⸻

SECTION 3 — DINING EXPERIENCE

6. Rate the culinary artistry of our meals:

    •    ☐ Michelin-worthy

    •    ☐ Edible with effort

    •    ☐ Mysterious but survivable

    •    ☐ I have questions that science cannot answer

7. Did you enjoy the variety of menu options?

    •    ☐ Yes

    •    ☐ No

    •    ☐ I’m still not sure if Tuesday’s entrée was food

⸻

SECTION 4 — PROGRAMMING & ACTIVITIES

8. Which of the following activities did you participate in?

    •    ☐ Walking in circles

    •    ☐ Sitting

    •    ☐ Thinking about life

    •    ☐ Thinking about lunch

    •    ☐ Wondering why time moves slower in here

    •    ☐ Other (please describe your spiritual journey): ___________

9. Did your stay include any unexpected opportunities for personal growth?

    •    ☐ Learned patience

    •    ☐ Learned humility

    •    ☐ Learned the legal system very quickly

    •    ☐ Learned I never want to fill out this survey again

⸻

SECTION 5 — CUSTOMER SERVICE

10. How would you rate the friendliness of staff?

    •    ☐ Surprisingly pleasant

    •    ☐ Professionally indifferent

    •    ☐ “Move over there” was said with warmth

    •    ☐ I think they liked me

    •    ☐ I think they didn’t

11. Did staff answer your questions in a timely manner?

    •    ☐ Yes

    •    ☐ No

    •    ☐ I’m still waiting

    •    ☐ I learned not to ask questions

⸻

SECTION 6 — RELEASE PROCESS

12. How smooth was your release experience?

    •    ☐ Smooth

    •    ☐ Mostly smooth

    •    ☐ Bumpy

    •    ☐ Like trying to exit a maze blindfolded

13. Upon release, did you feel ready to re-enter society?

    •    ☐ Yes, I am reborn

    •    ☐ Somewhat

    •    ☐ Not at all

    •    ☐ Please define “ready”

⸻

SECTION 7 — FINAL COMMENTS

14. If you could change one thing about your stay, what would it be?

(Please choose only one):

    •    ☐ The walls

    •    ☐ The food

    •    ☐ The schedule

    •    ☐ The length of stay

    •    ☐ All of the above

    •    ☐ I decline to answer on advice of counsel

15. Additional feedback for management:

⸻

⸻

(Comments will be carefully reviewed by someone someday.)

⸻

Thank You!

Your answers will be used to improve future guest experiences,*

though absolutely no one can guarantee that.

The Career Secret I Learned the Hard Way: Why I Build the First Model

.Reading time 7 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Actually, my first financial models were on green 13-columnar tablets. If you know what I am talking about, I can get pretty close guessing your age.

Most people assume that good analysis starts with a team gathered around a whiteboard, freely offering numbers, assumptions, and ideas. In theory, it sounds collaborative and egalitarian. In reality, that moment — the blank sheet of paper — is where analysis dies. People freeze. Smart, capable, experienced people who absolutely know their business suddenly say nothing when asked to put the first assumptions down.

Early in my career, I tried it the traditional way. I’d walk into a meeting ready to do things “the right way”: engage the group, ask for their best estimates, encourage open discussion. Instead, I got silence. Eyes drifted to the table. Pens clicked. People “would have to get back to me.” Suddenly, no one knew anything. It was as if asking someone to write the first number turned the room into a library reading room during finals week — quiet, anxious, and deeply unproductive.

It took me years to understand the psychology behind this. People aren’t reluctant because they lack insight. They are reluctant because they are afraid of owning the first mistake. The first assumption is the most vulnerable one. Once it is written down, it looks like a position, a commitment, a claim to be defended. And for many professionals — especially those who are cautious, political, or simply overwhelmed — that’s not a place they want to stand.

So, I developed a different approach. I stopped asking for the first draft of ideas and assumptions.

I started building the entire model myself — the assumptions, the structure, the logic, the forecasts — everything. I would take the best information I had, make the best reasonable assumptions I could, and produce a full version. Not a sketch. Not a preliminary worksheet. A full, working model.

Then I would send it to the very people who declined to give me assumptions and simply ask:

“Would you please critique this?”

That one sentence changed everything.

Why Critiquing Works When Creating Doesn’t

Something very human happens when someone is handed a complete model or draft of a report. The reluctance melts away. The fear of being wrong diminishes. The instinct to avoid being “first” is replaced by the instinct to correct, to improve, to clarify, to argue, to refine.

People who gave me nothing on a blank sheet suddenly became:

  • Detailed
  • Insightful
  • Opinionated
  • Protective of accuracy
  • Willing to explain nuances they never would have volunteered earlier

The entire room would come alive.

I used to think this was a flaw — that people should be willing to start from scratch. But then I realized the truth: starting is the hardest intellectual act in any field. Creation is vulnerable; critique is safe. The blank page is intimidating; a flawed draft is an invitation.

And here is the real secret:

People are most honest when they are correcting you.

They will tell you the real revenue figure.
They will tell you why an assumption is politically impossible.
They will tell you which number has never made sense.
They will tell you what they truly believe once you’ve already said something they can push against.

Ironically, by giving them something to disagree with, I got the truth I was searching for.

The Picker–Pickee Method for Analytical Work

I call this my “picker–pickee” method (AI hates my term) — not in the social sense of drawing people into conversation, but in the analytical sense of drawing them into ownership. I pick the model. They pick it apart. And in that exchange, we arrive at what I needed all along:

Their actual knowledge.
Their real assumptions.
Their unfiltered expertise.

Without forcing them to start from zero.

Why This Technique Became One of My Career Signatures

Over time, I realized this was more than a workaround. It was a strategic advantage.

  • It accelerated projects.
  • It produced better numbers.
  • It revealed hidden politics and constraints.
  • It allowed people to save face while still contributing.
  • It created buy-in because the team helped “fix” the model.
  • It insured that the final product reflected collective wisdom, not my isolated guesswork.

I stopped apologizing for this method. I embraced it. I refined it. And eventually I came to see it as one of the most reliable tools in my entire professional life.

Because the truth is simple:

People don’t want to write the first word, but they will gladly edit the whole paragraph.

If you want real input from reluctant contributors, do the hard part yourself. Build the model. Write the draft report. Take the risk. Put the first assumptions on the page. And then ask for critique — sincerely, humbly, and openly.

They will show you what you needed to know all along.

Closing Reflection

If there is any lesson I wish I had learned earlier, it is this:

You don’t get better analysis by demanding contribution.
You get better analysis by giving people something to respond to.

Once I accepted that, my work changed. My relationships with stakeholders changed. And the quality of every model I built improved dramatically.

It may not appear in textbooks, but after decades of practice, this remains one of my most effective — and most human — secrets of the profession.

