The news reports were difficult to believe at first, an unimaginable horror. A semi-tractor trailer abandoned on the side of the road near San Antonio, Texas with 53 human beings inside, dead from heat exhaustion, having died in the sweltering 103 degree inferno of what amounted to a cattle car. These migrants from Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua had been picked up in Laredo, Texas by a human smuggler—crammed into the back of the truck in record high temperatures without ventilation or water, then abandoned on the side of the road when the truck experienced mechanical trouble. A local railroad worker heard a feint cry for help from inside the truck, where the gruesome discovery was made. Within hours of the discovery, political accusations began flying back and forth between our distinguished public servants.
I am not an expert on immigration policy. Although I’ve read a lot about it over the years, in all that reading I have learned that the problem is profoundly complicated, a toxic mix of greed, fear, human degradation, human striving for a better life, and political grandstanding. The purpose of this post is not to cast blame, but rather to try and get inside the heads of all parties involved in the grisly graveyard that was left abandoned next to a railroad track in Texas.
What on Earth would possess a migrant from Mexico to climb into the back of that truck? Surely, they could see what they were entering, they could feel the heat, would have noticed that there was no water. Why? How desperate would they have to be? What possible hell were they fleeing that could be worse than being packed like sardines inside a trailer on the hottest day of the year? My imagination is incapable of providing any satisfactory answer to that question.
What kind of black heart would you have to have beating inside your chest to agree to be the driver of that truck? What amount of money would be necessary to assuage the guilt of this inhumanity?
Who are the people to whom this shipment was destined? What companies or farms were planning on putting these 53 to work? Any discussion about human smuggling across the border has to consider the end consumer of the cargo. Any business that would knowingly hire migrants delivered to them in the back of a tractor trailer, is every bit as complicit in this horror as every other actor along the way.
All I know is that when I looked at the pictures my heart broke for our increasingly savage, broken world.
This is the 2,639th post in the eleven year history of The Tempest and the very first one I’ve written about…abortion. Basically I would rather write about almost anything else. But when Roe v. Wade was overturned Friday by the Supreme Court, I knew that at some point I would have to write something. Here goes…
Since Friday was a very slow day at the office, the first thing I did was download the opinion so I could read through the decision along with the dissent. It was long…200 pages. The first part was mostly case law review and full of legal jargon. Then I got to the opinion which at least was written in more understandable English. Once I finished that I read the dissent which, as is usually the case, was much shorter. My initial reaction was that I agreed with the legal and constitutional reasoning of the majority decision. I thought they made a much stronger case with respect to the law than did the dissent, which I considered to be overwrought and at times hysterical. Regardless of where you come down on this case I suggest that you take the time to read the decision.
But agreeing with the Supreme Court on the legal and constitutional grounds of their decision isn’t quite the same thing as agreeing with the results of the decision. In a nation as divided as ours, what now? Are we ready to turn pregnant women seeking to terminate their pregnancies into criminals? Are we willing and ready to send them to jail? Ever since the decision was announced I have felt a great discomfort in my heart. It is very difficult to describe, let alone explain. I am now and have always been someone who would be considered Pro-Life. My feelings on the matter stem primarily from a profound respect for the life of the child. I believe sincerely that all human life is a sacred gift. Its why I am also against the death penalty and euthanasia.
But, I have never had an abortion. I can’t imagine the anguish involved in such a decision. I do know people who have had abortions. They are not murderers. They were women who when presented with an unplanned pregnancy decided that they were not ready or desirous of carrying or having a child. I can disagree with their decision and wish they had made a choice that would have preserved the innocent child’s life—like adoption. I also know people who’s mother almost decided to abort them, but made the adoption choice instead. The world has been greatly blessed by that decision! So…why all the discomfort in my heart?
Then I ran across something this morning written by someone who I have a great deal of respect for, David French. When I finished reading it I knew right away that if I spent weeks trying to articulate my thoughts about this case I would never do so as eloquently as he did. I can honestly say that every word of it rang true in my heart. It perfectly captures the source of my discomfort. It will not make many of you happy…on either side of this issue. But its the best I can do in putting into words my feelings at this hour. I ask each of you to read it and give it your active consideration.
When I left the full-time practice of law and landed at National Review, my friends and colleagues Jay Nordlinger and Jonah Goldberg both independently gave me exactly the same advice. My job, they said, was to write what I believe to be true. It’s not to please a crowd or build a coalition.
Their advice was good and true, and in the years since I’ve tried my best to live up that ideal. I’m going to try again today with the full awareness that I’m not sure anyone is going to like what I say, right or left. But here’s what’s on my mind and heart.
