Reset time. “Free at last, free at last”! Finally, I could start to breathe easier and to move in a different direction. But which direction? What career options were there for seminary dropouts? For some reason, the usual suspects—law, medicine, and being a business executive didn’t seem quite right. Somebody mentioned social work and that sounded like a possible option, but I really did not know much about it and associated it (incorrectly) with a woman’s career. Teaching? Well, what would I teach?

The good news was that I had a year to try to figure this out. I was officially enrolled in MUST (“Metropolitan Urban Service Training” program) where disillusioned or confused seminary students were taking a year off from seminary and placed in a group of five or six others along with a leader and an assistant. The group met every week for a full year when we talked about important issues related to our careers and our lives. We were expected to secure secular jobs on our own, to attend religious services regularly, to be part of a faith community, and to participate in the weekly discussion sessions.

This was Embry’s junior year at her new school, Barnard College, located across Broadway from Columbia University and a 15-minute walk from our first real home, a studio apartment in an old, rundown, rent controlled apartment house near the edge of Harlem. (We had lived in the Union dorm reserved for married students after we married.) Our rent was below $400/month including utilities.

That 12-month period from the fall of 1966 through the summer of 1967 was one of the best years of my life.

It was a time for Embry and me to begin to get to know each other and for us to get to know New York City. Embry loved her classes at Barnard, made straight As, and made some new friends at Barnard. The other lost souls participating in the MUST discussion group, all men, were from various seminaries in the city and beyond. They were good people, and the leader of the group, a streetwise Episcopal clergyman with a fabulous sense of humor, was an inspiration, who helped me move in a new direction.

Embry and I explored New York neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village and Tribeca. We visited parks, got free tickets from Union to various plays and concerts that wealthy donors could not attend. We rented bikes in Central Park, ice skated in the huge outdoor rink near Central Park South, explored the trails and walkways there and in Riverside Park, took the ferry to Staten Island and back, window shopped on Fifth Avenue, and loved our tiny apartment, though the only view we had was an air shaft and a fire escape.

We did not waste any time in adopting our first kitten, “Minette,” part Russian Blue and part Siamese, who would live to be 18 years old and was a much loved part of our early family. Over the sixty plus years of our marriage we have adopted eight felines, but none ever quite compared to this extraordinary creature, who effortlessly could jump from the floor to the top of a door.

I ended up over the course of the year with five different jobs, two that fell into the suitable category. The first job was billed as an editor’s job. When I responded to an ad in The New York Times for “editor/proofreader” thinking I had managed to nail a job in the literary world, I was directed to an enormous room with at least 500 desks and found my assigned spot in row 15, seat six. My job was to check off numbers when the employee across the desk from me read them off a long list. At break time when I asked him which publishing company this was, he laughed and said, “Are you kidding me? Publishing? This is the bookkeeping department of one of the largest retailers in New York!”
When I replied that this must be a mistake since I was hired for an editor’s job. He chuckled, “Yeah, they always do that so they can get someone who can read.”

That job lasted two days, then the next one a couple of weeks, editing the memoir of a retired, 80-year-old, barely literate, multi-millionaire, who founded one of the largest drug companies in the country. He fired me when I corrected his capitalization of every word he wanted to emphasize, just like Trump does now.

Then I managed to get a job as temporary assistant sales manager in the toy department at Macy’s over the Christmas rush, a job which I liked though it almost cost me my life when I had to stay late one evening to clean up the accounting. The lights suddenly went out, and I could hear dogs growling. It turns out that most shop lifting happens after the department store is closed, and unleashing vicious Dobermans was Macy’s solution. I raced to the front door in a panic, barely escaping being torn to shreds by these monsters.

And then came Shelly’s All Stars. I saw an ad in The Times for a counselor-driver, called the number, and set up a meeting with Shelly Weiner, an energetic, ambitious and charismatic guy in this early 30s, who was just starting his business–picking up and entertaining grammar school age boys after school, mainly in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side. He drove one huge station wagon and I drove the other. I mostly had the first and second graders, whose families lived mostly in the Village. Many were in show biz or the media. Shelly had the older kids, mostly from the Upper West Side. We picked the kids up–seven or eight kids each–at their fancy private schools, usually took them to Central Park for games and fun, and then returned them to their fancy apartment buildings.

My favorite activity in Central Park was “dinosaur hunting,” asking puzzled walkers or embraced couples if they had seen a large green creature in the park that I and my young charges were hunting. After a puzzled initial response, they would usually wink and respond, “Oh, he headed off in that direction, green and scaly, and about 20-feet tall? Yeah, you can’t miss him.” And off we charged. Driving the kids home I kept them amused by inventing the “Freddie M. Freenball” stories, which years later I retold to my own children and grandchildren.

At the beginning of the summer, Embry and I departed for a long vacation, leaving New York City for a summer of touring Europe. My grandmother had died earlier that year and left me about $1,500, which to the dismay of my parents we decided to use for a summer of exploring Europe. Embry was totally fluent in French, having spent two summers in France (when she was 10 and 12) living with a French family where no English was spoken. And she loved adventures.

So, for almost three months we hitchhiked our way through most of Europe, staying in cheap hotels, youth hostels and the equivalent of bed and breakfasts. Given her language skills and her love of travel, she was the real leader of this effort, which was more challenging for me, but an experience of a lifetime and the first of our many travels in interesting and exotic countries, highlighted by our 2014 trip around the world without flying.

But what about my last year at Union? How would I negotiate that and then what? None of these questions had answers, and this was 1967 when the fires were beginning to burn in urban ghettos in large cities and the student anti-Vietnam War protests were just getting started. Who had any idea that in a few months Columbia University would be under siege and both Barnard and Union would shut down? That Martin Luther King would be gunned down in Memphis and that RFK would be assassinated in California? How we managed to get through that period will be the subject of the next post.

 

 

 

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I was discussing the idea of continuing with my recent autobiographical posts when my wife, Embry, timidly inquired, “Is there going to be anything about me?”

Good heavens, I thought, of course there is!

Susan Embry Martin and I were married by her uncle Jack, a Methodist minister, on December 28, 1965, mere children at a time when it was not all that unusual for child weddings like ours (pre sexual revolution of the 1970s). She was 20. I was 23. We celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary last year with our two, now middle aged, children, their spouses and our four teenage grandchildren at a resort in New England. Our marriage has been a partnership as well as a love match since we have grown up together, travelled the world together, and have had parallel careers.

It is fitting and proper to introduce Embry to those who do not know her.