What Every Student Should Know: The Real Purpose of English Literature Education

.Reading time 9 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI (1 of 4 in a series)

I was not a good student until long after college. My high school education was mediocre at best — partly because of the school, but mostly because of me. I didn’t know how to study. I didn’t seek help. I had no real intellectual mentors. I was lazy in a quiet, unintentional way and never understood the bigger purpose or long-term path of a good education. I knew how to get through classes, most of the time, but not how to learn from them.

It took years before I realized what I had missed and why those required English literature courses mattered far more than I ever understood at the time. What educators were really trying to give me — and every student — was not just exposure to books, but the foundation for thinking, communicating, understanding, and living well.

This essay explains what those courses are actually designed to teach, why they matter, and why they still matter in a world now shaped by artificial intelligence.

1. The Ability to Understand Complex Texts

A central purpose of literature education is to build the skill of reading difficult material — the kind students will face throughout their adult lives. High school graduates, and especially college graduates, must be able to read:

  • Long, nuanced arguments
  • Old or formal language
  • Symbolic or poetic writing
  • Dense reports, court opinions, contracts, and historical documents

Literature is the training ground for that ability.

Shakespeare teaches students how to decode older forms of English. Faulkner tests their patience and perseverance. Austen reveals the layers beneath social formality. Toni Morrison stretches their emotional and cultural imagination.

As students wrestle with these texts, they develop a quiet but essential confidence:
“I can understand things that are difficult.”
That confidence becomes a life skill.

2. Understanding How Literature Works

Educators also want students to understand the machinery behind writing — the basic tools every author uses to create meaning.

Students learn:

  • Metaphor (the green light in The Great Gatsby)
  • Symbolism (the conch shell in Lord of the Flies)
  • Point of view (Scout’s innocent narration in To Kill a Mockingbird)
  • Irony (Orwell’s weapon of choice in Animal Farm)
  • Imagery and diction (Frost’s careful simplicity)

The goal is not to create literary critics. The goal is to give students the ability to recognize how language shapes thought. A person who understands how a story works is better equipped to understand political messaging, advertising, public relations, or even everyday persuasion.

This is why literature is not a luxury — it’s training in how not to be fooled.

3. Cultural Literacy: Joining the Human Conversation

There are certain books, ideas, and stories that form a shared cultural foundation. Literature courses introduce students to the stories that have shaped society, not because they are old, but because they remain true.

Students learn why:

  • Sophocles still speaks to our conflicts between conscience and law.
  • Shakespeare still reveals jealousy, ambition, love, and betrayal.
  • Dickens still exposes economic injustice and compassion.
  • Orwell still warns us about surveillance, language manipulation, and authoritarianism.
  • Austen still exposes pride, social pressure, and misunderstanding.

A culturally literate student becomes a culturally capable adult — someone able to participate in discussions about society, politics, ethics, and history.

4. Critical Thinking: The Lifelong Skill

Perhaps the most valuable outcome of English literature education is critical thinking.

In reading, students must ask:

  • What is the author really saying?
  • Why did they choose this perspective, this language, this structure?
  • What assumptions lie underneath the text?
  • What does this reveal about the world or human nature?

A student who can interpret a complex novel can interpret a tax policy, a city budget, a political speech, or a scientific claim.
A student who can evaluate a character’s flawed reasoning can evaluate flawed reasoning in real life.

Literature is not merely about stories. It is about sharpening the mind’s ability to see clearly.

5. Communication and Writing Mastery

Every literature course is also a writing course, whether students realize it or not. The act of writing about literature teaches students to:

  • Argue from evidence
  • Organize thoughts coherently
  • Write with clarity and purpose
  • Support ideas logically
  • Use language with precision

These skills matter in every field: law, finance, medicine, management, politics, engineering, ministry, and public service.

A student who can explain the theme of Macbeth can write a clear email, a persuasive memo, a professional proposal, or a thoughtful report. Writing is not an English-specific skill — it is a leadership skill.

6. Empathy, Imagination, and Emotional Intelligence

Developing the mind is not enough. Literature develops the heart.

When students read:

  • Elie Wiesel’s Night they encounter the raw trauma of the Holocaust.
  • Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus they glimpse life in postcolonial Nigeria.
  • Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men they feel loneliness and dignity in the lives of the marginalized.
  • The Odyssey teaches themes of homecoming, loyalty, and courage.

Literature gives students the ability to imagine lives that are not their own.
It cultivates empathy — the ability to understand and care about other people’s experiences.

This is not sentimental. It is essential for citizenship, leadership, community, and family.

7. Why Literature Still Matters in the Age of AI

In a world where artificial intelligence can summarize, rewrite, and generate text in seconds, some people ask whether traditional literature education still matters.

It matters more than ever.

AI can produce words, but it cannot replace judgment.

Only a well-educated human being can tell whether a paragraph is wise, ethical, manipulative, or true.

AI can generate information, but it cannot generate insight.

Insight is born only from a well-trained mind — one capable of making connections, recognizing patterns, understanding motives, and evaluating consequences.

AI can mimic style, but it cannot understand meaning.

Understanding meaning requires the human experiences literature cultivates: empathy, cultural awareness, emotional maturity, and moral imagination.

AI can assist thinking, but it cannot replace thinkers.

A person who has never read deeply cannot judge whether an AI’s output is sound.
A person who has read deeply can use AI the way a carpenter uses a tool — with skill, caution, and purpose.

This is why literature education is not obsolete in the age of AI. It is the antidote to shallow thinking in a time of overwhelming information.

Conclusion: The Mind, The Heart, and The Citizen

When educators require English literature classes, they are not trying to burden students with book reports. They are trying to form capable human beings.

They want students to leave school with:

  • The ability to read hard things
  • The capacity to think deeply
  • A sense of cultural inheritance
  • The skill to write clearly
  • The imagination to empathize
  • The judgment to navigate an AI-driven future

I learned these truths later in life, long after I realized how much I had coasted through school. But I now understand that English literature — at its best — does not simply teach books. It teaches people how to live, how to think, how to understand others, and how to contribute meaningfully to society.

It is one of the few subjects that strengthens both the mind and the soul. It is why I think, research and blog.

The Soundtrack of a Life

.Reading time 12 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

How Music Becomes the Memory, Meaning, and Map of Who We Are

Linda and I met in the first week of college when we were only 18. To this day, we can hear a song and instantly recall when we first heard it. Some evenings we will call up a concert we have saved on DirecTV. Linda knows precisely where to fast-forward so we can listen to a favorite. So, the topic of this essay is very close to our hearts.

Most of the time we assume music is something we listen to — a pleasant accessory to the tasks and routines of the day. But if you pay attention, music is more like a hidden autobiography, quietly recording your inner life long before you are aware that a story is being written. The songs you return to, the ones that startle you when they play unexpectedly, the rare few that undo you in the quiet of a car or a grocery aisle — these are not just sound. They are memory in motion. They are identity with a rhythm.