Two days after Roe has been overturned, I’m far more conflicted than I ever imagined I’d be. Writing in The Atlantic on Friday, I described my attitude as joy in my heart tempered by disquiet in my spirit. Since I wrote that piece, that disquiet has only grown, and I think I know why.
I’ve been a pro-life advocate and activist for more than 30 years. I started in college by trying to change my Christian college’s policies to remove any penalty for unwed parenting. Young single moms should not be suspended from school. I then moved on to Harvard Law School where I started a pro-life student group with two dear friends and endured the considerable blowback of that hostile era on campus.
As a lawyer I represented pro-life groups for decades. I helped raise tens of millions of dollars for pro-life legal advocacy (I lost count at about $40 million). Shortly after I returned home from Iraq, I led a litigation group that publicly promised to defend any pro-life student in America for free if they faced a challenge to their constitutional rights, and we kept that promise.
Through it all, I was guided by two burning convictions—that Roerepresented a grave moral and constitutional wrong and that I belonged to a national Christian community that loved its fellow citizens, believed in a holistic ethic of life, and was ready, willing, and able to rise to the challenge of creating a truly pro-life culture.
I believe only one of those things today.
My feelings about Roe are unchanged. As a constitutional matter, I agree with Justice Alito. Simply put, the Constitution cannot be fairly read to protect a right to abortion. There is quite obviously no enumerated right to abortion, and there is no historic grounds for believing that abortion should be deemed an unenumerated right. As I’ve written before, “The Court’s job is not to determine which rights we should possess but rather which rights we do possess.”
The idea that Roe was a revolutionary and destabilizing decision is not unique to the right. Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself once declared Roe“breathtaking” and warned that “Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable.” She even wondered if Roe should have been more narrowly decided. Suppose the court decided to strike down only the Texas law at issue and not “displace virtually every state law then in force” Would the country face the same level of controversy?
Moreover there was always something particularly morally noxious about Roe’s reasoning. The Supreme Court removed abortion questions almost entirely from the democratic process, created one of the most extreme abortion rights regimes in the world, and deprived an entire class of people—unborn children—of any meaningful legal status. It did all those things through the 14th Amendment, one of the Civil War amendments.
The Civil War amendments were intended to correct deep flaws in the original Constitution that permitted states to systematically deprive individuals of their most basic human rights. At long last the Supreme Court could and would begin the process of extending the blessings of liberty to every American.
Well, to everyone but the unborn. For those precious people, the court declared that one of the key Civil War amendments was the instrument of their doom. The ruling wasn’t just constitutionally unsound, it was morally perverse. It utterly contradicted not just the letter of the 14th Amendment, but its animating moral essence as well.
Now Roe is gone. Good. We should rejoice at its demise.
But that’s not the end of the story. Not by a long shot. The two sides of the great American divide are now staring at each other and asking, “Now what?” The answer from pro-life America should be clear and resounding—the commitment to life carries with it a commitment to love, to care for the most vulnerable members of society, both mother and child.
But life and love are countercultural on too many parts of the right. In a time of hate and death, too many members of pro-life America are contributing to both phenomena. Is that too much to say? Is that too strong? I don’t think so.
In deep-red America, a wave of performative and punitive legislation is sweeping the land. In the abortion context, bounty-hunting laws in Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma turn citizens against each other, incentivizing lawsuits even by people who haven’t been harmed by abortion. The pro-life movement, once solidly against prosecuting women who obtain abortions, is now split by an “abolitionist” wing that would not only impose criminal penalties on mothers, it even calls into questions legal protections for the life of the mother when a pregnancy is physically perilous.
The culture of political engagement centers around animosity. Church and family life is being transformed, congregation by congregation, household by household, by argument and division. The Dobbs ruling has landed in the midst of a sick culture, and the pro-life right is helping make it sick.
Writing in the New York Times, Ross Douthat rightly cautioned that “the vicissitudes of politics and its own compromises have linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right — some libertine and hyperindividualist, others simply hostile to synthesis, conciliation and majoritarian politics.”
That’s true, but it doesn’t go far enough. The vicissitudes of politics haven’t just linked the anti-abortion cause to various toxic forces on the right, they’ve transformed parts of the anti-abortion movement, making many of its members as toxic as their “libertine and hyperindividualist” allies.
At this point I want to add a huge caveat. At the center of the grassroots pro-life movement are some of the finest people I’ve ever met in my life. Crisis pregnancy centers, for example, are staffed by people who have hearts full of love, and when the radical left firebombs those clinics, they’re firebombing the buildings and institutions that are giving an immense amount of hope to young women in distress.
