For the last number of weeks, I’ve been working on a blog entitled “Meditations on Abortion.” That blog is now on the shelf because both of my editors, one female and one male with different views, have given the draft a decided thumbs down.

And while Easter is now behind us, I received an unexpected gift on Easter Sunday from my college friend, Don Hynes. In the late 1960s, everyone understood the word “hippie.” It is now going out of style but, if you had looked up the word in a picture dictionary, it would’ve been a younger Don.

His career was absolutely unexpected as he became a sought after construction manager for huge building projects. But the “hippie” sensibility was never lost and so he began publishing poetry usually to be sent out on Sunday of each week. Most of the poetry was seasonal in nature, aligning human emotions with the death of winter, the birth of spring, the glory of summer and the slow dying of autumn. I thought him as pantheistic.

But then came, “The Irish Girl” a book length poem that as one reviewer said: “This is magical lyricism of the highest order, not a comma out of place. It doesn’t get better than this.”

And then last Easter Sunday, Don Hynes, sent this poem and, I think, even my non-Christian friends will appreciate it. 

We May Rise

The tree that grew on the hills above Jerusalem
was cousin to the juniper growing here
on this rock shelf above the Salish Sea.
Stately furrows, roots like cable,
branches bearing delicate spindles
to capture the rain and light of this spring day.
We cut and shape these trees
as we did that one on Golgotha
those centuries ago,
forming it to a cross
to bear the weight of love.
It is a heavy burden
and one many choose to reject.
I remember that terrible day,
the punishment of the Via Dolorosa.
Here and now there is only
water, light and stone
and the body of forgiveness
taken down from the cross,
placed in the earth
and from the earth risen,
as we may rise
into the sunlit presence
speaking to us softly
in the murmuring voice
of the endless sea.

In the Roman Catholic Church, one of the most well attended liturgies occurs on Ash Wednesday when observant and semi-observant Catholics get “ashes” in the shape of a cross on their foreheads with the priest saying to each “Remember that thou are dust and to dust thou shall return.” It is a genius sentence as believers will understand that the “dust” at the end is the prelude to eternal life while “non-believers” will acknowledge that there is only dust at the end.

Ash Wednesday begins the 40 days of Lent where believers are encouraged to practice what they preach, to fast and perform other ascetic practices to bring them closer to God, all leading to Easter Sunday and the belief in the resurrection.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which is closely aligned with the Roman Catholic Church and is the predominant church in Ukraine, does not distribute ashes but requires even stricter fasting rules during its Lent which occurs at a slightly different time than that observed in the Western church because it follows the Julian, not the Gregorian, calendar. Nevertheless, the concept of Lent is identical.

On February 24, 2022, four days before Ash Wednesday, Russia invaded Ukraine and the “ashes” it brought arose from the rubble of buildings being bombed, including a maternity hospital. This invasion proved that the past is often the prelude. In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea which was then, but is no longer, a part of Ukraine. The American response under President Obama and that of the rest of the West to the invasion of the Crimea could only have emboldened Vladimir Putin as it was the equivalent of “Hey, you shouldn’t have done that.”

This time it was different. President Biden has been called “Sleepy Joe.” Unlike Obama, however, he was not asleep at the switch. Indeed, he orchestrated a free world response to this invasion which was both dramatic and unprecedented. The Russian economy is in freefall because of the Western sanctions and its oligarchs are trying to sail their super yachts to safe harbors but are finding none in Europe. Putin’s miscalculation has effectively organized the “free” world in ways he never expected. Putin wanted Ukraine to back off from NATO but now has both Finland and Sweden talking about joining. 

But there are always dissenters. A small minority of the American left, fixated on American misdeeds, has actually justified the Putin invasion by stating that it is the end result of America encouraging Ukraine to be a part of the West which is an affront to Putin.

If one scores those on the left for their comments, they do not hold a candle to the drivel on the right. Former President Trump said: “I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘this is genius.’  Putin declared a big portion of the Ukraine … as independent.  Oh, that’s wonderful.” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson is in the truly embarrassing position of having his comments replayed on Putin-controlled Russian TV. Republicans in Congress have not been silent. Representative Madison Cawthorn referred to President Zelensky as a “thug” while many people are comparing him to Winston Churchill rallying the British people during the Blitz.  Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who many say is the queen of “crazies,” said that the war was created by President Biden because he is “weak.”