Music does not simply accompany life; it arranges it. What memory loses, music preserves. What time distorts, music restores. And what emotion cannot articulate, music gives shape to with uncanny accuracy.

To understand this is to understand something profound about what it means to be human.

I. Music and the Mind’s First Language

Long before a child has words, they have rhythm. Infants calm at the steady cadence of a lullaby and recognize the pattern of a familiar voice long before understanding vocabulary. This is because the brain does not treat music as entertainment; it treats it as structure — a patterned, predictable, emotionally charged signal that is perfectly engineered for memory.

But music does something even deeper: it bypasses the intellectual filters adults use to sanitize emotion. A melody goes straight to the limbic system, sparking feelings before thought. That is why a song can make you cry before you even remember its meaning. The brain is reacting not to the information in the song, but to its emotional imprint.

Music, in this sense, is the first language of the inner life — the way feeling precedes understanding.

II. The Way Music Stores Time

Most memories fade, and many blur into general impressions. But not the memories attached to certain songs. These remain startlingly specific — not because the events were necessarily remarkable, but because music sealed them in.

What is remarkable is how effortless this process is. You do not choose to remember your first heartbreak through a particular ballad, or a college summer through a song that filled your roommate’s car. You do not choose the hymn that makes your throat tighten at a funeral, or the chorus that instantly brings back the living room of your childhood home. Music chooses for you.

There is something mysterious about the mind’s insistence on tethering emotion to sound. A song becomes a kind of timestamp. It gives the memory a fixed point in the otherwise loose fabric of time, and when the melody returns, the memory returns with it — intact, immediate, almost shockingly alive.

We often say a song “takes us back,” but the deeper truth is that the song allows the past to take hold of us again.

III. Music as Emotional Truth

There are emotions you can explain and emotions you can only feel. Music specializes in the latter. A melody can carry a complexity no sentence can hold. Consider the strange, tender ache of nostalgia — how a song can make you long for a life you no longer live or even one you never lived at all. Or consider the way a joyful song can suddenly reveal a sorrow you didn’t realize was sitting under the surface.

Music tells the truth of emotion without asking permission.

This is why people instinctively turn to it during grief, celebration, transition, or uncertainty. It steadies the self by restoring emotional coherence. In moments when language fails — when a prayer is wordless, when a loss is fresh, when a change is too large to understand — music becomes a way of anchoring the heart long enough for meaning to catch up.

IV. Why Some Songs Become Too Heavy to Carry

Everyone has songs they avoid — not because they dislike them, but because they are too full. A melody can carry the weight of a relationship, a season, or a dream that has since dissolved. Some songs hurt because they still tell the truth about who you were and who you loved, and the distance between then and now becomes too pronounced to bear.

But even these difficult songs serve a purpose. They remind us that the deepest chapters of our lives are rarely tidy. Music preserves the emotional residue of experiences that shaped us, even when we’d prefer to move on. The song remembers us more honestly than we sometimes remember ourselves.

And that honesty, however painful, is a form of reverence for what mattered.

V. Music as a Spiritual Technology

Even people who claim no religious belief often describe music in spiritual terms. It elevates, unites, quiets, or stirs the human spirit in ways that resemble prayer. Religious traditions have always understood this. Faith communities sing not because they need background noise, but because music allows meaning to move through people collectively, bypassing the intellectual hesitation that often dilutes belief.

A sung truth is felt before it is understood — and therefore becomes more deeply held.

Music is not a doctrine, but it delivers feeling with the force of revelation. It makes the invisible inner life audible.

VI. The Older We Grow, the More Our Soundtrack Solidifies

There is a moment in adulthood when you realize new music no longer imprints the way it once did. Songs still move you, but they do not become part of your inner architecture the way earlier ones did. Neurobiologists confirm this: the teenage and young adult years are when the brain is most porous to musical encoding, which is why those songs remain disproportionately powerful decades later.

By middle age, the soundtrack of your life is largely complete, and new music becomes something enjoyed but not absorbed. This is why older adults return to the songs they loved when they were young — not for nostalgia alone, but because those songs contain the memory of a self that time cannot fully dissolve.

Music becomes a way of maintaining continuity across the changing seasons of one’s identity.

VII. The Soundtrack We Become for Others

Most people think of their personal soundtrack as something private — the way certain songs follow them through life. What they often forget is that they have also become part of someone else’s soundtrack.

The lullaby you hummed.
The song you danced to at a wedding.
The hymn you sang beside a friend in a difficult season.
The album you played on a long drive with your child.
The record your mother played while cleaning the house.

Music is how we inhabit each other’s memories.

We rarely know which musical moments attach to the people we love. Years later, long after you’re gone, someone may hear a familiar song and be struck by a sudden, tender ache — not because of the music itself, but because it summoned your presence back into the room.

Music is one of the few ways we outlive ourselves without trying.

VIII. The Soundtrack as a Hidden Biography

A person’s life story includes far more than events.
It includes the emotional texture of those events — the inner landscape where meaning took shape. Music is the most faithful curator of that landscape.

If you were to line up the songs that have moved you most deeply, you could trace the entire shape of your life:

  • When you felt safe
  • When you felt lost
  • When you fell in love
  • When you learned resilience
  • When you dreamed big
  • When you let go
  • When you grieved
  • When you healed

Music is not a chronicle of facts.
It is a narrative of feeling — a record of who you became in the moments that mattered.

And because we never know which moments will matter most, the soundtrack evolves without our consent, revealing its meaning only in hindsight.

Conclusion: Listening Backward, Living Forward

Life changes, but the soundtrack remains.
We grow older, but the songs stay young.
We become different people, but music reintroduces us to every version we’ve ever been.

In the end, the soundtrack of your life is not merely a collection of songs. It is a map — a quiet, sensitive cartography of memory, identity, loss, love, change, and meaning. It tells the truth about you in ways you may not know how to express in words.

And the greatest mystery of all is this:

You did not choose most of it.
It chose you — and in doing so, it carried pieces of your life forward that time alone could never preserve.

If you listen closely enough,
you can hear your own story singing back to you.

Trump, Einstein, and Socrates Walk Into a Blog

.Reading time 5 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

A Three-Act Comedy Starring Einstein, Socrates, and Trump

ACT I — THE RETURN OF EINSTEIN

[The Oval Office. TRUMP is leafing through a stack of “Big Beautiful Bill” drafts printed on thick gold-edged paper. EINSTEIN stands before a chalkboard that looks like it’s survived a hurricane.]

EINSTEIN:
Mr. Trump, I have returned because I heard you said your rally crowd “dropped 1,200% in the rain.”

TRUMP:
It did. Huge drop. People couldn’t believe how much it dropped. Even the raindrops dropped harder — beautiful drops, by the way.