Embry was the third child of Lousie and Grier Martin. She was born in 1945 in Bethesda, Maryland, where her family lived during the war when Grier was finishing up his duties as a naval officer. They returned to Bristol, Tennessee, for several years before settling in Davidson, North Carolina. Her father went on to become the President of Davidson College from 1958-1968. Some readers may recall that I graduated from Davidson in 1964. So, yes, I married the president’s daughter! This was considered a coup at the time—since she was eyed by many Davidson students, who upon occasion could not miss seeing a pretty tomboy walking or skipping across the campus barefooted. That I, of all people, should be the one to win the hand of this extraordinary person was a long shot. Afterall, I was the “student radical” at the time, who organized and led a civil rights march in Charlotte the spring of my senior year in 1964 and was persona non grata with the college administration. (I did meet with Embry’s father as was required by such actions and found him to be surprisingly neutral, almost supportive. “The Board of Trustees has ordered me to tell you to stop your march but I do not have that the authority to do that.” A couple of years after that he became instrumental in welcoming African American students to Davidson. I was a big fan of both of Embry’s parents.)

While I had watched Embry play pickup basketball with several of Davidson students (one of whom was her boyfriend), I did not really meet her until a last-minute, blind date arranged by a mutual friend for the Davidson Spring Frolics weekend my senior year at Davidson. If it was not love at first sight, it was close to it. She was a freshman at Randolph Macon Women’s College at the time the romance began. We shared many of the same values and aspirations to try to make the world a kinder, fairer, and gentler place. I was hooked from the day we met.

Our wedding was held 18 months later in the Davidson College Presbyterian Church with close to a thousand people attending (practically the entire town had been invited, along with the Davidson faculty, Board of trustees and benefactors.) A reception followed with not a whole lot of food, a long receiving line, no band, no dancing, no music or alcohol, and lots of good will. That was the way most Presbyterian weddings in the South were in those days. Since we had no money, we spent our honeymoon at the Martin lake house about a half hour’s drive away on Lake Norman. For me the whole experience could not have been better.

Here is what you need to know about Embry Howell. First, she grew up with the nickname of “Mimy.” That is not the same as “Mimi,” which many people have incorrectly called her since few people have ever heard of anyone by the name of Mimy. In fact, I was not even certain that there was anyone else living on the planet with that name until I checked with AI. The answer came out that there are about five girls in the world each year named “Mimy,” due mostly to the misspelling of “Mimi.” The reason she got that name was that this was her early pronunciation of her middle name, “Embry,” that her parents wanted her to be called by. When she got to college, she dropped the “Susan” completely and was known as Embry Martin, becoming Embry Martin Howell after we were married and she transferred to Barnard, the women’s college next to Union. She is still known as Mimy by her old friends and by me when we are not with other people.

Second, she was brought up as a Presbyterian. By nature, Presbyterians are hardworking, unpretentious, modest and stingy. Even if they have a lot of money—which many do—they do not let on that they do and are penny pinchers. They can’t help it. This is in sharp contrast to Episcopalians, who tend to spend money whether we have it or not. Plus, Presbyterians are extremely competitive. And if you need proof of Embry’s competitiveness, just ask anyone who has ever played tennis or pickleball with her.

And there are other characteristics that distinguish Embry. She has always been very secure in her own skin and never tried to be someone she isn’t. She is also incapable of telling a lie. But even when she tells an unwelcomed truth that might upset someone, she does it in a way that does not offend. And finally, she is very smart and driven to do the very best she can albeit in school, career, volunteering, or parenting. In a word, she is one tough cookie and has been a wonderful life partner.

Embry graduated from Barnard College as a Phi Beta Kappa, majoring in math. She got a masters in biostatistics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, followed a few years later by a PhD in public policy at the George Washington University and is a widely respected (now retired) health care researcher specializing in maternal and child health. She has been and is a terrific mother to our children and a doating grandmother to our four grandchildren.

This does not mean that our marriage has been perfect or without its challenges. This is true of all marriages, especially when you have two people with strong personalities, who are driven in trying to find their place in the world and have stressful and challenging careers. But it has been a great marriage for which I am deeply grateful.

You got it. I lucked out.

But what I have not told you is how life changed for us after we got married. When we first met and all the way to our marriage in late 1965, we both understood that I was going to be an Episcopal priest and that Embry Howell was going to be the mother of our six children. Six! That was her idea, not mine. I envisioned a stay-at-home mom —as most women were in those days. But she has corrected me more than once that even at that time she wanted to pursue a challenging career and have six kids. She now admits that her goal was a bit unrealistic and says even though she loves infants and small children, she has no regrets.

My, how the world—and our place in it—changed starting in the fall of 1966 after we returned from our civil rights experience in Southwest Georgia!

What happened next and how we made our way in the world will be the subject of future posts. Stay tuned.

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This post was supposed to answer the question posed by several readers as to why I was never ordained. That never got posted. So here it is. The short answer is that the career of an ordained minister was “above my pay grade,” (or way too hard) as they say in Washington. Plus, some people are “called to the ministry” and some aren’t. Put me in the latter category. But of course, as is true of practically all things in life, it is a bit more complicated.

I grew up in the South in a religious family, who happened to be Episcopalians. My father for many years was the senior warden (top lay leadership position) at Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Nashville, the oldest and largest Episcopal church in Middle Tennessee. My mother was very active in “The Women of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee.” In fact, she headed up the effort for several years. And in those days Episcopalians were a bit of a rarity in Middle Tennessee, which was dominated by fundamentalist, white Christians, primarily Southern Baptists. There seemed to be more wiggle room in the Episcopal Church as to what you had to believe “to be saved” than in the more evangelical faith traditions.

And religious affiliations also tend to be as much a sociological phenomenon as a religious one. My parents instilled in me the idea that Episcopalians were generally more sophisticated, better educated, wealthier, and more tolerant than members of other denominations. I never thought of my parents or myself as being snobs, but I can see how others might have come to that conclusion. My grandfather was a bank president and so was my father. And we lived in an elite part of Nashville called Belle Meade. As I mentioned in my last post, that did not mean we had a lot of money. (My grandfather’s bank went under during the Great Depression), but it did mean we had status. And I was made aware that when I was quite young. If anyone doubts that status of being an Episcopalian was not important, I remind you of the experience that I have already written about in a previous post when Embry and I attended a religious “camp meeting” in Covington, Georgia, many years ago when a young, dynamic, Southern Baptist minister described to an assembled group of several hundred Christians on a week-long retreat the difference between the major Protestant denominations:

He started off with a big smile and said, “Now I am a Southern Baptist and proud of it. A Southern Baptist is a Christian who has been washed.”

Then after a few smiles and chuckles from the vast congregation, he continued:

A Methodist is a Southern Baptist who can read.

A Presbyterian is a Methodist who has gone to college.

And an Episcopalian is a Presbyterian whose investments turned out all right.

The congregation roared with laughter. They all knew exactly what he was talking about.

Status, however, was not the real reason for my becoming a minister. The real reason was that the clergy at Christ Church had a huge impact on me in helping me get through my polio experience. When I grew up, I wanted to be just like them. The clergy whom I worked with years later during the summer of 1963 on Henry Street in New York’s Lower East Side also had a big influence on me. They were young, smart, and fully engaged in the civil rights movement and social justice issues. I wanted to be just like them too.