But sadly those institutions often operate on shoestring budgets. So many times they lack volunteers.
In the meantime, the Republican branch of the American church is adopting the political culture of the secular right. With a few notable exceptions, it not only didn’t resist the hatred and fury of the MAGA movement, it was the MAGA movement. And this is the culture that’s going to lead the effort to heal our nation, love the marginalized, and ask young women to face an uncertain future and endure a physical ordeal for the sake of sacrificial love?
This brings me to a vital last point. It is a simple truth that when it comes to moral leadership, actions speak so much louder than words. That’s a truth that’s been instilled in me since my youth. Walk your talk.
And yet. Consider the last two years.
We are slowly but surely emerging from a deadly pandemic. It’s not that the disease has disappeared. Far from it. But the combination of mutations, vaccinations, and prior infections is making it far less deadly. Yet at every point in the pandemic, it was pro-life red America that loudly declared its bodily autonomy, disproportionately shunned even the slight inconvenience of a mask before the vaccine, and then disproportionately rejected the vaccine when it miraculously appeared mere months after the pandemic began.
Parts of pro-life red America moved from skepticism to outright defiance. “How dare you tell me what to do. This is my decision between me and mydoctor.” They trafficked in pseudo-science and bizarre conspiracy theories. The cost was staggering. It was horrifying. Look at this chart, from the Brown School of Public Health:
When I bring this up, people get furious. The conventional wisdom on the right has hardened into adamantium. If you condemn the anti-vaxx movement, then you’re an elitist. You hate anti-vaxxers. How dare you question their decisions? Everyone knows the real cultural tragedy of the pandemic was the way the terrible blue states imposed extended lockdowns and kept schools closed too long.
To criticize the anti-vaxx movement isn’t to hate or look down on its members any more than criticizing the pro-choice movement means hating or looking down on its members. Strong disagreement isn’t hatred, even when you believe the contrary position contains grave moral flaws.
I also can agree that blue state restrictions went too far, but I cannot get that staggering death toll out of my head. And that’s not a random 319,000 people, it’s 319,000 of our most vulnerable citizens. The elderly. The infirm. People with immune disorders.
In the face of that wave of death, a wave of death created by a staggering amount of Christian fear, disinformation, and defiance—millions of the same people who created that culture now loudly demand that other peoplesacrifice for life.
It’s time for another caveat. When we talk about national movements, we invariably talk about generalities. Huge movements are made up of millions of people, and many of those millions have gone above and beyond the call of duty. They’ve spent their lives sacrificing for others, in ways large and small. They resist the hatred of the times, and even though I might disagree with some of their votes, they put me to shame in their service for others.
But the sad reality remains: When American culture burned with partisan hatred, all too many institutions of the American church fueled the fire. They fuel the fire to this day. There is a cost to this combat, and that cost is born in our ability to reach out to people outside our tribe and to have people believe us when we say that we care for them, that we want to see them flourish, and that we love their families—both red and blue.
One more thing …
I’ve got two podcasts to promote today. The Dobbs decision came down on Friday morning, 50 minutes before we normally tape the Good Faith podcast. Curtis and I talked about the end of Roe and hosted the wonderful Rachel Ferguson to talk about her fascinating book, Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, a classical liberal response to racial injustice in America.
This song, from my favorite new album of 2022, is both beautiful and humbling. This one of those humbling songs, one that reminds us that we should always be aware that we’re going to be wrong, and we’re going to need grace. Thankfully that grace is real:
Ok, back in 2020 when COVID hit, I dropped my 19 year AMFAM membership. To replace my three times a week workout habit, I bought some dumbbells and started running outside instead of on a treadmill. In the two years since, the only thing I have missed about AMFAM is the sauna and steam room. I hated running on a treadmill and I hate running outside, so that’s a push.
It is probably more accurate to say that I have a love/hate relationship with running. I hate doing it but I love the way I feel afterwards. I do enjoy the challenge of completing something that is difficult for me. I like having a goal to concur. In other words, when it comes to running, I’m basically a sadist.