EINSTEIN:
A drop cannot exceed 100%!
A 1,200% drop would require the crowd to run backward through time, perhaps into ancient Greece.

TRUMP:
Exactly. They left so fast they created a vacuum. Very scientific. You should be proud.

EINSTEIN: (clutching his hair)
I am not proud! I am horrified!

TRUMP:
People tell me all the time, “Sir, your crowds defy physics.”
And I say, “Yes they do. Tremendously.”

EINSTEIN:
Physics is not meant to be defied!

TRUMP:
Sure it is. Everything is meant to be improved.
Even your hair could use some product.

EINSTEIN:
(looks up at ceiling)
Please. Strike me now.

TRUMP:
Don’t quit. You’re doing great.

ACT II — ENTER SOCRATES

[Sudden breeze. A faint smell of olives. SOCRATES steps into the room wearing a toga and sandals, carrying a scroll titled “My New Blog on the Truth of Truth.”]

SOCRATES:
Greetings! I sensed an argument.
Excellent!
Tell me, what is a percentage?

TRUMP: (points)
This guy again? He followed me into my blog draft earlier.

EINSTEIN:
Socrates, please — we are trying to keep the math grounded in reality.

SOCRATES:
Reality?
What is reality?
Is rain real?
Is a crowd real?
Are numbers real, or merely the shadows of higher truths?

TRUMP:
Here we go.
He turns everything into a TED Talk with sandals.

SOCRATES: (leaning in toward Trump)
Tell me, O Orangest One —
When you say a crowd “dropped 1,200%,” do you mean the crowd fell, or your idea of the crowd fell?

TRUMP:
I mean the crowd dropped bigly.
The biggest drop since the invention of drops.

EINSTEIN:
(whispering to Socrates)
Help me. He is destroying the concept of numbers.

SOCRATES:
I cannot help you.
I only ask questions until everyone cries.

THE BLOG REVELATION

SOCRATES: (sees Trump’s laptop open to a WordPress page)
Behold… a scroll of thought for the masses.
A modern blog!

TRUMP:
Yeah, that’s mine. Don’t touch it.

SOCRATES:
I too had blogs.
Many blogs.
Some written, some spoken, some scratched in the sand, some left as riddles in the agora.

TRUMP:
You didn’t have blogs.

SOCRATES:
Of course I did.
Plato plagiarized all of them.

EINSTEIN:
(whispering to Trump)
He actually believes this.

TRUMP:
Well, tell him to get out of my blog. This is my blog.

SOCRATES:
Every argument is my blog.
Every debate is my domain.
I invented the comments section!

EINSTEIN:
Socrates, please. You must leave.
This is already chaos.

TRUMP: (pointing to the door)
Go back to Ancient Greece and blog there.
Take Plato with you.

SOCRATES: (offended)
Plato is a content aggregator, not a thinker!

TRUMP:
Yeah, that sounds right.

ACT III — THE FINAL MELTDOWN

SOCRATES:
Before I go, answer me this:
If a crowd drops 1,200%, does the crowd exist at all?

TRUMP:
It exists beautifully.
Negatively, even.

EINSTEIN:
Negative crowds do not exist.

TRUMP:
You said it yourself — your sanity dropped 300%.
So clearly things can drop more than 100%.

EINSTEIN:
I was speaking metaphorically!

TRUMP:
Doesn’t matter. I accept your concession.

SOCRATES:
Gentlemen… the argument has now transcended numbers.
It has become…
dumb.

EINSTEIN:
Agreed.

TRUMP:
Agreed. Very dumb.
But also amazing.
People love it.

SOCRATES:
Then I shall take my leave.
There is another blog — in the realm of ideas —
where someone is wrong on the internet.

[He exits dramatically. His cape billows like a curtain that refuses to obey gravity.]

EPILOGUE

EINSTEIN:
I preferred it when he drank hemlock.

TRUMP:
Same.
I liked him better when he said he had two blogs and stayed in them.

EINSTEIN:
So we are agreed?

TRUMP:
Totally.
This is my blog.

EINSTEIN:
Then I shall go.

TRUMP:
Good.
Because my last crowd dropped 2,000%—

EINSTEIN: (screams) NOOOO!

[Blackout.]

How Do You Know?

.Reading time 7 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
(Please share my blog site with your friends and family and ask them to subscribe for free at http://www.citybaseblog.net)

A dialogue between a granddaughter and her grandmother

Scene:
The kitchen is quiet now, the light outside turning golden. The teapot is empty, but the warmth between them lingers. The grandmother leans back, smiling softly at her granddaughter — the kind of smile that carries both memory and hope.

Granddaughter:
Grandma, you’ve told me what love feels like when it’s real. But how do you really know if it’s right before you say “I do”?

Grandmother:
That’s a wise question, sweetheart — wiser than most your age ask. Knowing isn’t about a single moment. It’s about the patterns you see when the emotions calm down.

Granddaughter:
What kind of patterns?

Grandmother (counting gently on her fingers):
Start with faith. If your heart is anchored in God, make sure his is, too. You can’t walk together if one’s following the light and the other’s still chasing shadows. Shared faith doesn’t guarantee an easy life, but it gives you the same foundation when the storms come.

Granddaughter:
So religion really does matter?

Grandmother:
It matters more than you think. It shapes how you forgive, how you raise children, how you see the world. Without that common ground, even small differences start to feel like miles.

Granddaughter:
Okay… what else?

Grandmother:
Money. Not how much he earns, but how he treats it. Does he plan, save, and give? Or does he spend like there’s no tomorrow? Marriage magnifies everything — especially money habits. You want to face life as partners, not as each other’s accountant.

Granddaughter:
That’s practical, Grandma.

Grandmother (grinning):
So is love, darling. It’s not all candlelight and violins. It’s budgets, calendars, and choosing to be kind when you’re both tired.

Granddaughter:
And I guess it matters how you treat each other in public too?

Grandmother:
Oh yes — never, never speak badly about each other to anyone. The minute you let criticism slip into someone else’s ears, you give them power over your marriage. Protect one another’s reputation like it’s your own.

Granddaughter:
What about family?

Grandmother:
You marry more than the person — you marry their whole world. Watch how he treats his parents and siblings, and how they treat him. Family is the soil that shaped him. And when you bring him home, see how he fits among your people. If there’s no respect both ways, there’ll be cracks later.

Granddaughter:
That’s a lot to think about.

Grandmother:
It should be. Also, watch how he treats strangers — the waitress, the cashier, the stray dog. The smallest gestures reveal the biggest truths.

Granddaughter:
What about when life gets stressful?

Grandmother:
That’s when the real person comes out. See how he reacts under pressure — with patience or temper, faith or fear. The right one won’t crumble at every hardship. He’ll steady you when you start to shake.

Granddaughter:
And kids?