I was looking for a helping profession where I could make a difference in people’s lives. There were two problems which caused me to change courses. The first was that when I attended Union Seminary and did fieldwork, I began to realize just how difficult the job of a minister was. Showtime every Sunday morning at 11 o’clock, then having to deal with lots of difficult personalities, and not being paid very much for a lot of very hard work. But I think I could have handled that. The more challenging one was that beginning when I was in college at Davidson, I began to question the theology and the belief structure that are fundamental to Christianity. I have never questioned that spirituality is an important part of the human experience. I questioned the exclusivity that accompanies Christian belief and practice.

I do not believe that people’s acceptance of Christian “orthodox beliefs” is their ticket to heaven and that people who are not orthodox Christians are doomed to hell. Rather I would put it this way: one destination, many pathways. And these pathways exist in all Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions and in other religious traditions—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, primitive religions, and others. While Embry and I have kept up our involvement in several Episcopal churches over the years and have held leadership positions there, my own beliefs are more in line with the Unitarian Universalist tradition. If you have been following my spiritual blog posts, this should come as no surprise. That we have never switched denominations has more to do with inertia, and the friendships we have established in the Episcopal Church communities we have been part of, more than anything else.

And if my devout Episcopal friends are right that a place in heaven seated between God and Jesus, is reserved exclusively for “High Church Episcopalians,” heaven is not going to be very crowded. There are only 1.5 million baptized Episcopalians in the United States, about 0.5% of the U.S, population and a good number of those do not attend church. And as for the devout, high church Episcopalians, they account for only a tiny fraction of Episcopal church membership.

Despite my uncertainty I stuck with the career track of becoming an Episcopal priest for the first two years at Union but then decided to take a year off to work in secular jobs, an opportunity available to Union students at the time. That was the last straw for my old school bishop, who had tolerated my uncertainty up until that time. He demanded that for every year I had studied at that “heretical Protestant seminary” called Union I would be required to spend a year at Nashoda House, the hard-core Anglo Catholic, high church seminary somewhere in the back woods of Wisconsin. This was an offer he knew I could never accept. He had given me a respectable way out. When we parted ways, he gave me a big hug. I felt a huge bolder lifted from my shoulders. And some sadness.

But what to do next? That will be the subject of a later blog post.

 

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It was the summer of 1966. Embry and I were at a civil rights mass meeting in Baker County, Georgia, sweltering in the heat. Baker County at the time was described as the “meanest, nastiest, and cruelest” county in Georgia at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. We had been married only six months and were only in our early 20s. Born and bred in the South (Tennessee and North Carolina), here we were on our “honeymoon,” sitting in a packed church for a mass meeting of “the movement.” The topic of the mass meeting was what to do with us.

A couple of weeks before we had driven down from New York City in a caravan of a dozen Union Seminary students, all white, who had been inspired by our classmate, Charles Sherrod, a dynamic African American in his early 30s, who was one of the founders of SNCC, at the time considered to be the most radical of all the civil rights groups. Embry was the only female, and we were the only married couple. What most of us Union students would be doing that summer was registering Black voters. Some thought that task would be too dangerous for a young, white woman, so the question was what to do with us. Plus, there was a desperate need for white people to integrate the staff of the Head Start program, which was scheduled to begin in Baker County in a matter of days. Unless there were there were more white people involved, the federal government had threatened to freeze the funds. Since there was no chance of getting any local white person to volunteer, it seemed to be a natural for us.

The problem was that for us to help with Head Start we would have to live in “Bad Baker County,” near the site for the Head Start program in Newton, the county seat. Newton was in the middle of the huge county, about 50 miles from Albany where the headquarters for the movement was. There was no way we could commute. Newton had been the scene of lynchings and Ku Klux Klan activity for decades. Many African Americans had died. Why would anyone take the risk of providing us a place to stay?

It was a bit embarrassing to be the subject of these mass meetings. People were being asked to put their lives on the line to take us in. We could understand why there were no takers and felt guilty for putting them in this bind. But there we were, and besides, they needed Head Start. And if going door to door to register voters was considered too dangerous for Embry (and for me, for that matter!), what else were we going to do?

Several people spoke of the dangers of housing a white couple. A younger SNCC worker got up and shouted, “The hell with Head Start and to hell with whites in the movement!” The movement now was all about Black Power, he pleaded. Whites were no longer welcome. Sherrod spoke up again. It was now or never, he argued, and Head Start was too important for Black children to let the opportunity go to waste. Sherrod told the radical SNCC organizer that some might think white people should not be involved in the movement, but here white people were, risking their lives for civil rights. We should be allowed to stay and someone should volunteer to take us in.

We did not know it at the time, but this was an existential moment for SNCC. Behind the scenes there was a battle for the leadership and direction of the organization with Stokley Carmichael on one side and John Lewis and Charles Sherrod on the other. The key issue had to do with the role that well intentioned, white people should play. Stokely won out, moving the organization toward Black Power, excluding bleeding heart, white people like Embry, me, and my classmates at Union.

The mass meeting wore on into the night with people sweltering and the constant sounds of fans twirling and crickets chirping outside. Embry and I became more apprehensive. Obviously there would no local white volunteers and this was the last chance to recruit white people if Head Start was going to happen. Mass meetings had been held in several other Black churches in the county where the issue was raised. No takers. We were about ready to give up.

Then in the back of the packed room, a large Black woman in her mid 30s rose and quietly said, “I’ll take them.” It was Dovanna Holt, the mother of two teenage boys and married to Jack Holt, a man in his sixties, almost totally blind but still farming the 50-acre tract given to his ancestors by their slave owner at the end of the civil war. There was a brief hush in the room and then a scattering of applause. One of the younger SNCC workers, who was the most outspoken about the role of white people in the movement, stormed out of the room.

That was how we began the long, hot summer of 1966—living with the Holt family, helping with Head Start, attending civil rights strategy meetings where young SNCC workers talked about how bad all white people were and that Black Power now ruled the movement. We were aids in the Head Start program, which was headed (ironically) by a very sharp white woman, who had taught in one of New York City’s elite private kindergartens. It was great work and we loved it. And we loved the Holts. We were totally isolated from local white people and saw only a few all summer. A few weeks after we moved in, a third Union Seminary volunteer moved in and slept in the room with the two teenage sons. Years later he became a famous legal aid lawyer in Nashville and has remained one of our good friends.

The Holt house was modest with no indoor plumbing and part of a four or five-house enclave at the end of a dirt and sandy road, which to us seemed like the wilderness. The families were all related, had small farms of 40 or 50 acres each, and enjoyed doing activities together. We attended church with them on Sunday mornings and on evenings during the week, accompanied them to movement meetings, and hung out with them on weekends. We joined the Holt family pig roast that lasted all night for the Fourth of July annual Holt family picnic with a dozen relatives coming from all over Georgia and north Florida.

Embry and I in the afternoons following Head Start sat through a murder trial that lasted most of the summer where a white man who had killed an African American man in cold blood got off Scot free from a white jury that only spent about an hour deliberating.

