When the time came for a new form of government, American traits were well-established. This series of blog posts will explore those.
What is it that differentiated the United States of America? What separates us from all other nations? Or is there anything? Are we the same as the other nations, but we became wealthy and powerful by chance of time and location? Did we just happen to find the right combination of population and resources?
Many talk of American exceptionalism. When did that kick in? Were we exceptional at the beginning, or did we develop into an exceptional people and nation in response to circumstances?
These are difficult questions. I’ve been pondering them for a while—at least ten years, since I’ve been writing the Documenting America series. I’m learning more and more as I do the research on this. In addition to that, I do a lot of research into genealogy—American genealogy. My first genealogy book dealt mainly with the years 1830-1910, long after American traits would have been established. My second genealogy book dealt with the years 1640-1710, right in the foundational period. As I wrote that genealogy/family history book, my thoughts began to focus on that question: what differentiated the USA from other nations?
As I researched to finish this work, I came upon some Massachusetts Bay Colony documents that led me to concluding one of the characteristics I’ll discuss in this series.
Added to researching my books is a love of history and an ability to self-study and learn. I love to read, and history is about my favorite topic to read. Since I started writing history books it’s difficult to read history for simple enjoyment or personal learning. Still, I try.
I don’t know that I’ve finished my thought process on all of this, but I believe I have identified three items that are in our nature that made a difference in our journey to exceptionalism.
The consent of the governed. Another explanation for this is self-determination. We decide what type of government we want and establish it.
The common man as a landowner. A big difference in the USA is everyone—just about everyone—owned land. This gives a huge change in perspective on government.
Peaceful transition of power. When we change leaders—with two notable exceptions—the transition happens easily and peacefully.
These are probably not the only things that have contributed to making the USA into the nation that it is, but I see them as critical components.
In three posts coming soon (maybe not next, but soon), I’ll cover these three factors. By the time I finish them, I may have another one or two posts to make in the series. I hope many will read these posts, and consider how these helped to make us what we are.
It may not look like 129 letters, but they are all there, collated by date after transcription. Now I need to figure out a better way to store them.
As regular readers of this blog know (all two or three of you), I love letters. I have a sizeable collection of published letter collections, and from time to time I pull one out and read it. Right now I have Volume 1 of The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis on my work table in The Dungeon, and am trying to get in the habit of reading one or two of his letters every day. In fact, having not read one yesterday or today, I’m going to interrupt writing this post and will read a couple, then come back…
…okay, letters read, and I’m back. I’ve never understood this fascination of mine with letters, but it’s there.
As it turns out, my own house is littered with letters—letters that I’ve sent over the years. When we moved to Saudi Arabia in 1981, we had no telephone in our flat. Using the phone at the office was not terribly convenient, so we wrote letters: to my Dad, to Lynda’s mom and dad, to grandparents, and a few to siblings or friends. When we moved to Kuwait in 1988 after four years back in the States, at first we didn’t have a phone, so again we wrote letters. We got a phone at some point, perhaps nine months after we got there, but, with international calls being very expensive no matter which side of the ocean they originated on, we still wrote letters to the same people. The recipients of those letters, our parents at least, kept them, and later gave them back to us (or we found them in their possession upon their deaths).
The Saudi letters will be an even bigger challenge. For now they can stay in their bin, awaiting my attention at some future date (measured in years, not months).
Now we have those letters. When we moved to this house in 2002, with some space to lay things out and organize papers, I began to “gather” these letters into boxes and bins. They all went into a plastic bin at first. I started transcribing a few of the letters from the Saudi years, but put it aside and have no idea where that computer file is. Perhaps I’ll find it. But no matter because I didn’t have more than ten of them transcribed.
Two months ago, when I began going through my mother-in-law’s papers, looking to downsize/declutter after her death, I found a plastic sack with some letters we had sent her. These were a surprise. That caused me to find the bin and put them in it. Then I thought, perhaps I should separate the Saudi years letters from the Kuwait years letters. So I did that. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be neat to get back to transcribing these? Since I didn’t know where my Saudi years computer file was, I decided to do the Kuwait years.