Grandmother:
Talk about it early. Whether he wants them, how he imagines raising them, what he values in a home. You can’t build together if you’re dreaming in opposite directions. You will be married singles.

Granddaughter:
You always say habits tell the truth.

Grandmother:
They do. Look for balance. Someone who knows moderation — with food, drink, work, and even opinions. Extremes wear people out. Balance keeps peace alive.

Granddaughter:
What about his purpose — like, his job or calling?

Grandmother:
A man who feels called to something greater than himself carries a steadier joy. It doesn’t have to be glamorous. But it has to mean something. When life gets heavy, purpose keeps him from drifting. How does he handle disillusionment? It WILL come.

Granddaughter:
Can he talk about emotions? Like fear, grief, or joy?

Grandmother:
He needs to. If he can’t name what he feels, he’ll turn silence into walls. Find someone who can talk through pain, who can admit fear, who can celebrate joy without shame. That’s emotional honesty — and that’s love’s backbone.

Granddaughter:
What about his heroes?

Grandmother:
Ask who he admires. A man’s role models are the map to his values. If he looks up to people of integrity — who serve others quietly — that’s a good sign.

Granddaughter:
And self-awareness?

Grandmother:
Oh, that’s gold. Can he say, “I was wrong”? Can he admit when he’s hurt someone and try to make it right? Pride destroys more love stories than infidelity ever could.

Granddaughter (pausing):
Grandma, this is a lot to remember.

Grandmother (smiling warmly):
It is — because marriage isn’t luck. It’s wisdom, patience, and prayer. But I’ll tell you one last thing — maybe the most important of all.

Granddaughter:
What’s that?

Grandmother (leaning close):
If the boy — or the man — isn’t just as curious about you… your faith, your family, your hopes, your habits, your fears, your calling — if he doesn’t want to know your story and your soul — then make sure he knows without any doubt: you are not someone to be half-known. You are someone to be understood, cherished, and respected in full — or not at all.

Oh, one more thing: No regrets. Strive to make wise choices. The best thing you want to be able to say when you get to be my age is “No regrets!”

(The granddaughter nods slowly. The kettle whistles again, and her grandmother rises to refill it — calm, steady, radiant with the kind of wisdom only a lifetime of love can teach.)

Miss Saigon: Love, Illusion, and the Mirage of the American Dream

.Reading time 19 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

“You are sunlight and I moon, joined by the gods of fortune.”
— “Sun and Moon”

This dramatic musical was so remarkable to me. I remember writing that it was the best I had ever witnessed at the time, and wondering if I would ever see a better play. I think I saw it three times. The first time was in NYC, and the other two times were in Dallas. They were different in a few ways. The Dallas version was even more profound in the way they handled the opening of the second act. I will never forget the players and emotional content. LFM

I. The World in Ruin, the Heart Still Beating

In Miss Saigon, the world is ending in slow motion. Helicopters thunder above the city, neon signs flicker over shattered streets, and the air hums with the machinery of empire. Yet in the ruins of Saigon, two hearts still find each other. Kim and Chris meet not in peace but in aftermath—he, a disoriented soldier of a collapsing foreign power; she, a displaced orphan forced into a bar called Dreamland. Around them, history howls. Within them, something eternal stirs.

Their love begins as an accident of war but unfolds like a parable of Eden after the Fall: purity glimpsed in a poisoned world. “You are sunlight and I moon,” Kim sings, echoing Genesis more than Puccini—light and darkness yearning toward wholeness, even as they know their union is impossible. The tragedy of Miss Saigon is not simply that love fails; it is that love, though true, cannot redeem the systems that contain it.

II. The Gospel According to Kim

Kim is among the most spiritually resonant heroines of modern theater—a Christ-figure clothed in the garments of an Asian peasant girl. Her purity is not naivety but faith: a conviction that love can sanctify even the most defiled landscape. When Chris leaves her amid the chaos of Saigon’s fall, Kim does not curse him or her fate. She gathers their son, Tam, and holds him as both burden and promise. “You will see me through another season,” she seems to tell God, echoing Mary sheltering the child Messiah in exile.

Years later, in Bangkok, when confronted by Chris’s American wife, Kim’s theology of love reaches its consummation. She chooses death not as surrender but as offering: “Now you must take Tam with you / And you must go on / I’m dying for your sake, my son.” In that moment, Miss Saigon transcends its setting. Kim becomes every mother who has loved into suffering, every believer who has poured out life for another’s salvation. Her sacrifice restores no empire and reforms no politics—but it restores meaning.

To love purely, the musical insists, is to suffer. Yet in that suffering lies a kind of resurrection. When Chris cries over her body—“How in one night have we come so far?”—we hear the echo of humanity’s ancient lament: love arrives divine and departs crucified.

III. The Engineer and the False Heaven

“The American Dream / Is gonna make my dream come true.”

If Kim represents the soul’s yearning for redemption, the Engineer embodies civilization’s addiction to illusion. He is the show’s dark chorus—half clown, half devil, half prophet—hawking the fantasy of America as the new Jerusalem of lust and consumption. His anthem, “The American Dream,” drips with irony: “They’ll have a club for all the rich to join / Where you can drive your Cadillac through the eye of a needle.” It is a parody of Scripture, a theology of greed replacing the Beatitudes with billboards.

The Engineer’s dream is the shadow twin of Kim’s faith. Both are migrants of hope; both seek deliverance. But where Kim’s vision demands self-sacrifice, the Engineer’s demands self-erasure. His dream is not of freedom but of becoming the very machine that once enslaved him. He worships America not as idea but as idol—its neon signs as stained glass, its dollar bills as sacraments. Through him, the musical indicts a modern form of empire: not territorial but spiritual, not conquest but consumption.

In the end, the Engineer does make it to America, but his triumph is hollow. He ascends the staircase of Ellis Island as if entering heaven, yet we hear no music of redemption—only brass and discord. The promised paradise is another illusion; the dream devours its dreamer.

IV. The Mirage of Salvation

The love between Kim and Chris is real; the salvation offered by nations and ideologies is not. That is the paradox at the heart of Miss Saigon. When Chris returns to find Kim years later, married and broken by guilt, his words in “The Confrontation”—“You’re here—Oh my God, you’re here!”—carry the force of resurrection. But it is too late. The world they inhabited has no place for resurrections. Kim’s suicide is not despair but testimony: that no earthly dream can absorb the fullness of love. Her body falls between two worlds—Asia and America, heaven and earth—and her blood exposes the lie that either side could claim moral victory.

Boublil and Schönberg thus turn history into allegory. The fall of Saigon becomes the Fall itself: humankind’s expulsion from innocence, still chasing salvation in the mirage of progress. The helicopter that lifts the last Americans away becomes a steel angel guarding the gate of paradise—an emblem of the separation between what is real and what we wish were real.