John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago.  He belongs to the realist school of thought and has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. He predicted that the encouragement of Ukraine to join the EU and apply to NATO would result in the current mess as Russia would be forced to protect its flanks. In Mearsheimer’s view, “great” powers will always lord it over the lesser ones which they deem to be in their orbit. Hence, China and Taiwan, the United States and South America, Russia and Ukraine. In a phrase, “might makes right.” That is the way it is, always has been and always will be.

The essential problem with this view is that it equates power with proper behavior as if there were no difference. While Russia may not like a pro-western Ukraine, who says that Russia has any right to say anything about it? Russia may not like a free Hungary or a free Czechoslovakia or a free Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia but those countries surely don’t cotton to Russia either. The Hungarians saw Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956. The Czechs saw Russian tanks in Prague in 1968. The Baltic republics are only 30 years away from when the Soviet Union controlled their lives. These countries all joined NATO as soon as they could and the reason was this:  they had suffered plenty and they wanted to keep the Russians from returning.

The whole notion of “great” powers assumes that there are one or two or three “great” powers and the surrounding states are like pawns on a chessboard. However, as students of chess know, a pawn can sometimes checkmate a king. That is the story of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity Union movement in Poland. Started in 1980 at the Vladimir Lenin shipyard at Gdańsk, it led to semi-free elections in 1989 and Walesa was elected President of a now free Poland in 1990. This time around, the Russians did not send tanks but depended on their government allies in Warsaw. Between 1980 and 1989, Solidarity was outlawed under martial law, Walesa was imprisoned but nothing made a difference. Solidarity survived with the explicit help of a Polish Pope and the clandestine help of western intelligence agencies and was the first to sound the death knell of the Soviet Union.

So how will Ukraine end? Presumably, the vastly superior Russian army will “win” and President Zelensky may be executed. But if he is executed, the fight will have only just begun as he has become the Winston Churchill/Lech Walesa of his country. The Russians can say all they want about how Ukraine is part of Russia but Ukraine has always resisted. Stalin detested the Ukrainian farmers who did not reach their quota of crops when his 5 Year Plan, depending on collective farms, proved a bust. Solution: order grain out of Ukraine and let at least 4,000,000 Ukrainians starve to death. The Ukrainians call this genocide Holodomor (Death By Hunger) and it is commemorated on Holodomor Memorial Day, the 4th Saturday of November, with a minute of silence at 4 PM with flags at half-mast. Ukrainians have never forgotten.

Hopefully, we have learned a few things out of this debacle. First, there is a great danger if we only believe that “might makes right.” Second, while any country has to be prudent in responding to such actions as are now occurring in Ukraine, there are any number of actions in our financially interconnected world that can make an important difference. And, in this case, they already have. Third, freedom is an aphrodisiac for the human soul. Once loosed, it cannot be contained.

Ukraine knows freedom and how to fight for it.  In 2014, months of popular protests swept pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych from office when he reneged on his promise to sign long anticipated association and trade agreements with the European Union. Instead he decided to expand ties with Russia. In the end, Yanukovych scurried home to Moscow in order to avoid a slew of criminal charges. This is known as the Maidan Revolution (Revolution of Dignity) and is featured in a documentary entitled Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom now streaming on Netflix.

There is a reason that the “free world” will always triumph over the authoritarian world. Neither Russia nor China has an immigration problem since people are not trying to get in but, rather, trying to get out.

Russia has given the world majestic music and wonderful literature and poetry. Putin’s Russia has given the world nothing but war (Syria, now Ukraine) and has allowed him to enrich himself and his oligarch buddies. The “great” power, Russia, is, in the late John McCain’s words, “A gas station run by a mafia that is masquerading as a country.”

So, in this season of Lent, we can only pray that the present mess ends well and that Ukraine survives without mounds of ashes.