Years later we attended the 25th reunion of the Civil Rights Movement in Albany and Southwest Georgia when we were able to reunite with old friends and with Noah and Nathaniel, the two sons of Dovanna and Jack Holt. While we were concerned about the future of the two boys, both went on to finish college, were married, had families, and were doing well. The oldest son had a master’s in finance from Stanford University, and his wife had an MBA from there as well. He went on to become the president and COO of the largest railroad in California. His wife became the CFO of the Bay Area Blue Cross Blue Shield. They recently had retired and moved recently to Albany, living in a city that had radically changed. Charles Sherrod was now on the city council!

We learned then the story of the close call that had happened the summer in 1965, the year before we arrived, when a dozen Klansmen surrounded the Holt house with weapons drawn. When they found out that in the Holt House all the families on their street had assembled and were armed, the grand dragon called off the assault. When we asked why no one had told us about this when we were there, Noah, the older son replied. “No one wanted to make you afraid.”

Our civil rights journey was an experience of a lifetime.

I kept a diary of the experience of the summer of 1966, and in 2011 published a book, Civil Rights Journey, through Author House, which used a lot of the material from the diary (available to purchase online in hardback or paperback from Amazon. Cheap.).

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What are the major experiences in your life that you consider “life changers”? Another way of asking the question is if certain events in your life had not happened, how would your life have been different. We all have formative experiences. It is part of the human condition. Your childhood, your parents, friends, mentors, relationships, marriages, schools, jobs and health all come to mind.

For me a major life changing event in my life was polio. I came down with polio in the summer of 1952 when I was ten years old, the last big epidemic year (58,000 cases) before the vaccine became available. I missed the fourth grade (though I did not fall behind because I had a “homebound teacher.”) That year I spent six months in Warm Springs, the famous rehabilitation center in Georgia that President Roosevelt started for polio victims. After the first year of being at Warm Springs and having homebound teaching, I was able to return to school for the fifth through seventh grades, only to be sidelined again for my eighth-grade year due to needing a spinal fusion to correct a severe curvature of the spine (a result of paralyzed stomach muscles). While not happy times, polio gave me a different perspective on life and set me on a path that may not have happened had I not been a polio kid.

I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, the son and grandson of Nashville bankers, both of whom became bank presidents. While in those days bankers—even bank presidents—did not make a huge amount of money, my parents, younger brother and I lived in a comfortable house in a neighborhood called Belle Meade, Nashville’s most exclusive residential community, and my parents were part of the Nashville social set. I went to an elite private prep high school for boys (which I admit that I loved) in Nashville. It is hard to know if without my polio experience, I would have followed in my father’s footsteps and pursued a banking career in Nashville, joined a country club, and been part of Nashville society.

What did I learn from my polio experience?

First, it taught me that no matter how bad off you think you might be, there are people who are worse off than you. My three roommates at Warm Springs all had serious paralysis in their legs and were told they would never be able to walk again. My paralysis was mainly in my hands, arms, and stomach. And when I left Warm Springs after six months, all three roommates remained, their fate uncertain. Many at Warm Springs were in iron lungs, some I presume for the rest of their lives. I realized just how fortunate I was compared to the plights of so many fellow young patients. Plus, the spinal fusion that sidelined me for another year was successful, despite given only a 50-50 chance. Without it –a new procedure at the time—I was told I would not have lived into my 20s since most of my vital organs would have been affected.

Second, there was virtually no complaining or self-pity at Warm Springs, at least that I was aware of. We polio kids all soldiered on, trying to do the best we could in a challenging situation.

Third, my polio experience taught me the value of friendships. During both years of missing school and being homebound, my friends stuck with me. This made such a difference! I had visitors almost every afternoon, who came over to join me in a game of Monopoly or chess or to listen to  rhythm and blues songs I had recorded from listening to WLAC radio the night before. My best friend at the time, Allen, visited me several days each week. Even though he has lived in Atlanta for years we remain best friends to this day and still talk regularly by phone. Several others who stuck with me during those days also remain great friends.

Then, there is the bleeding heart part. Polio changed how I looked at the world. I plead guilty to having a place in my heart for the “little guy.” The polio experience made me acutely aware of what it is like to go through hard times. I identify with the underdog and those who have been dealt tough hands. I grew up in a Republican household but since 1960 have been an avid, progressive Democrat. The bleeding heart part was also responsible for my organizing and leading a civil rights march in Charlotte in 1964 when I was a senior at Davidson College and for my involvement in the Civil Rights Movement with my wife, Embry ,when we worked with SNCC in Southwest Georgia in 1966.

Who knows, maybe I would have followed this pathway without the polio experience. Many of my high school friends who grew up in the same elite neighborhood I did and remain good friends are Democrats and hate Trump as much as I do. But still, I give much credit to my polio experience for making me a hopeless bleeding heart.

Finally, after years of being sidelined as a polio victim, in my twenties I became obsessed with physical fitness. I never would have been a good athlete even if I had not had polio. But not being able to participate in sports made me realize how important physical fitness is and how much I was missing. I began serious long distance running in my late twenties when we were living in Chapel Hill and for over 25 years ran 15-20 miles a week—often with a running partner– averaging about three miles a run (8 to 9-minute/mile pace) and competing in 10-mile races almost every year. I finished one half-marathon and achieved my goal of reaching the 20-mile mark in the Marine Corps Marathon in the early 80s. Following knee surgery and old age limitations, I switched to power walking about 15 years ago, then just walking, and now am inching along, aided by a hiking stick or rollator for stability. But at 84 I am still trying and that is what counts.

But polio did have its painful moments. When I was about twelve, my mother took me to see a dermatologist for treatment for teenage acne. The doctor—and I still remember what he looked like—casually commented to my mother within ear shot of me, “Carroll, I feel so sorry for you. You have a son who is a cripple and who now has acne. How sad! How terribly sad! And how hard it must be for you.”

Do not ever “feel sorry” for someone who you think is inferior for whatever reason. And if you can’t help feeling sorry for them, certainly do not tell them that. Condescending pity is the most damaging insult of all. I am happy to report, however, that this was the only time that this happened to me.

Then there was the Boy’s State experience in Tennessee in 1959. At Boy’s State in segregated Tennessee one senior white boy from every white high school in the state was selected by his school for a week-long experience in civic engagement. I was selected from Montgomery Bell Academy. At the time it was considered an honor, and I was excited to be able to participate.

The site of Boy’s State that year was a military high school in Middle Tennessee. I was somewhat surprised when I arrived that retired military personnel–some in uniform–were responsible for conducting the event and that some of the leaders treated it like a boot camp. For me it was the first opportunity I had had since 1952 to be just a normal person without a serious disability. I had no intention of mentioning to anyone that I was a polio kid. Finally, I felt could relax and just be a normal kid.