So on July 19, 2020, at 11:07 a.m., I created a computer file and transcribed a letter. Before that, of course, I had pulled them out of the bin and collated them by date. I’ve read enough letter collections by now that I knew pretty much what to do. The next day I transcribed another, and the next day another. This went on for a while. Occasionally I might do two letters a day, or even three, if they were short (as many of mine were to my dad).
Then, somewhere around mid-August, finding myself enjoying the transcription, I decided to just make that my work for a while. I began typing for all my time in The Dungeon that wasn’t taken up by stock trading or book marketing or promotion. I spent several hours a day transcribing. As I did, I saw holes in the letters for some month and people, especially to my wife’s dad. I know we wrote more to him than the number I found. I went hunting in the house. He tended to discard the envelopes and put letters into notebooks. I found them in a box, and found another ten or so letters we’d written to him. I think many to him are still missing, and perhaps with a little more digging I’ll find more.
Most of the letters I found around the house are ones we sent back to the States. I did, however, find a few letters we received. Since we returned to the USA for vacation right before Iraq invaded, we were able to go back only after the Gulf War. Our villa was a mess, we had many things to ship back more important (so I thought at the time) than letters, so we must have trashed most of the incoming letters. I don’t remember any of that, but the lack of having them makes me think that’s what happened. The incoming letters that I did find I also transcribed.
This box has other letters and miscellanies, not necessarily from overseas years. Yet, I need to go through it. Maybe I’ll find the missing Kuwait years letters in it.
Tuesday morning I typed the last two, incoming letters just after the Iraqi invasion from my father-in-law. The record is now as complete as I can make it. It’s 129 letters and postcards, 145 typed pages, just under 84,300 words—then length of a medium-sized novel. I have some editing out to do, and I think the final word count will be around 82,000. To this I will add commentary, footnotes, historical perspective. We have numerous photos with which to illustrate this, probably covering all the events mentioned. For the most part the photos are all in one place in the storeroom in a clearly marked box.
So what’s next? At some point I hope to add the commentary and perspective, and to illustrate this with photos. I hope to turn it into a book (‘t’will be around 300 pages, I think), not for publication, but to print off a few nicely-bound copies via my Amazon KDP account, and present them to our children and grandchildren. I wouldn’t offer it for sale. Who would want to buy it? Very few people are like me and love letters. And my lack of notoriety works even more against it ever being in demand. No, I’ll have the copies printed, pull it back to draft status, and leave it there should I ever need a few more copies.
As for the letters from the Saudi years, they will have to wait. I really need to get back to my regular writing and publishing schedule.
Two—or at most three—stars is the most I can give this.
Some time ago, in early in 2020, our church did an all-church study of the book More: Find Your Personal Calling and Live Life to the Fullest Measure (2016, Zondervan) by Todd Wilson. The pastor preached on it and adult Life Groups were to study it. We were in the midst of the study of my book, Acts Of Faith, but decided to interrupt that and do the all-church study instead. I can’t be specific on the dates, as I can’t find all my teaching notes nor the little sheet I recorded my reading dates on. Maybe I saved all I had.
The book stemmed from conversations Wilson (who was a nuclear engineer who entered the pastorate and currently is an author of Christian ministry books, and a speaker) had with with a successful business man who didn’t feel fulfilled. That man wondered “Is this all there is? What is my purpose? What should I be doing to have the biggest impact?’
I found the book to be tedious. Wilson presents a formula, complete with diagrams. Those diagrams concern our “Be-Do-Go”. “Be” is our identity/design. “Do” is our mission/purpose. “Go” is our mission field/position. For each of these we primary or general calling and a secondary or unique personal calling. The general calling is something common to all Christians, and the unique calling is what God as specifically called each of us to do on earth in His kingdom.
Each week we were to do certain exercises and fill in a chart as we gained understanding on the general calling and tried to figure out our unique calling. I found those charts almost juvenile and had trouble asking our Life Group to fill them out. Consequently, I told them what the book wanted them to do and suggested the see if it worked for them. It didn’t work for me, though I’m not sure why.