In college I came to appreciate a few things. First, to have a profound respect for the life of the mind; second, try to live a meaningful life; third, to love college football. Since I went to Notre Dame, football was in the DNA of the place and it was great fun to watch with the dueling mascots, colorful team uniforms, cheerleaders, marching bands, tailgate parties, the fight songs after every score and beer fueled student sections willing a home team victory. The NFL, try as it may, can never replicate the pageantry of a college football game.

Joan Didion once wrote: “time passes, memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.” While this is often the case, I have one football memory that has never “faded,” “adjusted” or “conformed” because it really happened.

My classmate and friend Dave Martin was a starting linebacker on the 1966 Notre Dame National Championship team. The Southern California game, Notre Dame’s most heated rivalry, was being played on Thanksgiving weekend in the Los Angeles Coliseum. I was listening to the radio report of the game (the game was not on TV because, the week before, #1 Notre Dame had played #2 Michigan State to a nationally televised 10-10 tie in East Lansing, Michigan and, in those days, a team only appeared on national TV once a year during the regular season). Then, I heard the announcer say that the ball has been intercepted by Dave Martin and that he has returned it for a touchdown. And when I heard that, I started screaming at the radio, to myself and to an empty room: “I know that guy!” Indescribable joy, as if I, not Dave, had scored the touchdown.

So what happens when a game that you love is turned upside down?  Because that is exactly what has happened.

William F. Tate, IV was hired in 2021 to be President of Louisiana State University (LSU). He received an employment contract of $725,000 a year plus a housing and car allowance totaling $50,000. He is responsible for multiple campuses (total of 8), a law school, a medical school, a veterinary school and the flagship campus in Baton Rouge. LSU faculty and staff number almost 5,000 and the student population is over 34,000.

Also in 2021, Brian Kelly was hired as head football coach at LSU and he is receiving a base salary of $9 million plus “bonuses” of at least $1 million per year (a “longevity” bonus of $500,000 each July and another $500,000 if LSU plays in a bowl game, a near certainty). He is also receiving car allowances ($24K a year) and an interest free housing loan up to $1.2 million.

The president of Michigan State University makes $720,000 a year. He is responsible for 13,000 faculty and staff employees and 50,000 students.

Mel Tucker, the successful second year coach of the Michigan State football team, was just rewarded with a $9.5 million a year contract for the next 10 years. Like the coach at LSU, he is probably responsible for the supervision of about 100 student athletes and maybe 200 support staff.

The 10th highest paid college football coach in 2021 was Kirby Smart of Georgia who made slightly more than $7 million with a bonus of not less than $850,000, which he undoubtedly collected when his team won the national title a few weeks ago. It’s almost a sure thing that Kirby’s salary next year will approach the $10 million level.  The president of the University of Georgia which educates 30,000 students makes less than 10% of Coach Smart’s salary.

The University of Southern California just awarded a $10 million a year contract to its new football coach, Lincoln Riley who, until a few weeks ago, was the football coach at the University of Oklahoma. Riley’s “package,” according to published articles, includes a $6 million home in Los Angeles and a private jet for his family’s use. The Southern California Athletic Department tweeted “we got our man” but it surely seems that their “man” also got them.

The top 10 college coaches make more money than all but three of the NFL coaches and the highest paid college coaches when all “perks” and “bonuses” are counted (Nike, Under Armor, Aflac commercials) likely make more than any NFL coach.  You have to give it to the lawyer who coined the term “longevity bonus” to award someone $500K per year when he actually honors his 10 year contract.

How do we get to the state of affairs where the football team is more important than the university’s mission? It was a long time coming but may have been jump started in 1991 when NBC entered into a contract with Notre Dame to broadcast all of the Fighting Irish home games. The college football world was stunned by this contract which has now been extended until 2025. And then the arms race began. Now we have a Big 10 television network, the SEC television network, and repeated reconfigurations of teams and conferences in order to enhance television coverage. As the money rolled in, the first pig at the trough was the football coach who argued that his enterprise was reaping untold dollars for the school. In most cases, the school acquiesced. Oddly enough, Notre Dame ‒ which may have started it all ‒ was “only” paying Coach Kelly a little less than $2 million a year which he parlayed into $10 million a year at LSU.