On the second day of the event the entire group of over 100 teenage boys gathered on the field of the school’s football stadium. The first activity of the day was calisthenics. An order came out of the loudspeaker to do a bunch of exercises starting with pushups followed by sit ups. I struggled with the pushups but managed barely to get through them. Then came the sit ups. My stomach muscles were totally gone, so I watched while the other boys were doing the exercise. I noticed one of the leaders charging toward to me. He was frowning and had a microphone which was linked to the speakers on the field. Standing over me and observing that I was not doing a sit up, he shouted into the microphone, “Stop! Everyone stop!” All activity on the field stopped and all eyes were on me. The leader then stared down at me, asked me my name, and the name of my school, and then ordered me to do a sit up. There was an eerie silence on the field. I tried and failed. I tried again. No luck.

Over the loudspeaker came his snarling remark: “This kid, Joe Howell, from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville can’t even do a sit up. He is pathetic and an example of your generation going to hell, you wimps and pussies! He is a disgrace and should never have been allowed to come to Boy’s State in the first place….” and on he went using me as an example of everything that was wrong with “the younger generation.” If we did not shape up, we were doomed to failure and people like me did not belong at Boy’s State and should be sent home.

Not one of my happier moments, to be sure. Of course, I could have offered my excuse of being a polio kid, but this was the first time in my life that I had had the opportunity to leave that behind me and move on. So, I kept my silence.

After the exercises were over several boys that I did not know, one by one, came over and patted me on my back. “Idiot,” one boy whispered about the guy. “Total asshole. Ignore the bastard,” muttered another.

I managed to get through the remainder of the week, made some new friends, and gave the overall experience high marks. Besides I had to agree that a normal senior in high school probably should be able to do a sit up. There was no way the drill sergeant could have known about my being a polio kid.

When at Davidson College I had a few similar experiences since I was determined to put the polio behind me. In physical education, I finally got up my courage to tell the instructor that I did not believe I should be in his wrestling class due to having had polio. He sternly answered that the best wrestler he had ever coached had had polio and ordered me into the ring, a command which in less than a minute led to my shoulder being dislocated. I was then transferred into the trampoline class. When my turn came, the coach ordered me to do a somersault. “Not a good idea.” I shouted back while jumping up and down, “I don’t have any stomach muscles!” When he again ordered me to try one, I tried and landed about six feet off the trampoline, fortunately caught by my fellow classmates before I hit the hard concrete. I was then excused from PE classes for the rest of my freshman year.

And now at my advanced age of 84 and living in a continuing care retirement community, I see many people using canes, rollators, and wheelchairs, and I use a hiking stick and occasionally a rollator myself. I have had three falls, all resulting in mostly minor head injuries, though one fall led to my spending a week in Holy Cross Hospital.

But I am not throwing in the towel. Age is the great leveler. And in the end, we all die. That is the way it is on the planet Earth. But just as I was inspired at Warm Springs about how hard polio kids tried and how little anyone complained, I am inspired by fellow residents here. We are all trying to play the cards we have been dealt the best we can, squeezing the remaining drops out of the lemon without complaining or self-pity.

What else can we do?

And as I look back on my life, I remain grateful for my polio experience. It was a “life changer,” for me.

 

 

 

 

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Are you sick and tired of reading more posts about how terrible Trump is and the sad state of affairs of American politics? Well, I know that for many enough is enough—especially the $1.8 billion slush fund for people who attacked the capitol on January 21, 2021, and the Justice Department’s determination that Trump’s and his families’ tax returns can never be audited.

Beyond the pale.

So rather than do more moaning and groaning, I am starting what I am calling “A Day in the Life Series.” These are true stories that have happened to me over the years that I think readers might find instructive or amusing. Here is the first one. Others will appear from time to time when the spirit moves me. And of course, I will continue with my posts on current events, politics and spirituality.

Marcus Borg

Have you heard of Marcus Borg or read any of his books? He was one of the great contemporary Biblical scholars and progressive Christian American theologians, who was a bestselling author and college professor, and who wrote Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, and The God We Never Knew. He was born two weeks ahead of me in late March 1942 and died in 2015. This week I picked up his last book, The Heart of Christianity, from a friend’s apartment and began reading it. It is a fabulous book and brought back old memories.

In the mid 1990s a neighbor of mine asked if I might be interested in picking up Professor Borg from the hotel in Washington where he was staying and driving him to the Episcopal Church where he would be giving a lecture. My neighbor knew that I had a seminary degree and was a fan of Professor Borg. Finally, I had found a Christian theologian whom I felt was on my wavelength and spoke to my somewhat unorthodox Christian beliefs, casting a broad net, and honoring the universality of all religious beliefs. I jumped at the opportunity.

As I drove to the hotel my heart was beating fast and my palms were sweating. What would I say to this famous man, to this genius? How could I relate to someone with such stature? Well, first, I decided I would let him know that I was no average, run-of-the-mill, biblically illiterate Episcopalian, that I had read most of his books, held him in great esteem, and, most important, that I had graduated from what at the time was considered by many to be the center of progressive Protestant theology. Reinhold Neibhur and Paul Tillich had taught at Union just before I had arrived, and most professors had written notable books and were highly regarded. Certainly, the fact that I had a degree from Union would mean something to him. But I did not want to sound like I was bragging, just that when I told him I was a big fan, my enthusiasm would have credibility.

But what did he look like? How would I know who was the great theologian when the passengers got off the elevator? I brought with me one of his books with his photo on the back cover and thought that would help me recognize him, but still, it could be awkward.

I went to the front desk and asked the clerk to let Professor Borg know that his ride was waiting. The elevator doors soon opened and several people exited. One looked like he might be Professor Borg—middle aged and serious. I greeted him and introduced myself. He gave me a puzzled look, brushed me off, and quickened his pace toward the door. I concluded that was not Professor Borg. When the next time the elevator came down, the only male that got off had to be in his eighties. From his biography on the back of his book that I was carrying, I knew we were both the same age, fifty-two. Then the door opened again and there was one guy who could have been my age, had a beard and appeared erudite. So, with some fear and trepidation I approached the man and asked if he could possibly be Professor Borg. He nodded politely. I introduced myself and off we went.

As we approached my car, I boldly announced that not only had I read most of his books and loved them, I knew what I was talking about because I was a graduate of the great theological school, Union Theological Seminary in New York City. So, there. I had said it! Would this make any difference? Would he be impressed? I waited for his response.

He stopped in his tracks, just before we got into the car and gave me a puzzled look, eying me over. Then I thought I noticed a slight smile and a twinkle in his eye. He replied, “Really, when did you attend Union?”
I told him I entered in 1964 and graduated in 1968.

“Joe,” he said smiling, “We were classmates!”

I am sure I must have looked surprised. Why didn’t I remember him? I did not know anyone named Marcus, and our class was small, only about 50 people. I thought I knew everyone. Then I realized that while I did not know anyone named Marcus, I did remember a guy named Mark, who was about his size though 30 years younger. He had to be the Mark Borg I knew in 1964.

“Oh,” I said, “Mark Borg! Yes, of course I remember you, Mark Borg!”

“Joe, yes, that was me. Marcus Borg!”

