Sunday, August 2, 2026
1790 1st US census conducted; population is 3,929,214, including 697,624 slaves
1865 Lewis Carroll published "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
1939 Albert Einstein wrote to US President FDR informing him of recent research on fission chain reactions, making possible the construction of "extremely powerful bombs."
1964 North Vietnam fired at the destroyer USS Maddox in what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
1990 Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait, George H. W. Bush ordered troops to Saudi Arabia
2018 Pope Francis declared the death penalty unacceptable in all cases, reversing church teachings.
2025 Seven people have died from malnutrition in the past 24 hours due to the Israeli blockade, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
In bed at 9:45, up at 5:40; 0555. 203.8 120/71/59 101; 66/61/74/65; Beach hazards, waves 4 to 8 ft., dangerous currents, cloudy morning, sunny afternoon.
Morning meds at 8 a.m., Eliquis at 6:20 a.m. and 7:20 p.m.
The first movement I see through my window this morning, other than the birders at the feeders, is my neighbor Lebanese American Ghasson walking his bull mastiff, Athena, at 6:30. Athena is in the habit of stopping and looking around whenever they round the corner from Wakefield Court onto County Line Road. What strikes me is not Athena's habit, but Ghasson's response. He always waits patiently for her to satisfy herself with whatever she's looking at or looking for, and then they move on up County Line Road. He doesn't tug the leash attached to her collar, or worse, pull her forcefuly until she starts walking again. Sometimes I have seen Athena sit down on the street, and just rest and stare. She reminds of a favorite little poem called "Leisure" by W. H. Davies, whose closing couplet has stayed with me for years: "A poor life this, if full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare." What also strikes me is that Ghasson has owned a succession of bull mastiffs, even though they have a life expectancy of only 7 to 9 years. I think of the great loss we felt when we lost our mixed-breed Siamese cat, Blanche, after 17 years, and when we lost our Labradoodle, Lilly, after 15. If Geri were willing, I'd get another cat, probably a Siamese, but Geri, perhaps because she so lovingly nursed Blanche through her final days, including giving her daily IV hydrations, is not interested. Nor have we considered replacing Lilly with another dog. Living with her in her final days was not only emotionally hard, it was also physically overtaxing - lifting her into the car for trips to the vet. Ghasson is younger than we are, and I suppose that accounts for a lot of his willingness to keep replacing his short-lived bull mastiffs. More power to him.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
I'm halfway through Kate Bowler's memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason, and other lies I've loved. I discovered her only yesterday when, by chance, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of her interviewing Ann Patchett. I learned that she (Kate) had written about her life with Stage 4 cancer in her mid-30s. She's a Canadian (Manitoba) and was raised in a Mennonite community and is a professor at Duke U. Divinity School. I liked what I saw of her in the interview and picked up a Kindle copy of her memoir. The book is, in large measure, about how she came to reject "the Prosperity Gospel," about which she wrote a comprehensive history, and the notion that God rewards those who act in accordance with His desires, and punishes or at least withholds rewards from those who don't. Some quotes:
"I too was taught that you had to have just a little faith to be healed, command money to come down from heaven in order to receive a blessing. That the reason why you were not healed is because you lacked faith. Either that or you need to tithe your money in order to receive a breakthrough from God..WHAT?? Now that I think about it, that is a load of Bullshi....SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"
"When someone is drowning, the only thing worse than failing to throw them a life preserver is handing them a reason."
"I wanted to make God to make me good and make me faithful,with just a few shining accolades along the way. Anything would do do if hardship were only detours on my long way life's journey. I believed God would make a way. I don't believe that anymore."
“A lot of Christians like to remind me that heaven is my true home, which makes me want to ask them if they would like to go home first.”
“I used to think that grief was about looking backward, old men saddled with regrets or young ones pondering should‑haves. I see now that it is about eyes squinting through tears into an unbearable future. The world cannot be remade by the sheer force of love. A brutal world demands capitulation to what seems impossible—separation. Brokeness. An end without an ending.”
“Life is a series of losses," says my father-in-law one afternoon...."What Dad?"..."oh, I was just thinking about how, with age, it is one loss after another, " he replies. "Huh." He is right. With age we slowly lose our senses and even our pleasures, our parents and then our friends, preparing us for our own absence. An interesting thought.”
"I think the same thoughts again and again. Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.”
What I'm wondering about Kate Bowler is what I've wondered for years about Reinhold Niebuhr, the popes, clergy generally, my mother and sister: how is it that they believe in God at all, at least the God who is All Love that we all taught to love and adore? This book is another theodicy, an attempt to deal with the question of why an all-loving and all powerful God would create a world with so much pain, suffering, unfairness, wickedness and evil. I've struggled with this most of my life, including the many years I was a churchgoing Catholic. I'm not sure whether I've won the struggle or lost it.
Some anniversary thoughts: (1) Isn't it rather astounding that, even in our nation's first census in 1790, almost one out of every five of those counted were enslaved? This was 14 years after the most powerful men in the nation declared to the world that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness.” Think of the astounding hypocrisy of our primary founding document and of its draftsman, T. Jefferson.
(2) Two of my favorite books: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
(3) The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 10th, and the game was on. Eleven months later, I was landing on the SATS strip at Chu Lai on my way to Danang. 58,000 dead Americans and millions of dead Vietnamese later, our ass was grass and Ho Chi Minh was the lawnmower.
(4) After driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait, George H. W. Bush famously boasted, “It’s a proud day for America. And, by God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all." What a fool. Some time later, I painted a painting of him and Margaret Thatcher (who claimed to have given him a spine transplant), with him exulting and the ghosts of dead victims of the war in the background.
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