V. The Music of Heaven and the Sound of Machines

The score of Miss Saigon is not mere accompaniment; it is theology in melody. The lush orchestration, the merging of Asian tonal motifs with Western harmonies, enacts the same cultural collision as the story itself. In “I Still Believe,” Kim and Ellen sing the same words across oceans: “I still believe you will return / I know you will.” Two women, one melody, one delusion—the human capacity to believe even against evidence. This duet is not about romantic hope but about the nature of faith: to believe is to risk being wrong, and to love is to be wounded by that risk.

Likewise, “Bui Doi” (“dust of life”) transforms what could be sentimental into prophetic lament:

“They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do.”
It is confession as chorus—the entire nation singing its mea culpa. The orphans of Saigon become symbols of moral residue, the souls left behind by history’s machinery. The music soars, not to glorify but to accuse.

VI. “Bui Doi” — The Children of Dust and the Conscience of a Nation

At the opening of the second act, the curtain rises not on Saigon or Bangkok, but on America’s memory—a stage transformed into a tribunal of conscience.
A single voice, John’s, steps forward beneath the glow of a projected photograph. His song, “Bui Doi,” erupts like thunder through the theater: a requiem, a sermon, and a national confession.

They’re called Bui-Doi.
The dust of life.
Conceived in Hell,
And born in strife.
They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do.
We can’t forget
Must not forget
That they are all our children, too.

Like all survivors I once thought
When I’m home I won’t give a damn
But now I know I’m caught, I’ll never leave Vietnam

War isn?t over when it ends, some pictures never leave youmind.
They are the faces of the children the ones we left behind
They?re called Bui-doi.
The dust of life, conceived in hell and born in strife
They are the living reminders of all the good we failed to do
That?s why we know deep in our hearts, that they are all ourchildren too

These kids hit walls on ev?ry side, they don?t belong in anyplace.
Their secret they can?t hide it?s printed on their face.
I never thought one day I?d plead
For half-breeds from a land that?s torn
But then I saw a camp for children whose crime was being born

They’re called Bui-Doi, the dust of life conceived in hell and born in strife.
We owe them fathers and a family a loving home they never knew.
Because we know deep in our hearts that they are all our children too.

These are souls in need, they need us to give
Someone has to pay for their chance to live
Help me try

They’re called Bui-Doi.
The dust of life.
Conceived in Hell,
And born in strife.
They are the living reminders of all the good we failed to do.
That’s why we know
That’s why we know
Deep in our hearts
Deep in our hearts
That’s why we know
That they are all our children, too.

The Vietnamese phrase Bui Doi means “dust of life.” It names the children born of the war—half American, half Vietnamese—unclaimed by either world. But the phrase carries more than pity; it carries theology. In Genesis, humanity itself is formed from dust. To call these children “dust” is to recall creation and abandonment in a single breath. They are the living proof of divine image forgotten—the breath of life exhaled and left to drift.

John, once the soldier’s companion, now stands as the prophet. His voice shakes with the weight of unrepented sin:

“They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do.”

That line cuts deeper than any artillery blast. It indicts not merely a nation but a civilization addicted to amnesia. The men’s chorus behind him—uniformed, disciplined, proud—becomes the choir of a guilty church. The horns sound like the trumpets of judgment; the snare rolls like the echo of marching ghosts. This is liturgy as lament, where patriotism and repentance collide.

Musically, the song is both anthem and elegy. The brass proclaims victory; the strings mourn the cost. The melody rises toward triumph but collapses into minor chords—hope bleeding into remorse. Boublil and Schönberg understood that guilt itself has rhythm, that moral awakening can be scored.

Philosophically, “Bui Doi” reframes the entire musical. It transforms Miss Saigon from personal tragedy to collective confession. Kim’s sacrifice in Act I was individual; this is national. Her love sanctified one child; this song pleads for all of them. In that sense, “Bui Doi” functions as the Mass of the piece—the moment when the audience, too, becomes congregation, murmuring its mea culpa in the dark.

VII. The Cinematic Mirror

In most major productions, “Bui Doi” is not sung to an empty backdrop but accompanied by film and photographs—documentary images of the real aftermath of war. As John sings, the theater dissolves into a moving archive: Vietnamese children of mixed heritage, refugee camps, faces pressed against wire and window.

This cinematic layer breaks the fourth wall. It shatters illusion and turns the audience into witness. The theater becomes a courtroom of conscience, the spectators no longer observers but participants in the confession.

It is one of the most striking multimedia sequences in stage history—fiction colliding with fact, melody colliding with memory. The children on screen do not sing, but their images form the silent choir beneath the orchestra’s thunder. When the camera pans across those faces and John intones,

“They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do…”
the entire house falls still. The song becomes cinema, the cinema becomes prayer.

For a few minutes, Miss Saigon ceases to be a musical and becomes a moral documentary in song—a thunderous meditation on guilt, compassion, and the possibility of redemption through remembrance.

VIII. The Theological Horizon

Philosophically, Miss Saigon rests on one question:
Can love redeem a world built on illusion?

The answer is both yes and no. Kim’s love redeems her soul but cannot redeem the system. The Engineer’s illusion sustains his survival but damns his humanity. America itself becomes a metaphor for mankind’s restless migration toward false heavens—a new Babylon promising light but delivering neon.

In biblical terms, the musical is a modern Ecclesiastes. Everything is vanity: war, politics, even dreams. Yet amid that vanity, a single act of selfless love pierces the darkness. When Kim sings “The Sacred Bird” to Tam, she becomes both Mary and Magdalene—mourning and believing, broken yet beautiful.

Her death is not defeat but transcendence: she forces Chris to confront the cost of love, and through him, the audience to confront its own moral anesthesia. The play ends with Chris kneeling, unable to resurrect her, and the music fading into silence. That silence is judgment—the sound of conscience awakening.

IX. Conclusion: The Love That Outlives Empires

“And if you can forgive me now / For all the things I’ve done / Then I will be the one who’ll stay.”

Empires fall, dreams fade, illusions shatter—but love remains, not as sentiment but as wound.
Miss Saigon is not simply a retelling of Madame Butterfly; it is a spiritual reckoning. It asks whether humanity, in its hunger for progress, has forgotten the sacred art of sacrifice.

Kim’s death redeems nothing external—no nation, no system—but it redeems the meaning of love itself.
In her final act, she transforms the stage of war into an altar. The Engineer’s dream dissolves in irony, but Kim’s faith survives in silence. She proves that even in the rubble of civilization, the human heart can still whisper its prayer to heaven:

“You are sunlight and I moon / Joined here, brightening the sky.”

And for a moment, however brief, the audience feels that sky brighten—proof that art, like love, can still make light out of ruin.