With Wilson being an engineer I can understand why he reduces his teaching to diagrams. I kind of do the same. And you would think I would embrace his approach and love the book. But I don’t and didn’t. I won’t say I hated it, but for some reason it came up short with me. It was nicely organized and well written. You knew where he was going and he got there in a reasonable amount of time. It’s a fairly easy read. It’s just not my kind of book, that’s all I can say. I haven’t reviewed it on Amazon, and may or may not. If I do, I’ll give it only two stars, or maybe three.
Yet, it will stay on my shelf, for the possibility exists that I’ll read it again in a few years. Perhaps in a second reading it will seem better to me.
Here it is Saturday afternoon. Yesterday was my regular blogging day. I like to post by 7:30 a.m. Obviously I’m not even close. It seems that life is conspiring against me, with task after task that must be done pushing out the tasks that I’d like to do.
The biggest thing coming up, aside from important medical appointments, is the distribution of the physical effects of my mother-in-law’s estate. Just two weeks ago we finished distribution of her remaining financial assets. There weren’t many left, but we had waited to make sure another bill didn’t come in.
The physical estate consists of odds and ends of furniture, linens, books, photos, letters and cards, knickknacks, and decorations. Some of these were hers from her first marriage, some where her second husband’s, and some they acquired together. Her second husband has two daughters by his prior marriage, my wife’s step-sisters who we used to see regularly and had good relationships with. We told them we were finally ready for the physical distribution. So they are going to drive here next Saturday, spend the afternoon going through things, and drive home again—thus minimizing coronavirus exposure.
Getting ready for it has started. Last weekend I did some organizing and took an approximate inventory of the more major items. We also got a letter out about it by e-mail and Messenger to the step-sisters and Lynda’s brother. He lives farther away and won’t be making a trip here. He gave us his desires on the phone.
Meanwhile, Thursday I had a full day of work for my former company, consisting of a final inspection, site visits, luncheon, and former meeting. Some reports were due, and some edits to City drainage standards. That work spilled over to Friday morning. As I worked on that the fact that I had a blog to write escaped me. I was going to do a book review. I’ve finished three books I haven’t yet reviewed but want to. I wasn’t sure which one to do next, so I had some thinking to do before I could write the review. I suppose that will be Monday’s post.
Meanwhile, I continue transcribing letters from our Kuwait years into a Word file. With six to go, I’m up to 77,700 words and 138 pages. When formatted for a book that will be well over 250 pages, especially if illustrated with photos as I would like to do. I will finish those around Tuesday. I say “finish” because I don’t know for certain that I’ve gathered all letters from those years. We have a large gap in correspondence with Lynda’s dad, and a three month period in 1989 with no letters at all. Her dad may not have kept all our letters (accounting for that gap; or they could be in another notebook or box), and the time gap includes some travels during which we wouldn’t have sent letters. Still, I will hunt some to see if I missed any before I declare the transcribing “done”. Lynda said, “This didn’t have to be done now, you know.” Yes, I know. But if not now, when? Will live be any less crazy, less hectic, less busy once the pandemic ends and rioting in our urban areas subsides? I think not.
This week, as of this morning in fact, I’m caught up on yardwork. That’s not to say I don’t have more to do, but both front and back yards are back to a maintainable point with normal effort. Next week I’ll clear away some logs left from other clearing, and begin carrying posts across the street to the fort. But I feel good about the yardwork.
Friday I go to the hospital for an echo-cardiogram (my third), a stress test (my first), and something else cardio related. The will be a whole day gone. Meanwhile, my weight is down (5 lbs. this month), my blood sugar readings are in a good range even after the doc reduced my insulin dose from 25 to 10 units. I’ve been reducing it gradually and will finally hit 10 units tonight. So health is good.