So, my son has taken up running over the past several years to the point where he was able to enter and complete a half marathon down in Nashville, an amazing accomplishment for a kid who has never been a workout junkie like his father. Now we have running in common. I send him the stats from my latest run and he sends his to me. It’s pretty cool. Anyway, a while ago he started hassling me to join him and sign up for a race being held in Richmond this November. Its a full marathon but you can also sign up for a half marathon or an 8K ( 5 miles ). He says, “So, I could fly up and run the half marathon and you could run the 8K and maybe we could shame Ryan and Issac into running. It would be a family thing!” Since it is a well known fact that I can never say “no” to one of my kids…I signed up. There’s only one problem—I’ve never run in a race before, and the longest continuous running distance I have ever completed in my life is a five mile run from six years ago. So, I’ve had some work to do. Which brings me to the point of this post. Yesterday was a first for me…
The first part is that I made it 7 miles. Yes, I did not run all 7 miles. I alternated between running and walking each mile. When I started I had no idea in my head that I was going this far, it was just something that happened. The 4 miles I did run were all decent times, especially mile 7 which I almost completed in under 9 minutes. I was very proud of myself. Of course, this morning I am paying for yesterday’s heroics. Hips, knees and ankles..all sore. When I made it home, Pam had left the house on an adventure with a friend of hers so I had nobody to brag to. Lucy was unimpressed with the story and quite disgusted with my sweat-soaked and smelly self. Here’s the route, in case you’re interested:
Sadly, despite all the sweat and calorie burning effort, I stepped on the bathroom scales this morning and had gained two pounds.
For the second morning in a row I have woken up during the 4 o’clock hour. Both times I had been having one of those frustration loop dreams where you are on the cusp of a breakthrough at something then something strange happens to prevent you from accomplishing whatever it is. Yesterday morning, I had somehow snagged an interview with some hot shot book publisher in New York City and I was pitching my latest novel idea to him. He was nodding enthusiastically. But when I reached for the manuscript to hand to him a wind comes in through the window and blows it everywhere. I spent the rest of the dream trying to put the pages back in order, all the while the big shot book publisher is getting more and more annoyed. It was horrible! This morning was worse…I was in a line of cars at a toll booth and everyone in front of me was paying with pennies, getting out of their car, taking their sweet time while having lunch etc. Meanwhile, all the other lanes were EasyPASS lanes and Pam kept telling me that we should get in the EasyPASS lane but I couldn’t get over to save my life.
I need a vacation.
Luckily for me, I have a friend who is also usually awake in the wee hours. Pam from Buena Vista, cancer survivor and fellow advisor, also is plagued by occasional insomnia, so I usually send her a text and she answers right away. This morning it went like this:
Me: as bad as waking up at 4 in the morning is, you know what the best part is?
Pam: It’s Friday?
Me: Nope.
Pam: Almost Maine?
Me: Nope.
Pam: Futures are up?
Me: Nope
Pam: We are alive??
Me: Nope.
Pam: What then???
Me: No matter when I wake up in the morning, I’m still handsome.
Pam: Good Grief!! You’re such a punk.
Then I started thinking about Mom. She’s been gone ten years now and I still think about her at the oddest times. I wonder what she would think of me now if she were still here. Lots has changed since she passed away, not the least of which is Pam and I are members of a Presbyterian church! She probably would ask me the same thing that Pam did one day when we were pulling out of the church parking lot—“Do these people even know who Lottie Moon is??” (Baptist Humor).
By this time its 6 o’clock and I find a couple of decent dad jokes:
* Apple is bringing out a new device that tells a Dad Joke every time you press a button. They are calling it the iRoll.
* My neighbor’s little girl came over the other day and asked me where poo comes from. So, I gave her a basic scientific description of the biological process that produces poo. She looked terrified and I thought she was going to burst into tears. Then she asked, “…but what about Tigger?”
So, this is what happens between the hours of 4 and 6 in the morning. Are there more productive ways for me to have spent this time? Absolutely. But clearly, I don’t do my best thinking this early.
Sometimes you stumble across a photograph that stuns you. You’ve seen it before, you knew it existed, but you had forgotten until suddenly it appears. There’s nothing particularly artistic about it, in fact its old enough to have been taken before the digital age. It has started to yellow and the details aren’t crystal clear, and yet when you look at the thing it takes your breath away. It’s an unremarkable snapshot of an uneventful morning. There’s a cup of coffee in my hand. It appears to be morning and it already looks hot outside. We are at the beach, sitting on the back deck of a rented beach house. I am squinting at the photographer, seemingly unimpressed with the moment, possibly wondering why our picture is being taken in the first place. But whoever did take this photograph did me an eternal favor. It’s the only one of its kind that exists in the universe that I am aware of. It is invaluable. It was taken in the summer of 1993…
My Dad was 69 years old, one year shy of his retirement. He had 20 more years to live. Back then he was still strong as an ox, more talkative and energetic than he became later. He loved nothing quite so much as when one of his many grandchildren would sit on his lap.