What I could not remember was whether I was the only one at Union who called him by the name “Mark.” But it made little difference. We laughed, embraced and headed off to the church.

The lecture did not disappoint though after that I never saw him again. My friend drove him back to his hotel. It turned out that Marcus Borg only spent his freshman year at Union where he was a “Rockefeller Scholar” just like I was, (for undecided college grads to try out a freshman year at seminary to see if it might lead to a career in the ministry or a teacher of religion.) He transferred to Oxford the next year where several years later he received his doctorate.

Marcus Borg died in 2015 at age 72 due to a prolonged struggle with pulmonary fibrosis. I distinctly remember hearing a radio interview with him—I believe on PBS– that year when I suppose the interviewer knew of his dire health diagnosis. When the interviewer asked whether given his universalist approach to theology he believed in an afterlife, he replied—I suspect with a twinkle in his eye— “Well, put it this way. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.”

 

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On the Fourth of July this year we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding. We have not been a dominant world power the entire time, of course, but since the end of World War II we have had our day in the sun. And no “empire” lasts forever. Think of the major world empires that have ruled the roost on the planet Earth. Wikipedia lists over 125 empires that have come and gone during the time Homo sapiens have dominated the planet. The big ones are well known—the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Ottoman, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and the British Empire, which was the largest of all and controlled about a quarter of the world’s population at the beginning of the 20th Century. Decimated by the causalities and deficits inflicted by the Second World War, the Brits retreated and handed the baton to us.

We may not fit into the narrow definition of empire, but Trump sure tries to act like a dictator; and in many ways we have called the shots for the last 50-odd years, which admittedly is a short time for a dynasty to rule. The overall average lifespan for a dynasty is about 250 years according to Wikipedia and about 500 years for the major ones. And just look at what we have accomplished in our short time at the helm.

• The dollar is as close to a world currency as you can get. Embry and I, between the two of us, have visited (or briefly resided in) over 60 countries, and using U.S. money was rarely a problem.
• English is now as close to a universal language as you will find. If an American is in a big city almost anywhere on the planet, he or she can usually get by speaking American English.
• The World Bank is in Washington. The United Nations Headquarters is in New York City. Peace Corps volunteers can be found in poor countries all over the planet. Before Trump terminated it, US AID was a life safer for millions of distressed people throughout the planet.
• The world’s largest financial institutions, the world’s biggest and richest tech companies, and many of the world’s major corporations are American.
• You can usually find a store in the most remote parts of the world where you can by a coke, maybe even a bottle of Jack Daniels, and buy a pair of Levis or grab a box of KFC. And American cars and trucks–especially Fords –are ubiquitous.
• American music is played everywhere. We invented jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Hip-hop, folk and country music.
• Hollywood films movies still draw big audiences.
• Due in large part to zealous missionaries, Christianity, the major religion in the United States, is also the most popular religion on the planet, with more than 25 percent of us humans identifying ourselves as Christian on the Pew Research surveys.
• And our democratic republic was—and still is for many–the envy of the world.

But if there is one rule that pertains to every empire, it is that it has a beginning and an end. It turns out that a lot of thought and research has gone into figuring out what empires have had in common. There is a terrific essay online by Ray Williams (available on the “Medium” website), which I recommend: “The 250-Year Cycle—How the United States Mirrors the Rise and Fall of Every Empire Before it.” Williams cites Yale historian, Paul Kennedy’s 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, explaining that the key variables are how a country balances wealth generation, military spending, and domestic spending.

Kennedy argues that unraveling happens when military spending is out of control, inequities in incomes increase, wealth is concentrated at the top, the national debt becomes unmanageable, the currency loses its dominance, and infrastructure deteriorates. When these factors are prevalent, trust in institutions declines, leaders focus on short term survival not long term solutions, and public trust evaporates. Corruption becomes normalized. The wind is then sucked out of the sails of those in power, and the political and social structure of a nation starts to fall apart. Sometimes this results in a revolution but most often in a gradual petering out as another nation steps in to fill the gap.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The U.S. military budget for 2026 is $925 billion–$2.5 billion a day–but with the cost of the Iran War, that number is likely to increase to well above $1 trillion. Did you know that the U.S. military has between 750 and 800 bases in over 80 countries? By comparison, the world’s largest imperial power, Great Britian, had at its zenith only 36 military bases. Britian, France, and Russia combined today have a total of only 30 foreign military bases.

Add to this all the other stuff Trump wants to do and the costs are off the charts—the giant parades and spectacles like the “Christian revival” on the mall on May 17, the colossal arch at the end of Memorial Bridge, the renovated reflecting pool, the various statues of himself, the renovation of the “Trump Kennedy Center,” the “magnificent” new ballroom, the even more magnificent “Park of Heroes,” the massive warehouses to imprison undocumented people and the cost to fly them out of the country. When these costs are combined with massive tax breaks for Trump’s rich cronies and megarich billionaires, the national debt will sour.

And I am old enough to remember times that Republicans harped about the need for a balanced budget.

But that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is the tilt of income distribution in the United States, taking money away from social, educational and health care and research initiatives—many designed to help the poor–and putting it in the pockets of Trump’s billionaire friends and his own family.

Williams in his essay cites economist Jeffrey Winter’s description of the “Great American Inversion.” During the last two centuries there were two major “inversions” that affected income distribution in the United States. The first was the steep graduated income tax that was put in place in the early years of the 20th Century. That inversion was reversed by the second inversion in the early 1980s under Reagan when radical reductions of tax rates became law.

Up until the Reagan tax cuts, the working class had made substantial gains. From 1960 to 1980 the bottom 50 percent of population claimed about 20 percent of total income. That share dropped to 12 percent from 2012 to 2015 and is even lower today. The top 10 percent of the population more than doubled their share of national income from 11 percent to more than 20 percent during this period.

And at the same time Trump and the Republican Congress has decimated spending on social and health services for low-income people, reduced funds for medical research, Obamacare, education, climate initiatives, clean injury, and eliminated US AID funding affecting millions of lives around the world. It was the classic bait and switch. Trump campaigned as a populist, promising lower gas and food prices and no “forever wars.” We are now in what could turn out to be another forever war with Iran and the prolonged closing of the Hormuz Straight, which has resulted in massive world-wide disruptions, sky rocketing gas costs and higher food costs. At the same time, funds for infrastructure have plummeted causing more deterioration of U.S. roads and bridges.

And regarding how we compare to other countries, Williams points out that we are by no means Number One in most factors that affect wellbeing. The United States now ranks 35th out of 157 countries for the percentage of people living below the poverty line. We rank fourth worst among the 35 “advanced countries” most like ours regarding income inequality and 33rd out of 145 countries in health care outcomes. We rank 12th overall in college graduation rates and we are ranked 47th out of 179 countries in freedom of the press.

But we are number one in one category. We imprison more people per capita than any other country in the world. Over 6.9 million people are in jail or on parole in the United States, one out of every 32 adults in the country. That number will explode as Trump imprisons and expels millions of undocumented people.