In 1996, teams played a 10 game regular season schedule and there were a total of 8 bowl games in Division 1 football.  In 2021, teams played 12 games in the regular season and there were 43 bowl games.

So is this just an old man reminiscing about the good old days?  Maybe so but I think football has become the tail wagging the university dog and that’s not right.

There is one other thing I know.  On one magical Saturday in November of 1966, Dave Martin and I scored a touchdown against Southern Cal.

In the beginning, the COVID-19 variants were described by their country of origin. There was the Chinese flu, the British variant, the South African variant and the Indian Variant. The World Health Organization (WHO) decided that the use of country names to describe the variants encouraged discrimination particularly against Asian people so it decreed that the variance should follow letters of the Greek alphabet. Apparently, WHO was not concerned that some looney tune would then target Greeks.

Now that the pandemic has become endemic and the variants have been pretty much conquered by the developed vaccines and the world is returning to normal, it’s time to retire the Greek alphabet.

There are 32 letters in the Greek alphabet but, before they are retired, we should use most of them. That job has been pretty much completed by Nate Odenkirk and Bob Odenkirk (of Better Call Saul fame) who published the following article in the January 21, 2022 edition of The New Yorker. The article was entitled “COVID’s Lesser Variants” and appears below.

Enjoy!

COVID’s Lesser Variants

There are ten Greek letters between delta and omicron—and ten corresponding Covid variants we’ve not heard much about. That’s because they spread less easily; in fact, after much study, scientists have determined that they are transmitted only in what might be characterized as very rare scenarios.

Between the Delta and Omicron variants, there is . . .

Epsilon: Transmissible through podcasts. Sound scary? It’s not. Take into account that you have to listen to an entire podcast, beginning to end, in one go, including commercials, paying attention the whole time. Very rare.

Zeta: Spread through the sharing of a McRib sandwich. Only the Filet-O-Fish sub-variant is of less concern. The C.D.C. has partnered with dedicated contact tracers at mcriblocator.com to ceaselessly flag the isolated outbreaks via pressed-pork sandwiches. Cannot be spread through fries. Relax.

Eta: Passed via the sharing of an iPhone charger, but only when the owner of the charger has less battery power than the borrower. Epidemiologists have not recorded a single instance of such selflessness in the United States.

Theta: Quite unique, the theta variant spreads via quicksand. Spreads slowly, though the sand is quick! If you have to have two people in quicksand, one with covid, neither with a mask, and both sinking, together . . . it’s hard to say who gave it to whom. But then again they have a bigger problem to worry about.

Iota: Kazoo. Specifically, the sharing of a kazoo. Friends are advised not to share one or play one in front of each other if they want to remain “Iota safe,” or simply remain “friends.”

Kappa: A truly odd evolutionary mutation, Kappa spreads through the re-dipping of a strawberry in a chocolate fountain, followed by the reusing of the toothpick, and then the licking of one’s fingers, and then, finally, the licking of the fingers of the Kappa-infected subject. Nobody does this. Well, not adults, not if they have boundaries.

Lambda: Contracted only by attending a “Chris Christie for President” rally. This variant has never been found and will never be found. Sorry, champ.

Mu: Spread via the burping of the entire national anthem by an infected individual. Outbreaks linked to tailgating events and frat hazings. Keep one hand over your heart, and two masks over your mouth.

Nu: Transmissible only by the shared wearing of a bald cap in an evening of light comic sketches. Improvisers beware!

Xi: Spread by the sharing of pertinent knowledge gained from a liberal-arts degree. The key word is “pertinent.” Rarest variant by far—practically inconceivable. ♦

The population of the City of Baltimore has been in decline for the last 70 years. In 1950, over 975,000 people lived in the city limits. Now the city population is 575, 000. Currently, the per capita murder rate is twice that of the City of Chicago. The city population is poor and getting poorer and over 20% live below the poverty level.