Patrick had just turned 4 years old that summer and he was a ball of fire, more energy and curiosity that any ten other kids. His favorite beach pajamas were always an oversized t-shirt.
I was a 35 year old man, father of two children under the age of 7, not even married 10 years yet. My career had just gotten off the ground that year. We were finally living some way other than hand to mouth. There was finally money in the bank.
There’s not a gray hair on the three of us. We all have almost the exact same expression on our faces. We favor each other in this picture. We look like three generations of men should look like, I think.
When I look at this I feel two equally strong emotions. I’m very proud…and just a bit sad. I’m not even sure why. I have no desire to go back in time. But this photograph stirs in me a strange longing for something that once was but can never be again.
Listen, I get it. The world is screwed up. Everywhere you look there’s bad news, and I’m not minimizing any of it with what follows here. I’m also not one of those who dismisses human suffering with a wave of the hand and cavalier slogans about how a positive attitude is the answer to everything. If your friend loses a child it won’t do to just hand them a book by Zig Zigler or Norman Vincent Peale. Sometimes, the troubles we face in this life are pitched battles that for a season can strip us of hope. Sometimes, the news we are bombarded with about politics and the state of our country and the world is so overwhelmingly bad we are tempted to believe that things will never get better, that our troubles are intractable, permanent. Maybe they are, maybe not. I really don’t know.
However, and life is often found in the however’s, I remember an old hymn that my mother used to sing around the house when I was little. I don’t remember all the words but this phrase stood out…count your many blessings, name them one by one. Mom would be busy scrubbing some pan, hair falling down around her eyes, or mopping the floor and she’d be belting this song out. I can see it as clear as day.
So, for your consideration on this Wednesday, I have decided to take my Mom up on her suggestion. If you are so inclined you can do the same. Let’s see if it makes a difference in how this day goes. I will count my blessings, naming them one by one…
1. I’m healthy
2. I live in a great neighborhood in a nice house with air conditioning, indoor plumbing and electricity.
3. I enjoy the love and devotion of an amazing woman.
4. My two adult children love me and make me proud every day.
5. I have a large and loving extended family who all get along with each other.
6. I work with great people who I trust and respect.
7. I have lived every day of my life in a free country where I have been allowed to make my life decisions free of government coercion.
8. I have made an amazing living doing good and important work.
9. I have never spent a single day of my life hungry, homeless or abandoned.
10. I am a part of a body of believers who for the most part are just like me, flawed but grateful to be a part of a community of faith.
11. I am able to spend 6-8 weeks every year in Maine.
12. I have a Solo Stove.
13. I am alive at a time in history when I have access to all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the world in a devise that fits in the palm of my hand.
14. I have had the company of a Golden Retriever for thirty five years now.
Now that its getting warmer I have started going on my walks and runs in the morning before it gets too intolerable. When I’m just planning on a leisurely stroll I take Lucy along, but if I’m planning on a longer walk or a run, she stays at home. A few days ago I headed out for a morning run. Pam watched Lucy go over to the bedroom window where she sat down and watched me as I made it around the culdesac, then as I disappeared down the street. Several times while I was gone she would walk back over to the window, watching and waiting for me to return. Finally, Pam took this picture:
Its a perfect example of why we love dogs, right? Their entire world revolves around us. They love us without reservation or condition. When we leave them they wait expectantly for our return. She is concerned, her ears perked up wondering where I am and when I will come home. If you look closely at the window you will see that it is covered with nose prints. This is one of Lucy’s many lookout spots. She is always watching. Waiting…and its the waiting that’s the hardest part.
When I first saw this picture it occurred to me that most of us are just like Lucy. Most of us have someone who we wait for, someone who when they are away we worry about. For some of us its a child, both the little ones and the ones grown up and moved on. For more and more of my friends, they’re waiting for someone who will never again return in this life. A husband has passed away, a wife, a parent, or worst of all…a child. They are learning to live with the crushing weight of loss. My heart goes out to them, along with the words of the psalmist, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”
So today we celebrate a brand new federal holiday for the first time, the ghastly-named Juneteenth. In case you’re wondering how I feel about it…yes, we absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, should celebrate the end of slavery. End of story. But..Juneteenth?? Why not Emancipation Day?