Friends, this is not a positive profile of a country that is supposed to be the greatest nation on Earth. It is not a matter of if the decline of the “American Empire” will happen. The decline is well underway. We have a wannabe strong man at the helm whose corruption puts him in the category of a Mafia boss.

Our decline does not necessarily mean the end of the world for us, however. The UK managed its decline reasonably well. Other great empires have adjusted to the new realities, and some have even become kinder and gentler. That should be our goal now—to try to reorder our priorities and make our country fairer. A little more humility is in order as well.

But our democracy will continue to deteriorate unless we restore a true democratic voting process. The Citizens United decision and other Supreme Court decisions have allowed big corporations and the very wealthy to control the outcomes of voting. We must get rid of gerrymandering, limit all corporate spending in elections, disallow “dark money” and restore the great democratic republic we once had. That should be a major focus if we are to move forward. And even if the Number One position falls to China or another country, what happens in the United States will still make a huge difference.

 

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This Sunday, May 16, there will be if not the largest Chrisitan gathering in American history, certainly one of the largest–and it will take place on the National Mall all day as part of the celebration of the 250th year of the nation’s founding. The Washington Post covered the story today (Thursday, May 14) noting that part of the funding will come from U.S. taxpayers. The Post also quoted the senior faith adviser to the White House, the Reverand Paula White-Cain, as saying that the event is “about the history and foundations of our nation, which was built on Chrisitan values, and on the Bible…This is really, truly rededicating the country to God.” Rubio, Hegseth, and the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, will be among the several dozen featured speakers, who according to the Post will mostly emphasize evangelical Christianity.

Really? The founding fathers were evangelical Christians? That is not what I learned in my American history classes at Davidson College nor in my church history classes at Union Seminary in New York. Good heavens, they were mostly Deists! They believed in a “clockmaker God,” mainly a “hands-off God” vis a vis human life on Earth. The founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves.

But don’t take my word for it. If you ask AI, this is what you get:

Whether America was founded as a Christian nation is a subject of intense debate, but most historians agree it was not established as a Christian nation in a legal or constitutional sense. While many founders were Christians and Christianity influenced the culture, the Constitution is secular, containing no mention of God or Christianity, and it separates church and state.

Key Aspects of the Debate

• Constitutional Silence: The U.S. Constitution (1787) does not mention God or Christianity, and the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion.
• The Treaty of Tripoli (1796): This document, approved unanimously by the Senate and signed by President John Adams, states that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”.
• Religious Beliefs of Founders: The founders held a mix of beliefs, ranging from orthodox Christian to Deist or Unitarian. Many were religious, but they specifically did not create a formal Christian state.
• Cultural Influence vs. Legal Basis: While Christian morality influenced many founders and many states had religious requirements, the federal structure was designed to be neutral on religious matters.

The consensus among scholars is that the United States was founded as a pluralistic nation with religious freedom, not as an official Christian state.

So, there you have it. The United States of America was not founded as a “Christian nation.” And thank God for that! When countries have claimed Divine Providence, they have gotten into trouble. Think about the Crusades, the Thirty Years War in Europe where Catholics and Protestants were killing each other and millions died, the New England witch hunts, and the theocracy in Iran today. Moreover, the evangelical Christianity that dominates right wing political fervor in America today is a newbie. It did not really emerge as a major force until after World War II and did not get politicized or identified with right wing politics until the 1970s.

More from AI:

Modern evangelical Christianity began to take shape during the 18th-century Great Awakening revivals (1730s–1740s), though its defining, organized modern form emerged post-World War II around 1942–1947. It evolved from earlier Protestant reformation, Pietism, and Puritan traditions to emphasize personal conversion, biblical authority, and active missionary work.

Key perspectives on the origins of the movement:
• The 18th Century (Roots): Many historians trace the movement to the First Great Awakening in Britain and America, led by figures such as George Whitefield and John Wesley, which championed a “born-again” experience.
• The 1940s (Modern Movement): Modern evangelicalism, often called “neo-evangelicalism,” emerged as a distinct movement from fundamentalism around 1942, marked by the rise of figures like Billy Graham.
• The 1970s (Political Emergence): Some perspectives identify the “modern” evangelical movement with its rise as a powerful political force in the US during the late 1960s and early 1970s, reacting to shifting cultural norms.

What is most concerning about modern evangelical Christianity is its embrace of Donald J Trump and its devotion to this person almost as if he were a spiritual leader in addition to being a political leader. Trump is a faux political populist who appeals to people who are not happy campers regarding modernity and the hand they have been dealt, many of whom are part of the white working class. The relationship between Trump and the MAGA evangelicals is a “Faustian bargain,” defined as “a pact in which people sacrifice their moral integrity, values, or soul to a demonic power in exchange for worldly benefits like power, knowledge, or wealth.” Trump’s appeal to these people was–and is–his populist pledge to lower the cost of living, stay clear of forever wars, and bring down the social and political elites, which is to say, people like me. I am sad to say in some ways they are right. We libs embrace of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” feels like a slap in their face. Trump has cast himself as their savior. His appeal can be explained by “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The Faustian bargain also holds true for the Republican elected officials who fear being “primaried out” if they do not support Trump. Whatever happened to Republicans as being conservative, self-reliant, free trade advocates, champions for a strong military and balanced budgets? Their Faustian bargain is to fall in line, and their reward is to keep their jobs. And ditto for the superrich who support Trump in order to get the tax breaks and federal contracts they have been awarded.

So, what is happening with evangelical Christianity is part of a larger picture. What is happening falls into the category of human nature rather than religious faith. That does not make it any more appealing to people like me who still attend church despite my somewhat skeptical theology. I shake my head when I see what is happening in much of American Christianity. I understand why it is happening but cannot accept it as legitimate Christianity. Shame on Trump! And shame on the MAGAs and evangelical leaders who have drunk the faux populist cool aid! Shame on the Republican elected officials who have made the Faustian bargain to keep their jobs!

Who knows where this madness will end? Or what kind of religious faith is likely to emerge in this volatile period we are now in? If you are a believer in the universal power of prayer and in a Divine Spirit that is real but beyond human understanding, it is time to get down on your knees.

 

 

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There is so much frightening stuff in the news nowadays that it seems at times that we are on the verge of wiping ourselves out. Does anyone trust Trump with the nuclear code? It just takes one false step or miscalculation to do us all in.

So, what are the odds of a major nuclear disaster happening? Naturally, I first turned to AI and here is what I got:

The risk of nuclear holocaust, while historically low, is considered higher today than at any point since the Cold War, with experts estimating a 20% to 80% chance of some form of nuclear war this century. A full-scale exchange, such as between the U.S. and Russia, could cause over 90 million immediate casualties and initiate a global famine killing 5 billion people.

Five billion people represents over 60 percent of the human population on the planet. “This century” means during the next 75 years. Many of the children living today will still be alive then. Oh, my goodness!