In 1950, Bethlehem Steel employed over 40,000 people at its Sparrows Point plant and many of the 40,000 were Baltimore city residents earning steel worker union pay. Today there is no Sparrows Point Steel plant and, indeed, there is no longer a company known as Bethlehem Steel. Union wages are mostly a fond memory.

Murders have now exceeded 300 in each of the last seven years. Fewer people are coming into the city because of the crime. The property tax rate in Baltimore is twice that of the surrounding counties and the local school system ‒ with the exception of a few excellent elementary and high schools ‒ is pretty much a mess despite record funding levels. The public schools are avoided by anybody with any means which translates into a student body that is poor and poorer, making the job of teachers hard and harder.

Baltimore, however, is not without considerable attractions. Its once industrial waterfront is now occupied by expensive and attractive housing. The newest waterfront entry is called Port Covington where the Under Armor headquarters will be located along with extensive housing and retail locations.

Its port is bustling as it is the East Coast port which is closest to the Midwest markets. And the port jobs are high paying union jobs although certainly not as many as Bethlehem Steel once provided.

It has world-class health facilities including Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland.

For a small city (31st largest in the United States), it has exceptional cultural and museum facilities and a breathtakingly good Symphony.

Its professional sports teams (Orioles and Ravens) play in downtown state of the art facilities located within a stone’s throw of the dazzling Inner Harbor. It hosts the Preakness, the second jewel of the Triple Crown, and the aging Pimlico track is undergoing a major redevelopment which should rival the finest tracks in the country and promises to stabilize and, hopefully improve, the surrounding area. All these sports facilities have been almost entirely paid for by the State of Maryland in recognition of the importance of the city.

And, if you are a foodie, Baltimore is your kind of town. 

But the everyday story is about the number of murders. In April 2015, a man named Freddie Gray was arrested and placed in a paddy wagon and upon arrival at its destination, Gray was dead. Riots ensued and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby calmed the waters by indicting six policemen as being responsible for Gray’s death. 

Mosby was lionized for her decision which she played to the hilt but, in fact, it was one awful decision. All six policemen were acquitted or the charges against them were dropped. In 2014, there were 40,000 arrests but that number plummeted to about 18,000 in 2017. And the murders took off from 211 in 2014 to well over 300 for the last 7 years.

As David Simon, the creator of the acclaimed TV show, The Wire, a former police reporter and city resident observed:  “So officers figured it out: ‘I can go to jail for making the wrong arrest, so I’m not getting out of my car to clear a corner’ and that’s exactly what happened post-Freddie Gray.”

Bad decisions are in Mosby’s DNA. In 2020, she decided not to prosecute low level offenses such as drug possession, prostitution, and public defecation. She has since bragged that violent crimes decreased because of this decision (except, oops, the increases in homicides, carjackings, bank robberies and assaults) and defended it as being the “progressive” position. This should be of small solace to the poor black neighborhoods where drug possession and drug sales are an everyday occurrence and where moms keep their children safe inside and to local shopkeepers who have to put up with the mess. Drug overdose deaths have spiked so sharply under her new policies that a specific Federal initiative was announced in October 2021 to address Baltimore’s “overdose” problem.

So what to make of Baltimore? The braying voices of talk radio claim that it is a “hellhole.” The most “pro-city” columnist in The Baltimore Sun weakly replies that it is not really a “hellhole” but it’s also not a “model city.” My friend Lorna Collins may have hit the nail on the head when she said that the city was “rudderless.” The last mayor is still in prison; the current mayor is a deer in the headlights. Competent political leadership has been AWOL for the last 10 years.

It seems clear that the current political leadership is not up to the task. Besides Marilyn Mosby, the President of the City Council is her husband and their political ally is the current mayor who has just announced his “five-year plan” to reduce the violence which, like all “five year” plans, is very likely to amount to a whole lot of nothing. At this point, one has to look to other places for relief.

But, then, amidst all the gloom and doom, there are points of light. The first President Bush was pretty roundly mocked when he called for a “Thousand Points of Light” to address problems in the country. The criticism was that “volunteer” and charitable activities were not a realistic substitute for government programs. Whatever the value of that criticism, the American experience has shown that volunteer and charitable activities are extremely important. Each of these activities can be a light shining in the darkness.