Now, on to a subject of far less controversy—in 18 days Pam and I will be leaving for Maine, our car loaded to the max, doing its best Beverly Hillbillies impersonation. A lot can happen in 18 days which could play havoc with our plans. One or both of us could come down with COVID. Our house could be struck by lightning. Lucy could become plagued by uncontrollable diarrhea. These are among the many nightmare thoughts that plague my dreams in the final days before leaving for the north. Its almost as if I become paranoid. I start to feel like one of those end times geeks, preparing for the four horses of the apocalypse to be released. I become suspicious of any and all packages delivered by UPS or FEDEX. God knows what could be in one of those packages! And don’t even get me started on the U.S. mail!!
Anyway, if my writings over the next couple of weeks start to sound more unhinged than usual, keep this in mind. I offer this blanket apology in advance.
To begin this week off right, I ran across a great joke the other day:
A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced up and saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane.
He soon realized she was heading straight towards his seat... As fate would have it, she took the seat right beside his.
Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out, " Business trip or pleasure?"
She turned, smiled, and said, "Business. I'm going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of America Convention in Boston."
He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him, and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs.
Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, "What's your business role at this convention?"
"Lecturer," she responded. " I use information that I have learned from my personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality."
"Really?" he said. " And what kind of myths are there?"
"Well," she explained," one popular myth is that African-American men are the most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Frenchmen are the best lovers, when actually it is men of Jewish descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck."
Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed. "I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't really be discussing all of this with you. I don't even know your name..."
"Tonto," the man said, "Tonto Goldstein, but my friends call me Bubba."
Suddenly, I have been freed from the stress and strain of the United States equity markets for the next three days. That’s 72 hours without a knot in my stomach and it feels like a gift. To make matters even better, the weather forecast sounds delightful, sunny skies with high temperatures in the high 70’s low 80’s with low humidity. Later this morning I will be heading out for a run, attempting 5 miles.
Last night there was an end of school, beginning of summer celebration in our culdesac which featured a food truck parked on the street directly in front of our house. Right about the time it was to begin there were thunderstorms in the area. Fortunately, after a short two minute downpour, the clouds parted and a cooling breeze popped up. The culdesac was filled with families and dogs. Pam and I sat up some folding tables in our driveway, soon they were populated with moms and dads and little kids. Beach balls and footballs were flying through the air and the sound of laughter was everywhere. The tacos provided by the La Concinita truck were delicious.
We have been here since the very beginning of Wythe Trace, the only people to ever live in our house. We have watched the neighborhood change over the past 25 years, watched a list of neighbors come and go in the houses around us. When we moved here our kids were in elementary school. Now they are both married adults who live in other cities. Now, we are surrounded by families that are exactly like we were back in the day, harried and harassed by the pressures and joys of raising a family. We love being able to watch them, without the pressures and responsibilities of it all! This is the benefit of staying put in one place. As you age, your neighborhood gets younger…which helps you feel younger.
But there was another thing I noticed last night. Not only is this place younger, its also gotten much more diverse. I saw beautiful kids playing in the street last night from all over the world. There are families from India, Egypt, Haiti, Russia, Asia and England. I saw white kids happily playing with black and brown kids. Red heads, blonds, brunettes and shiny black haired kids slurping on popsicles. I saw different breeds of dogs soaking up the attention, oblivious to the race of whoever happened to be scratching their bellies.
As I watched it all I couldn’t help wondering…Why on Earth would anyone fear this?
What do you value the most? This is a very different question than what is the most expensive thing you own, isn’t it? You can be proud of an expensive car. You can be proud of a lovely home or a large and growing investment portfolio. But what is it that you…value? It has been said that too many people know the price of everything but the value of nothing. I think this is true. Do not misunderstand me. There is nothing at all inherently wrong with an expensive car, lovely home or a large investment portfolio. I am quite fond of all three. But none of these things will end up defining me when I’m gone. I don’t draw any identity from them. They all three serve a purpose, but they are not eternal purposes. These are not the things that friends and family will stand around talking about at my funeral…or yours.
So, Pam and I are housing a youth intern from our church for the summer. So far he has feasted on Pam’s cooking like its his job, but last night Pam had other plans so it was going to be just the two of us for dinner. I took him to Wong’s Tacos and we had a great time eating and talking sports. He’s a good kid. But like everyone else who meets someone new, I want to tell him all about the things I like. We talked baseball, pro football and college football. When we got back home the garage was empty since Pam was away and I noticed it more than I usually do. Its something that I wanted to show him. I wanted him to see it, because to see it goes a long way to explaining who I am. What did I show him?