The Miracle of Dialogue: Reuel L. Howe’s Vision for Human and Spiritual Connection

.Reading time 10 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Introduction

I don’t actually remember where I found this book many years ago. I recall using it in year-long workshops I once conducted for new and emerging city managers, as well as another workshop for finance directors. I’m sure it was likely an attractive title to me since Linda & I were once involved in and led a marriage communication weekend. Nevertheless, I knew this book addressed a workplace need. I gave my 2,000+ library away to a high school librarian a few years back, so I can’t retrieve it to see any notes I might have written in the book. Still, this essay is an attempt to convey a critical message to anyone who might read my blog. LFM

When Reuel L. Howe, Episcopal priest and professor of pastoral theology, published The Miracle of Dialogue in 1963, he was addressing one of the deepest crises of his time: the loss of authentic communication. For Howe, dialogue was not simply conversation, but a sacred process through which persons discover themselves, one another, and God. His book outlined principles that remain as necessary today as they were in the turbulent 1960s.

Dialogue as Life-Blood

Perhaps the most vivid line in Howe’s book is this: “Dialogue is to love, what blood is to the body. When the flow of blood stops, the body dies. When dialogue stops, love dies and resentment and hate are born. But dialogue can restore a dead relationship. Indeed, this is the miracle of dialogue.”

Here, Howe underscores that dialogue is not optional. Just as circulation sustains physical life, communication sustains relational and spiritual life. When dialogue dries up—whether between spouses, friends, or nations—resentment, suspicion, and hostility emerge. Yet the miracle is that dialogue can revive what seems dead.

Barriers and Breakdowns

Howe was realistic about how hard this is. He wrote, “A barrier to communication is something that keeps meanings from meeting.” He understood that people may speak the same words but miss each other’s meaning because of fear, assumptions, or prejudice.

Such barriers are not merely semantic—they are deeply personal. He observed, “The breakdown of community and, therefore, of dialogue occurs when there is an obliteration of persons. This obliteration takes place when one person or the other exploits the relationship for any purpose other than its true one.”

In other words, dialogue collapses when we treat others as objects to be managed instead of persons to be honored.

The Ontological Depth of Dialogue

Howe believed dialogue reaches beyond words to touch the very core of being. “Every genuine conversation, therefore, can be an ontological event, and every exchange between husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, person and person, has more meaning than the thing talked about.”

In practice, even ordinary conversations about chores or daily frustrations carry transformative weight if both parties enter them with openness.

Knowing and Being Known

Howe taught that self-knowledge is relational: “Only as we know another and are known by him, can we know ourselves.” To be human is to be relational, created in the image of a God who exists in eternal relationship. Thus, dialogue is not just human skill but divine calling.

Why Howe Wrote the Book

Howe wrote The Miracle of Dialogue because he saw his culture losing this art. In politics, debate was replacing dialogue. In families, silence or command took the place of listening. In the church, sermons and programs often substituted for genuine pastoral presence. He believed the consequences were devastating: alienation, loneliness, and the collapse of community.

Yet he also believed that the miracle of dialogue could reverse the trend. By practicing vulnerability, respect, and attentiveness, people could rediscover each other and reweave the fabric of society.

What Now? A Practical Guide to Living Dialogue

Howe’s work begs the question: what should the reader actually do with this? The miracle of dialogue is not realized in theory but in practice. Here are five starting steps:

  1. Create Space for Listening
    • Set aside time each day to listen without agenda. In a family, this may mean turning off devices at dinner and allowing everyone to share. In the workplace, it may mean pausing before giving answers and hearing out the full story.
  2. Practice Vulnerable Speech
    • Risk saying what is truly on your heart, even if it feels small or unpolished. Howe reminds us that dialogue is born in honesty, not performance.
  3. Check for Barriers
    • When a conversation feels stuck, ask: “What barrier is keeping our meanings from meeting?” Misunderstanding, assumption, or defensiveness may be blocking true exchange. Naming the barrier can begin to remove it.
  4. Value Persons over Outcomes
    • Resist the temptation to enter conversation simply to win, persuade, or manage. Howe warns that exploitation obliterates persons. Instead, see the person as more important than the argument or decision.
  5. Invite God into Dialogue
    • Whether through prayer before a difficult conversation or openness to the Spirit’s prompting while listening, recognize dialogue as a sacred act. Dialogue, for Howe, is not just about communication between humans but communion with God.

Practicing the Miracle of Dialogue: A 7-Day Plan

Reuel L. Howe believed dialogue was not merely theory but a way of life. To begin living it, here is a week-long practice plan drawn from the principles of The Miracle of Dialogue. Each day focuses on one theme, with a concrete exercise.

Day 1: Create Space for Listening

Choose one person in your life. Set aside 15–20 minutes today to listen to them without interruption. Repeat back what you heard to confirm understanding.

Day 2: Practice Vulnerable Speech

In a conversation, share something real from your heart—a worry, a hope, or a memory. Notice how honesty changes the dynamic.

Day 3: Check for Barriers

Reflect on a recent strained conversation. Identify at least one barrier—assumption, fear, or distraction. Plan a follow-up where you acknowledge the barrier and try again.

Day 4: Value Persons over Outcomes

In a conversation today, consciously put the relationship ahead of the result. Say to yourself: “This person is more important than my agenda.”

Day 5: Invite God into Dialogue

Before a key conversation, pause and pray: “Lord, help me to listen as You listen, and to speak as You would speak.” Reflect afterward on how the exchange felt.

Day 6: Engage Across Difference

Seek out a conversation with someone whose perspective differs from yours. Ask questions with genuine curiosity, aiming to understand rather than persuade.

Day 7: Reflect and Renew

At week’s end, journal about moments when dialogue felt alive. Identify one practice to carry forward—listening, praying, or honoring the person over the outcome.

Conclusion

Reuel L. Howe’s The Miracle of Dialogue is both timeless and timely. His insistence that dialogue is like blood to the body, that barriers keep “meanings from meeting,” that every genuine conversation is more than its subject, and that we only know ourselves by being known by others—all these insights point to dialogue as the lifeblood of human existence.

Howe wrote the book to warn against the dangers of monologue and manipulation and to point toward the sacred possibility of real conversation. For readers today, the “What Now” is clear: create space, practice vulnerability, check for barriers, value persons, and invite God into the exchange. In doing so, we participate in the miracle that can heal broken relationships, revive community, and draw us closer to God Himself.

The Burden of Being Misunderstood

.Reading time 10 minutes.

A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI

Introduction: The Human Longing to Be Known

Few human experiences cut as deeply as being misunderstood. To speak with sincerity only to be misheard, to act with good intention only to be judged wrongly, is a wound that echoes in the soul. From Socrates on trial in Athens to artists whose work was only appreciated after death, history is filled with men and women whose essence was obscured by misunderstanding. Yet the experience is not reserved for the famous; it is part of the everyday fabric of marriages, friendships, and workplaces. Understanding why it happens, the pain it causes, and how it can be prevented is essential for any life that seeks peace, intimacy, and effective collaboration.