Get the estate distribution behind us, get this transcribing behind us, get these tests behind me, see a reduction in workload for my former company, and then and only then will I be able to concentrate on my novel-in-progress. I read a little for research in it now and then, but not much new writing, and I won’t have any this week. Get these major items behind us, and hope no more come up.
Oh, yeah, our new roof is in and looks good. But the gutter covers they shipped were the wrong size and the worker installed them anyway while I was gone Thursday. They look like you know what. Some of our gutter is damaged. I got on a ladder, took photos, texted them to the superintendent, and said, “Are you proud of this work?” He said he sent them to corporate and will take care of it. My evaluation of the company depends on them making good on that promise.
My version, a paperback from the 1960s, has a sanitized title, which was changed at least twice from the original Christie published it as.
As I finish reading one book and look through the thousands of books in the house to choose the next one(s) to read, of late I’ve been looking for books I not only want to read but that I can discard (through sale, donation, or trashing) when I’m done. A couple of months ago I found one of those in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I wouldn’t have known where this book came from or how I obtained it had I not found in it a Christmas gift tag with my handwriting. I gave it to my sister some years ago, probably when we were teenagers. This particular printing was November 1964. It is a student copy, which suggests I bought it during my sister’s high school years.
I admit to this being my first Christie book to read. I’ve see a number of movies made from her books, but had until this never picked one up to read. That is now rectified, and the enjoyment I found from this volume guarantees I will read more of her writing.
Originally published in Christie’s native Great Britain in 1939 with a different title, a very vile title (that I won’t enter here) by today’s standards, it has sometimes been published in the USA with the title Ten Little Indians. Like Christie’s main writing, it’s a murder mystery. In this case, however, you don’t know if the murders are really murders, until the denouement.
Ten people are lured to an island off the southern coast of England named Indian Island. Ownership of the island is in question and the ten, as they are making their way there, have lots of questions about who owns it now. They are invited by a person they don’t know: U.N. Owen. Seven men and three women arrive on the island within a day or two of each other. Eight are guests, two are servants. All expect their host, Owen, to arrive soon. As they head towards the island, we get some backstory on several of them. For others, backstory comes out as the novel progresses.
In each guestroom is a poem, framed and hanging on the wall, titled “Ten Little Indians”. It’s a childhood diddy at least some of the guests recognize. On the table in the dining room are ten Indian figurines. The ten people meet for their first evening meal. After it the butler, following written instructions from Owen, who he’s never meant, puts on a phonograph record. It turns out to be a surprise, someone speaking (not music), who indicts each of the ten with a death they have caused in the past, saying that they would have to pay for it.
How each character pays for it comes out chapter by chapter. The first happens that night, as one of the guests dies of poisoning. Murder? Or suicide? The remaining nine speculate. An elderly judge who is a guest takes charge and “holds court,” trying to work the problem logically and find out what evidence they have. The guests all become suspicious of each other. Meanwhile, one of the Indian figurines disappears.
By the time Christie wrote this, standards for detective novels had changed in, say, the forty years since Doyle had given us Sherlock Holmes. Then, the means of solving the case wasn’t given in the writing. Since then, by Christie’s time it was expected. So in the novel should be the means for the reader to solve it, if you read closely.
I was close. As the ten, one by one, meet their untimely end, I came to the conclusion that one of the dead wasn’t dead but was really alive, but was only thought to be dead by the other guests/servants. I had a candidate, but it turned out I was wrong. I suspect, however, that if I read it over again, slowly, I would see that the right clues were there from the start. That’s probably impossible to do, given that I’ve read the Epilogue that explained it all. Re-reading it would be an interesting exercise.
I never will do it, though. The story and plot were good, the writing was good, it was an easy read, and I highly recommend it. But I have too many books in the house, too many I want to read, and thus have to be very picky about the ones I will re-read. No, this one will go to the get-rid-of pile as soon as I post this. Very glad I read it—actually I should say “we” read it, as my wife and I read it aloud together, the 183 pages plus some of the 32 page reader’s supplement in ten sittings—but it’s goodbye, ten little Indians. I hope another reader someday acquires you and derives the same pleasure from you that I did.