This…
At first glance this probably looks like an ugly garage wall…because it is an ugly garage wall. But, its much more than that. Back in the day it was known as “The Wall.” Any middle school, high school, or college kid who ever spent any time at our house for anything was asked to sign the wall. There are kids we housed from choir tours as they passed through Short Pump. There are nursing students from Liberty who we housed when they were in town for their clinical studies. There were high schoolers who attended the New Year’s Eve parties we used to throw every year for them. There were kids who I taught in Sunday School, Kaitlin’s friends, Patrick’s friends, friends of friends of kids who I didn’t even know. There were boys that used to let themselves in the house through this garage at all hours to help themselves to whatever was in the fridge. Pretty soon I will get the sweet kids next door to sign it. I tell my intern that he has to sign it before he heads back to school in the fall. Sometimes when I’m putting the lawn mower away I will stop for a minute and read a couple of them and think…I wonder what Meghan is up to these days? Each note is precious to me. Each has meaning. More than any material thing I have ever owned, I value this wall. But if I ever sell this house, the wall will be painted over, because the scribblings and the names beneath the scribbles will mean nothing to a stranger. To me, they help tell the story of the life that Pam and I have built over the past 38 years.
My last few posts here at The Tempest have been on the pessimistic side, and for that I apologize. I blame most of it not on the financial markets, the state of my country or even the sorry state of the Washington Nationals. I blame it on the weather.
Here in Short Pump we have entered the steamy season. Some of you reading this live in parts of the country where what I am about to describe seldom happens. Here it happens for roughly three entire months of the year. In the past I have referred to it as “God’s curse upon the south for the sin of slavery.” I even took a picture of it once. How can you take a photograph of the weather, you ask? Simple…
This is what every window in our house looks like at 6 o’clock in the morning. Currently it is 68 degrees outside and the humidity is 97%. I know what you’re thinking…how can it possibly be 97% humidity if it’s not raining?? I can assure you it is quite possible. In fact it is as common as lying politicians. Still don’t believe me?
Yesterday morning it was actually ten degrees warmer, so this is somewhat of a reprieve. What’s really fun is when you get up super early to run in these conditions because you know its the best part of the day.
What’s it like to live this way? Imagine walking out to get the mail and by the time you get back inside the house your fingernails have started to sweat. A five minute drive in a car which has been parked outside for an hour produces a pool of sweat inside your belly button. But as bad as it is for men, its far worse for women…
BEFORE AFTER
Nevertheless, because I am a southern boy and this is my lot in life, I am headed out for a three mile morning walk…after which time the sweat that gets wrung out of my walking shorts and shirt will fill a cereal bowl.
I’ve been in a 5:00 am groove for a couple weeks now. My eyes pop open right at the stroke. There is always a frustrating dream left swimming in my head, the details of which seem crystal clear when my eyes first open but have vaporized into thin air by the time I walk downstairs to do my morning chores while its still dark outside.
I say a morning prayer while drinking my coffee. I thank God for the blessings of life, for another day. I don’t ask any favors. It seems selfish from someone who has already been given so much. I pray for whoever comes to mind, a friend who just said goodbye to her husband who died of cancer, another friend who recently had surgery and is having a rough time recuperating. Then I open my iPad and start reading the news from overnight.
There’s a story about a group of young men arrested at a gay pride event. The FBI had preempted their intentions to start a brawl in the streets. There was a picture of 30 mugshots of lost young men.
I read about an employee at Google who was let go for a public assertion that his company had created a sentient algorithm.
Then I read a story about the new Army where the traditional drill Sargent was being replaced by a kinder, gentler version more inclined to mentorship than yelling. It will be hard to eventually eliminate this iconic image from my mind…
I am informed about Justin Bieber’s latest health struggles, half of his face having been paralyzed. I wonder what could possible have possessed him to share this news publicly.
I see a mug shot of Nancy Pelosi’s billionaire husband after his arrest on DUI charges. He has the slightly annoyed but confident facial expression of someone secure in the knowledge that he is the billionaire husband of Nancy Pelosi.
Then I scan the financial news. There is a lot of it and it all seems bad. Inflation. Interest rate hikes. The obliterating crash of Bitcoin. Stocks officially in a bear market. Apparently, the pressure is on the Federal Reserve Chairman to either do something or do nothing.
I shut down the news site and escape to the MLB website for a break with the hopes that my heart will be comforted by the familiar and eternal rhythms of box scores. I learn that Stephen Strasberg has once again been deactivated from the Washington Nationals roster by yet another injury. He is currently in year 2 of a 7 year contract that is paying him 35 million dollars a year to pitch a baseball, something he has been physically unable to do almost since the very day he signed the papers. Fortunately for him, the contract was fully guaranteed. Unfortunately for the Washington Nationals, the contract was fully guaranteed.