Twenty to 80% is a wide range, but still even a 20% chance is enough to keep you awake at night. That we humans now have the capacity to wipe out most, if not all, of civilization is hardly breaking news but is still unsettling. We were making progress in reducing the number of nukes following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but a new nuclear arms race is happening, and more nations (like Iran) are aiming to join the nuclear club of nine (Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.) How long will it be before drones carry these weapons?

And who knows where AI will take us?

That we can even raise the question of our survival puts us in an existential moment in history. For some reason, I find that at my advanced age of 84 I have been obsessed with questions about the meaning of life and the mysteries of the universe. If you have been following my blog for a while you may remember some of those posts. Here are the highlights:

• Our solar system was formed two billion years ago. It is a newbie. The Big Bang happened some 13.8 billion years ago, about 12 billion years before our solar system formed from cosmic dust. The Earth is now halfway through its useful life since our sun will give out in another two billion years though practically speaking we “only” have a billion years left before the sun turns into a red giant destroying the Earth.

• The planet Earth is a mere speck of sand on an endless beach. It wasn’t that long ago that we humans thought our planet was at the center of everything. The moon, the sun and the stars were thought to revolve around us. Then along came Copernicus and Galileo, followed by Darwin and Einstein and the Huble telescope. We now know that the Earth is part of a solar system that is part of a huge galaxy containing millions of stars and solar systems, and that there are probably trillions of galaxies. And we also know as our daughter once proclaimed when she was in the second grade, “My great, great, great, great…. grandparents were lizards!”

• Over the two-billion-year history of the planet, there have been five mass extinctions where almost all the plant and animal life were wiped out (mostly by climate change) making way for new generations of species to follow. Mass extinctions typically have occurred every 100 to 200 million years. The last one happened 66 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, who had ruled the planet for over 150 million years. If an asteroid had not hit the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, the surviving creatures living on Earth today would probably all have green tails and huge claws and communicate by growling.

• Yes, we humans are superior to dinosaurs, who after all could not read and write, but just think about how short the time has been that we humans have been around to make our mark. It is less than a second on the 24-hour clock of the universe. And does anyone think that the human species will be around for another billion years? Really? While human-like creatures started to appear around 3.2 million years ago, we Homo sapiens have been around for only 300,000 years. And it took a few thousand years for us to get our act together. Neanderthals had discovered fire around 400,000 years ago, but not much else happened until around 5,000 years ago when the wheel was invented, about the same time that the first written language (Sumerian) appeared. The first religious texts are only a few thousand years old. And the Great Axial Age when most of the major religions (and philosophies) emerged did not happen until 800-300 BCE or about 3,000 years ago. The Hebrew scriptures were compiled during that time, and the Christian New Testament followed several centuries later. Most of what we might call modern inventions— cars, airplanes, factories, radios, televisions, computers, cell phones, atomic bombs, satellites, spaceships, antibiotics, and of course AI—has happened in my lifetime or the generation or two before me.

So where does this leave us? Where it leaves me is this: It is not a matter of if the Sixth Great Mass Extinction will happen on our fragile planet but when. And sadly, we Homo sapiens will likely be the culprits. We have never been able to live together in harmony and have done terrible things to one other from the very beginning of our existence. Plus, we are trashing the planet and are the major cause of global warming. Some say that we are a flawed species. Others say that we are created in the image of God and to suggest otherwise is the work of the devil. My response is that to figure this out is above our paygrade, as they say in Washington. My prayer is that when the Sixth Great Mass Extinction happens it will be far into the future. The scary thing is that given the weapons at our disposal, it could happen at this very moment.

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Back to politics.

The midterm elections will happen in less than six months, on Tuesday, November 3. Trump’s approval rating is 37%, lower than Joe Biden (49%), Barack Obama (53%), and George W. Bush (56%) at similar points in their respective presidencies. In fact, his approval is lower than any other modern president in the same time frame and is continuing to plummet. While Trump will not be on the ticket, a lot of vulnerable Republicans will be, and most pundits predict that Democrats will win the House and possibly the Senate, despite the last-minute Republican gerrymandering.

Trump has only himself to blame. The ill-conceived war with Iran has put world economies in a tailspin resulting in U.S. gas prices inching closer to $4.50 a gallon and spikes in overall inflation. His middle of the night rants on social media have become more unhinged and less coherent. His attacks on Pope Leo have alienated Catholics and most of the U.S. population. The MAGAs are holding firm but moderate Republicans and Independents are starting to bail. Enough is enough.

Time to breathe easier, right? After the Midterms there is no way that Trump will be able to hold onto the power he has now with a compliant Congress.

Not so fast. November 3, 2026, could well be the Day of Reckoning–the day that democracy dies in the United States of America.

My assessment is spurred by the op ed piece by Thomas Edsall in the May 5 issue of The New York Times. Read Edsall’s essay. Edsall writes about “emergency powers” that are virtually unknown to the public, to most members of Congress and to much of the federal judiciary. These powers — classified as “Presidential Emergency Action Documents” or “PEADs”— allow a single individual to suspend fundamental constitutional rights, detain civilians, seize property, impose martial law and censor communications. They require only a presidential signature. No prior congressional approval is needed. No court reviews them before activation. No statutory mechanism exists for Congress to restrict or terminate these powers once invoked.

PEADs were first created in the 1950s during the Eisenhower presidency to address the potential of nuclear war to create chaos. Yet there is no statutory, constitutional or procedural limit on the number of PEADs a president may create, the subjects they may address, or the scope of authority they may claim. Edsall fears that Trump may use PEADs to hold on to power if he determines that control of Congress will switch to the Democrats.

He also cites Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, issued Sept. 25 last year. The memorandum effectively grants the Department of Justice, the Treasury, the I.R.S. and other federal agencies a license to label “left-wing groups” as “domestic terrorist organizations” and directs the Department of Justice to prosecute them “to the maximum extent permissible by law.” The memorandum claims that “heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased in recent years.” These acts, according to Trump, are exclusively linked to liberals, Democrats, and the left. The memo describes these opponents as anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian, who intend to overthrow of the United States government and are extremists on immigration, race and gender. They are hostile toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality. The memorandum calls on the Joint Terrorism Task Force “to investigate, prosecute and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”

If these actions were to happen, it could result in civil war and the end of democracy in the United States. Edsall does not see the Supreme Court intervening. He and others have observed that the massive deportation centers are much bigger than needed to house undocumented people and have deliberately been designed to accommodate Trump’s political enemies. It is not hard to envision masked ICE thugs rounding up the liberal and radical enemies of Trump and depositing them here.

Edsall is not an extremist or fire breathing leftist. He is only calling strikes and balls as he sees them. But his essay sure got my attention and scares the bejesus out of me. Think how close we came on January 6, 2021, with the assault of the Capitol, urged on by Trump. If Pence had caved, what would have happened?

Friends, it could happen here. No government lasts forever. No country can be Number One indefinitely. The question we should be asking now–and preparing to answer– is what we can do now to prevent this catastrophe from happening six months from now.

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