Lyndon Johnson grew up on a farm in the Texas hill country. Farm life is busy and hectic, and a young Lyndon used to wander off without anyone noticing. Down the dirt road past the wildlife, near a stream, toward his grandparents’ house. A modern parent’s nightmare. A social services visit waiting to happen. They put together a search party on horseback and he was home in time for dinner.
Before I opened the first philosophy book. Before Socrates taught me the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. I did have a sort of philosophy that I lived by. It was not a good philosophy and it was not necessarily a good life. My philosophy was me.
I rounded a curve to find someone standing outside their vehicle, phone to the sky, taking a picture of a rainbow. The dense, humid air after a midday summer downpour offered up a complete double rainbow. Not something you’re guaranteed to see twice.
During my research, I happened across the privation theory and the man who wrote it. I became fascinated with what such a conflicted man, on his very human journey, could do for something as omnipotent as God.