It is now 6:30 and I feel like a stranger in a strange land.
This morning I wake up with my usual Monday morning anxieties. After a rough week, I see that the news isn’t good for today’s opening on Wall Street. I read about a potential compromise on guns brewing in the United States Senate. I see where its supposed to be in the mid 90’s with oppressive humidity all week. I’ve got a guy coming to the house in just over an hour to trim back a few overhanging tree limbs. Meanwhile, the iPad I am typing this blog on has suddenly started behaving strangely, with an irritating gap between what I type and what appears on the screen.
Yesterday morning I finally went to Patient First to deal with the pain in my left elbow. I’ve had it for over two months now but unlike in the past, the pain now doesn’t come and go—instead it has taken up permanent residence. The perky doctor instantly diagnosed it as lateral tendinitis and proved his diagnosis with a couple jujitsu moves using his gloved hands and my left arm which hurt like hell, but served to bolster his assertions. He slipped a brace on my elbow that instantly relieved the pain which came with certain movements, then he prescribed a gel to apply liberally, then shuffled me out the door. The good news is that nothing is torn.
Pam and I find ourselves in a show hole, reduced to watching a Danish political drama with subtitles and rapid fire dialogue which gives you a headache, and is difficult to watch while eating. Take your eyes off the screen for ten seconds to cut up your steak and you’ve missed a key plot detail. It’s called “Borgen” and if you pay close attention to those subtitles its actually pretty good. Still, we keep hoping to discover the next Foyle’s War and we keep getting disappointed when we don’t.
I suppose we could always tune in the January 6th show, but my overpowering sense of self-preservation prevents me from doing so. I catch the thumbnail summaries the morning after and watch a few of the videos and thats bad enough. I have made the executive decision not to voluntarily watch what is basically an infomercial about the official decline of a nation. I understand enough about history to know that world dominance has a shelf life. The Romans had their time, the Greeks before them. The British ruled the world for a while and the United States has stood astride the globe as a colossus for almost a hundred years now. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe our time is up, our years of power and prestige is in decline. We seem hopelessly divided, increasingly brutish and nasty to each other, and led by men and women unequal to the task. Heck, we can’t even agree on a working definition of treason anymore, let alone convict anyone of it. Although our public schools can’t dependably teach kids how to read, write, add and subtract, we are well on our way to confusing the Bejesus out of them with regards to sexuality and the proper pronouns used to describe the burgeoning number of genders available for them to choose from. Its hard not to conclude that I live in a nation in decline.
Of course…I could be wrong. Many people before me have come to similar conclusions about the fate of our Republic and wound up spectacularly wrong. History is complex, the forces that drive it are often unknowable. Just when national decline seems assured someone invents the computer and all bets are off. So, my conclusions might be equally wrong.
I don’t know that I have ever needed Maine any more than I do this year.
I have mentioned often how much Lucy loves going to Maine, what a marvelous traveler she is, how much she adores the water. But its hard to explain it adequately with words. Explaining anything about the time we spend in Maine is a challenge. Although I’m pretty good with words I never feel like I’m able to convey the emotional impact the place has on all of us. When I scan through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken, the ones that come closest to capturing the feeling have one thing in common…Lucy is in them. Here are just a few:
I am the boss of the dock.
Always willing to assist Dad when he takes a nap.
And make sure he stays safe when he takes the kayak out.
I can’t let this one out of my sight.
Fetching my frisbee like its my job…because it is.
Guarding dad whenever he goes on a hike…
And, there are LOTS of hikes…
I help Dad fish.
…by inspecting each catch.
For some reason, whenever Mom and Dad leave me at the cabin alone they feel the need to spy on me…so I make sure to give them many different poses.
…then every now and then I act like there’s an intruder just to mess with them a little.
Famed New York Times outdoors columnist Nelson Bryant wrote what follows to his two daughters shortly before his death at age 96.
“The secret I would have you know……is that even though the years will steal your fresh beauty, it need only be, in truth, a minor theft. What you must guard against is that jaded state wherein there is nothing new to see or learn. Marvel at the sun, rejoice in the rhythmic wheeling of the stars and learn their names, cry aloud at the swelling beauty of an orchid in the white oak woods, or December’s first snow; slide down the wind with a hawk and cherish the smell of woodsmoke and mayflowers, or the caress of a warm wool blanket; tarry by a stream where willows bend and flee tedium’s gray embrace.Cherish laughter and whimsy, but battle unrelentingly for what you know is right and be aware that the thieves of wonder can enter any heart.”