My series on racism is drawing to a close. I’ll have this post and, depending on how wordy I am with it, possibly one more. I think I have made a convincing case that combatting racism requires looking at two things: racist acts, and racism that gives rise to racist acts. You can legislate against racist acts but you can’t legislate against racism.
Further, I believe I made a case that the role of any given person in this fight will be different than everyone else. Not everyone can or should be shouting “Black lives matter!” on Facebook or other social media every day or every hour.
Now I come to the matter of protests. How do you combat racism? A segment of the population is doing that through protests. The protests seem to be mainly gatherings in public places with much talk, repeating of slogans, denunciations, etc. Sometimes this involves blocking public places to prevent access. We have seen that where protesters block highways, preventing all vehicles from passing, including emergency vehicles.
In the speeches I’ve seen—which admittedly has only been on television and not so many there—have a “death to America” ring to them. The protesters seem to not just want change, but want to tear down our government and…do what? Start over with a different form of government? Have anarchy instead of government? The rhetoric seems not to be designed to solve the problem, but only to define it. The autonomous zone established in Seattle, later abandoned, seemed one of these types of protests.
Complicating the protests has been the violence. In certain major cities around the nation, violence, destruction of property, and looting have taken place. Again, the goal doesn’t seem to be to fix the problems in the system, but merely to rage against it.
I say that because the combination of protests and violence seem to be causing people to turn a deaf ear against the protesters. “Oh, you want to burn police cars, smash storefronts, loot businesses, and prevent free access on public streets? The heck with you and whatever it is you’re protesting.” That’s what I see happening. The protests have turned counterproductive. The very people the protesters need to change the system are turning against them. As a result the nation is going backwards in race relations, not forward.
Surely there is a way to protest racist acts in a way that will bring about positive change. That will help those in power at public institutions and at businesses to see how racism has crept in and caused racist acts to occur. Those can be changed. But will they ever be changed when all that we see is violence and looting? I fear not.
It is now close to three months since the death of George Floyd, the last in a line of acts that appear to be racist, where black men, for minor infractions, have wound up dead at the hands of police. Protests have been taking place daily in major cities around the USA. For a while they took place in smaller cities as well. Some changes have been made in how policing is done and how much policing these cities will have. Policing is in part being replaced with social working. How effective this will be in improving conditions for racial minorities in the cities will play out over time, time that will have to be measured in years before we will know the effectiveness of new procedures.
The protests—peaceful protests—have perhaps done some good in terms of racist acts. As a nation, we understand a little better how racist acts happen, and are making some changes. But as to racism, I think we are going backwards. White people look at the violence and pull away from admitting that racism exists. Hearts of men and women are not being changed, or, if they are being changed, it is to become more racist.
I never want to state or define problems and stop there. I want to develop solutions and state them clearly in a way that will convince people of the correctness of those solutions. In this case, however, I’m not sure what the solution is. There is a way to protest against racist acts and bring about improvement, and that doesn’t include violence. There is a way to change people’s hearts and help them to see that their racism, latent or open, is real and that they can change, and that doesn’t include violence. You can’t loot a store and say “Looting is reparations for slavery” and expect racists to turn into non-racists. Maybe you feel better having done the looting, but you have made the world worse, not better.
One of the reasons the civil rights protests of the 1960s were so effective is because they were non-violent. People could see the difference between the mostly black protesters and the white racists who committed violence against the protesters. The morality of one side and the immorality of the other was obvious. Progress was made as a result, and legislation was passed to put an end to a wide array of racist acts. At the same time, I believe we saw some hearts changed, and people who were racists came to the realization they were being stupid, that skin color didn’t matter. Not as many as needed to be changed, but some.
Violence now is being committed, not by those who want to preserve a racist system, but by those who want to change it. Or, perhaps, much of the violence is by those who seek to benefit without even trying to change what they see is a racist system.