Why Misunderstanding Happens

1. The Imperfection of Language

Language is a fragile bridge between minds. Words carry multiple meanings, shaped by culture, upbringing, and emotion. The simple phrase “I’m fine” may mean relief, indifference, exhaustion, or deep pain depending on tone and context. Misunderstanding is built into the very tools we use to connect.

2. Psychological Filters

Every listener filters communication through personal experiences. If someone grew up in a critical household, even neutral feedback may feel like an attack. If a spouse feels insecure, a simple absence of words can be heard as rejection. These filters distort reality.

3. Assumptions and Cognitive Shortcuts

Our brains save time by assuming. When a colleague misses a deadline, we may assume laziness rather than hidden struggles. When a partner forgets an anniversary, we may assume indifference rather than stress. These shortcuts help us survive but often betray truth.

4. Cultural and Generational Differences

In multicultural workplaces and families, communication styles clash. A blunt statement meant as efficiency may feel like rudeness. Silence meant as respect may feel like distance. What one generation calls “honesty,” another calls “harshness.”

5. The Speed of Modern Life

Emails skimmed, texts dashed off, meetings rushed—modern communication often sacrifices clarity for speed. Misunderstanding thrives in the gaps where careful explanation once lived.

The Horrible Feelings of Being Misunderstood

To be misunderstood is not merely inconvenient; it is existentially painful.

  • Alienation: It creates a gulf between self and others. One feels exiled even in the midst of family or colleagues.
  • Helplessness: Attempts to clarify can deepen suspicion: “The more I explain, the less they believe me.”
  • Humiliation: Being misjudged damages reputation, sometimes irreparably. In the workplace, it can derail careers. In marriage, it can fracture intimacy.
  • Loneliness: Misunderstood individuals may retreat inward, carrying the unshakable sense that no one truly sees them.
  • Anger and Bitterness: Repeated misinterpretation corrodes patience, leaving resentment to fester.

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard captured the torment when he wrote: “People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.”

Misunderstanding in Marriage

Marriage is both the most fertile ground for misunderstanding and the most urgent place to heal it.

Common Triggers

  1. Unspoken Expectations: One partner assumes the other “should know” what they need without saying it. Disappointment follows.
  2. Different Communication Styles: Some are verbal processors, others internal. Silence may feel like avoidance to one, thoughtfulness to another.
  3. Stress and Fatigue: A weary tone may be mistaken for anger; distraction may be mistaken for indifference.
  4. Conflict Escalation: During arguments, words are rushed, tone is sharp, and intentions are distorted.

Real-World Example

Consider a couple where the husband works long hours to provide financial security, while the wife longs for quality time. He believes he is expressing love through sacrifice; she believes he is expressing disinterest. Both are misunderstood because they equate love with different actions. Without clarity, affection curdles into resentment.

Preventive Practices

  • Radical Clarity: Instead of assuming, ask. “When you’re quiet, should I understand it as thoughtfulness or withdrawal?”
  • Regular Check-ins: Create safe spaces to ask: “Do you feel understood by me right now?”
  • Active Listening: Repeating back what was heard (“So you’re saying you felt hurt when I forgot…”) validates the partner’s inner world.
  • Love Languages: Recognize that affection is communicated differently—through words, gifts, service, time, or touch. Misunderstanding often arises when partners speak different “languages.”

Misunderstanding in the Workplace

Workplaces magnify misunderstanding because of layered hierarchies, pressures, and competing goals.

Common Sources

  1. Ambiguous Instructions: Leaders say, “Get this done soon,” but each employee defines “soon” differently.
  2. Lack of Context: When decisions are made without explanation, workers fill the gap with suspicion.
  3. Email Tone: A curt response written in haste may be read as hostility.
  4. Generational and Cultural Gaps: A younger worker may interpret silence from a manager as disapproval, while the manager thinks, “No news is good news.”

Case Study: The Boeing 737 MAX Crisis

Misunderstanding played a role in the Boeing 737 MAX tragedies. Engineers flagged risks, but managers misunderstood—or dismissed—their concerns, assuming compliance meant safety. The gap between intention and perception led to catastrophic consequences.

Preventive Practices

  • Explicit Communication: Replace vagueness with specifics. Deadlines, deliverables, and success measures must be clear.
  • Feedback Culture: Encourage employees to restate instructions in their own words to confirm understanding.
  • Transparent Leadership: Share the reasoning behind decisions. Context prevents negative assumptions.
  • Cross-Cultural Training: Equip teams to recognize differences in communication styles.

Strategies for Prevention Across Life

  1. Practice Humility: Accept that you may not have been clear. Re-explain without defensiveness.
  2. Develop Empathy: Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood.
  3. Slow Down: In moments of tension, resist the urge for quick reactions.
  4. Use Multiple Channels: Important messages deserve both spoken and written forms.
  5. Acknowledge Emotions: Sometimes, people need validation of their feelings more than explanation of your intent.

The Paradoxical Gift of Being Misunderstood

Though painful, being misunderstood can also sharpen self-awareness. Many great innovators, prophets, and artists were misunderstood in their time—Jesus of Nazareth, Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King Jr. Their experience forced them to deepen conviction, clarify expression, and find identity not in approval but in truth. For ordinary people, the same paradox can hold: misunderstanding, though a wound, can also be a teacher.

Conclusion: Toward a Culture of Understanding

To be understood is to be seen; to be misunderstood is to be invisible. The difference can determine the health of a marriage, the morale of a workplace, or the direction of a life. Misunderstanding will never vanish, but intentional listening, clarity, and empathy can reduce its grip. When people slow down enough to ask, “What did you mean?” and to say, “Here’s how I felt,” they build bridges across the abyss. And in those bridges lies the possibility of love, trust, and shared humanity.

Reflection and Application Questions

For Personal Reflection

  1. When was the last time I felt misunderstood? What emotions rose up in me?
  2. Do I tend to withdraw, defend, or over-explain when misunderstood? Why?
  3. How often do I assume I know what others mean without asking?
  4. What patterns from my upbringing shape how I interpret others’ words?

For Couples

  1. What’s one time in our relationship when you felt I truly misunderstood you? How did it affect you?
  2. What signals (tone, silence, habits) do I often misinterpret in you?
  3. What communication style differences exist between us, and how can we honor them?
  4. How can we build a regular rhythm of checking in about whether we feel seen and heard?

For Workplace Teams

  1. When has miscommunication in our team caused tension or lost productivity?
  2. What instructions or messages are usually the most misunderstood here?
  3. How can we improve feedback loops so people feel safe asking for clarification?
  4. Do we share enough context for decisions, or do we leave colleagues filling in the gaps with assumptions?
  5. How can we better acknowledge the emotions—stress, fatigue, pride—that affect how messages are received?