End the violence. Protest peacefully. Show the world that your grievances are real, that you want honest change. As you do, also speak out against the violence. Denounce the looting and the violence against people and property. Help others to know that isn’t you, isn’t your group, isn’t your aim. I think that combination, ending the violence and maintenance of peaceful protests, will go a long way to achieving a less-racist system.
When it was time to read “Pride and Prejudice”, I found one on the shelves in the living room, where my old, collectables are.
I know many of you have long ago read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Our son said he read it every year for a number of years. Well, both my wife and I had somehow not read it.
In early May the movie came on TV and we watched it. This was the 2005 version with Keira Knightly, Matthew Macfadyen, and Donald Sutherland. We found the story difficult to follow. Part of this was the English accents; part the overlapping talking by multiple characters in rapid-fire succession; part the sometimes low volume of the voices, such as when the Bennet girls were talking at balls. So, after watching the movie, we decided to read the book aloud in the evenings. We read from an older copy that has been in my family many years. Charles Westcott (“Uncle” Charlie), a good friend of my great-grand uncle David Sexton, gave it to my mother in 1934, according to the inscription. I don’t know if it originally had a dust jacket, but it doesn’t have one now.
This one was published in 1934 and was given to my mother by Charles Westcott, a good friend of her great uncle, David Sexton (who I’m named after).
I’m glad we read it. Reading aloud is slower than reading silently. It took us twenty sittings over a month and a half to complete it. While the language is somewhat archaic, it is a classic that everyone should read. It has become a cultural icon. While I had heard of the title for years without thinking much about it, my attention was first drawn to it by the mentions in the movie You’ve Got Mail. Of course, I didn’t really understand what the Hanks and Ryan characters said about it. Next time I see that movie, I should understand it better.
Not a super old copy. Well, I guess 86 years old is fairly old. But it’s in good condition. I think I’ll keep it.
I don’t think there’s much point in my digging deeply into this classic, analyze the writing, or critique the plot and character development. Pride and Prejudice is much loved by millions. It has stood the test of time, and will be read and loved for at least another century. I hope to read it again sometime in the future. And to see the movie again. We watched it a second time right after reading the book. We were able to follow the plot, but I would really like to understand more of the dialog. Darn those British accents. Darn those silly little girls who all talk at once in hushed giggles. I fear I’ll never be able to understand it all.
This particular book is a keeper. It’s not exactly a collectable, as it’s a little too new, and it looks to have been somewhat of a mass-market hardback. But, it’s in excellent condition. To misquote Harry Potter, the binding is not fragile. It goes back on the shelf, this time next to Sense and Sensibility for easier future findability. I need to re-read that one some day.
I’m interrupting my planned posting schedule, once again, due to a health concern. This time it’s me, not the wife. Yesterday, after a quick, early-afternoon trip to the pharmacy for some needed meds, a huge wave of tiredness came over me. I was unable to do any writing, nor did I feel like doing my afternoon reading in the sunroom. I sat, caught up on e-mails and Facebook (i.e. wasted time), but had not gumption to do much else. Heated up some supper and dished out some already prepared dessert.
Then, around 7 p.m. or so, I noted “weakness” in my left arm. I don’t know how else to describe it. No pain, just weakness. Since heart attacks and strokes are sometimes first indicated in the arms, I paid attention all evening to how it felt. Took a low-dose aspirin. No change. Didn’t feel like doing our reading aloud. Went to bed early, around 10:30 p.m.; no change. Prayed. Got up after half an hour to sit in my chair, figuring I’d better stay awake to monitor it. Prayed. Fell asleep at some point.
Woke up around 1:00 a.m. and felt much better. Barely any feeling of weakness in my arm. Went back to bed and slept well. Up around 6:00 a.m. with just a twinge of the same weakness. Decided to go about my business, but not go outside for my early morning yardwork. The extended darkness due to heavy cloud cover, with thunder rumbling from storms to the west, helped convince me to just get my coffee and go to The Dungeon.
So far I’ve transcribed three letters (two were almost duplicates of one from before) from our Kuwait years into the Word file. That’s now up to 92 pages and over 50,000 words. It looks like about 25 more letters to go, though I’m not sure I’ve found all the ones we have.
Meanwhile, the weakness in my arm is almost gone. I’m wondering now if I did something yesterday to slightly injure it. I’ll take it a little easy today. At least typing doesn’t seem to bother it. Maybe I can add 1,000 to 1,500 words to my novel. And, re-do my now-in-a-shambles blogging schedule.
Lincoln and Darwin. I can think of books and articles galore. Alas, they will never be written.
Dateline 9 Aug 2020:
I take a break from my regular blogging plans for a post to discuss a new phenomenon about my writing life and career. Well, it’s not much of a career, what with the few sales I have, but I’ll still call it a career.
I began this year starting each month posting my goals, and at the end of the month (or start of the following) posting how I did relative to my goals. This ended as life went in unpredictable directions and other pursuits pushed writing mostly aside for a while. I see light in life’s tunnel, however, and am close to getting back to my novel-in-progress.
So what is the new thing that has popped up that’s worth a blog post?
One of the things I’m trying to do to reduce clutter and downsize our possessions is look through the magazines we have accumulated and saved but probably never read. On shelves in the basement storeroom are between 750 and 1,000 magazines. That doesn’t include the National Geographics, which are probably another 500. I looked through these recently, counting a portion then estimating the total count on hand. I could be off by a hundred, I suppose.
Why do we have all of these? The Geographics are sort of understandable. Accumulated in the 1990s, all used, mostly from yard sales, we have about twenty years complete and many, many duplicates. I want to read these, as NG is a class magazine, very educational. When I inventoried these about ten years ago and discovered we had more duplicates than full years, I put them in inventory and kept them on the shelves. Yes, shelves, for we had enough NGs to fill three shelves, the duplicates taking up close to two of them. I suppose I thought I would have a use for them, perhaps in my writing. But now I see that I don’t, so I will be getting rid of them. Hate to simply trash them, so I hope to find a place to donate them or maybe sell them.
But I prate. Most of the other magazines on the shelves are not keepers in my mind. I’m not sure where Lynda stands on that. A few may be of value, and a few are keepers (such as the many years of WW2 history magazines my dad accumulated; I’d like to read them some day). These take up another two shelves. I would love to see those gone before long.
So many good things in this issue, I should read it again. I may do that before it goes to recycling.
But I need to get to my point. I looked in my closet about two weeks ago, and my eyes were drawn to an upper shelf. There, tucked between notebooks, were a few magazines. “What are these” I said out loud. I pulled them out. One was the September 2007 issue of The Writer. I obviously picked this up at a bookstore. I’ve been reading it slowly, an article a day. While I’m gleaning much good information and many tips from it, once finished to recycling it will go. The other was a 2009 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. The cover story had to do with Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, who were born on either side of the ocean on the same day in 1809; it was a 200th anniversary issue.
I took this mag to the sunroom and have been reading it along with a book during my afternoon reading time. The magazine is excellent, the articles all of a high quality and educational. One was about channel/river pilots who guide large cargo ships from the ocean into the mouth of the Columbia River, a dangerous transit. As I was reading, an idea for a novel about this came to me. Another article followed the Freedom Riders and what had happened to many of them since those days of their brave actions. Immediately an idea for a novel, and an article, came to me. The magazine had several other interesting articles—plus, of course, the highlighted articles about Lincoln and Darwin. With each article a writing idea jumped out of the pages.
I finished the magazine Saturday afternoon. I left it on my book pile table when I left the sunroom, but that was an oversight. The next time I go back out there the magazine will also go straight to the recycling box.
How can I do this when I could use the magazine as the basis for books or articles?
Very simply, I have made the decision that I have enough writing ideas, for book-length works, in the queue that I shall never run out of ideas. If God gives me strength enough of mind and body to write for another twenty years (when I turn 88), I shall never run out of ideas. If I keep up my recent writing history of two books a year for twenty years I will not run out of ideas. If I up my production to three books a year and am able to go twenty-five years I will not run out of ideas. Why, therefore, should I accumulate more ideas?
The new ideas may, perhaps, be better books that what I already have lined up. Maybe, but I don’t think I will shift to new things until I finish the things already programmed.
I see the many ideas for writing projects I’ve accumulated as being similar to the great number of possessions in our house and directly analogous to the more than a thousand magazines on shelves. Much has to go. Writing ideas may be a single sheet in a notebook, or a computer file in the cloud, rather than bound paper on a shelf, but they are still clutter, and I’m at the point in life where I don’t need to add possessions, I need to reduce them.
So, good book or article ideas, I’m sorry to do this, but I am suppressing you. I’m driving you out of my mind. I’m not adding you to a notebook or file. Sorry, but you’re gone. Now, I ask God to give me the strength to reduce the clutter of ideas and see many of them become books.
A racist act in progress. Sorry that I couldn’t find the photographer’s name to give proper credit, but hope they would find this use acceptable.
And, after a fair number of posts about racism, talking about the difference between racism and racist acts, about the existence of latent racism, I’m finally at the point of discussing racism itself. If you remember, in prior posts I have differentiated between racist acts—things done or said in the open—and racism—the condition of the heart that gives rise to racist acts.
This may be splitting hairs. Others may not see the difference. I do, however, because I think the way to combat them, to eradicate them, is different. Racist acts can be legislated against. When implementation of laws fails, steps can be taken to improve things. That’s not necessarily easy, but a path forward exists.
But racism, the condition of a person’s heart that may be held inside for long periods and only infrequently give rise to racist acts. How do you combat that? How do you change a person from the inside out? How do you convince them 1) that those with a different skin color are human; 2) they have equal natural rights endowed on them by God; 3) that your inner condition of racism will someday come out with a (or many) racist act(s); and 4) they can change if only they want to.
I’m sure someone will respond that I’m crazy. People can’t change, and they sure can’t change on their own. I would reply that’s true. My own belief is that only God can change the heart. Many people don’t believe in God, or don’t think of Him as a personal God who interacts with people. Would those people say that a racist can’t change? I don’t think so, at least not all people who live without a belief in a personal God believe that.
That brings us to a question of what our role is in combating racism. If God is the one who actually changes the heart, does that leave me out of the equation, or do I have a role to play? If so, what is that role?
I’ve thought a lot about this, and believe my role is to move people to a place where God can change them. How do I do this? As I said briefly in a prior post, by example, education, and persuasion. I may not be qualified in each of those. I may have one out of those I can do well. Maybe I can educate someone as to equality and the lack of difference in the person simply because of skin color. Maybe, after that education, I can persuade them that they can and should change. Their heart won’t change because of my words, but maybe they will think about it, move a little closer to God, and be in a place where he can change their heart.
What about change by example? I hope, hope, hope I was a good example to my children of a person who is not a racist. I hope that is continuing with my grandchildren. But, I have many more people I can persuade than just those. With the corona virus self-quarantine/reduced activities, chances for in-person interaction are greatly reduced, but they are still there. Included in those might be a few opportunities to model acceptance of people of all races.
Social media gives a chance for interaction, however. In fact, right now that’s perhaps the main chance. I have lots of chances to model full acceptance of all races as equal, as endowed by God with the same rights I am endowed with. To my way of thinking, the main contribution I can make to any discussion is calm reasoning. Someone on either side of the racial divide commits a racist act on social media (which, of course, is limited to speech). I can pour water or gasoline on the situation. I can also ignore it, which I often do. But when I sense someone’s posts which seem benign enough are actually a mild racist act, I try to counter them with calm reasoning.
I’ve done that a couple of times in the last three or four days. It’s a first attempt with each of the individuals. I don’t know that my words did any good. But it’s a first attempt. I’ll make another attempt and then another. At some point I’ll make my calm reasoning a little stronger. Maybe they will be nudged a little closer to the One who can work a change in them. That’s my goal. I think that I’m happy with my efforts, though thus far they are too few. We’ll see how this works going forward.