One of the first places to start is education. Public education has not fulfilled its promise in many large metropolitan areas with an impoverished population, including Baltimore. Experimentation is necessary. So, for example, Michael Bloomberg has just pledged $750 million for the charter school movement.

The intersection of 22nd St. and Greenmount Ave. is not the most desirable place to live in Baltimore. However, it is the site of Mother Seton Academy, a tuition free coed middle school for grades 6 through 8. It is supported by private donations, the most significant having been made by Renee and Steve Biscotti, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens. Students wear uniforms with the boys wearing ties, all under the watchful eye of Principal Sr. Peggy Juskelis, SSND. They are taught to look at adults directly, to extend their hands for handshakes and introduce themselves. They are successful academically and are admitted to excellent high schools.

So you say “that’s great, but it’s really a drop in the bucket” and, indeed, it is. But it is also a point of light in a dark place and for the students at Mother Seton Academy, a chance at a rewarding and purposeful life.

And Mother Seton is not the only point of light. A remarkable priest, Father William “Bill” Watters, S.J., started a middle school for boys known as Loyola Academy, founded Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and started a pre-school known as the Loyola Early Learning Center, all three in the city limits.

Last Sunday’s paper announced a $75 million program from Catholic Charities to assist the city. Those efforts will include:

• An inter-generational center in West Baltimore to support children, adults and seniors, and help 3 to 5 year olds to become ready for school and provide workforce development and behavioral health support.

• Programs for intellectually and developmentally disabled people.

• The redevelopment of the Cherry Hill Town Center in South Baltimore with a full 4,400 square-foot facility to include the first full service bank in the area, a hub for local entrepreneurs and for fresh food purveyors.

In the northern hemisphere, we are fast approaching the time when the days are darkest and there is little light. A Leonard Cohen lyric reads “there is a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in.” In Baltimore and in many other places, we need to celebrate the lights amongst us, for “[t]he light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

The movie “Goodbye, Columbus” was released in 1969 starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw. Its name was derived from Ali MacGraw’s film brother who was disconsolate because his glory days as a basketball star at Ohio State were over.

While the title “Goodbye, Columbus” referred to the brother’s time at Ohio State located in Columbus Ohio, many now want to say “Goodbye” to Christopher Columbus because of the treatment of indigenous people he encountered.

In the United States, at least 25 counties, cities and towns have the name Columbus or Columbia. Columbus is the capital of Ohio; Columbia is the capital of South Carolina; and the capital of the nation is Washington, District of Columbia. Since 1968, Columbus Day has been a federal holiday, celebrated on the second Monday in October which also happens to be Canadian Thanksgiving Day. 

The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792 when the Columbian Order of New York held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Columbus’ Landing. If the Declaration of Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1968 was the high water mark for honoring Christopher Columbus, his reputation has taken a nosedive in the last 20 years because of his treatment of indigenous people.

150 years ago, the opposition to Columbus Day came from anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic nativists, including the Ku Klux Klan, who sought to eliminate the celebration because of its association with immigrants from Catholic countries and with the American Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus.

The present objection to Columbus Day may be more effective than the earlier objection.  Just this month, President Biden proclaimed that October 11^th would be recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day by the federal government.  In many parts of the country Columbus Day has been refashioned into Indigenous People Day. Even Columbus, Ohio now celebrates Columbus Day not as a tribute to Columbus but as a tribute to veterans. Columbus’ encounters with indigenous people is more nuanced than is currently depicted. The Taino tribe was friendly and non-threatening but the Carib tribe was threatening and aggressive and, according to the Tainos, practiced cannibalism against their enemies, a position that Columbus came to believe. Nevertheless, both were enslaved by the Spanish under Columbus.

In July 2020, during the George Floyd protests, the statue of Christopher Columbus in the Little Italy section of Baltimore was pulled down and rolled into the harbor. That statue had been dedicated in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. The most “woke” member of the Baltimore City Council, Ryan Dorsey, tweeted “Bye.” The Baltimore Sun, a pale shadow of a once fine newspaper, opined that Columbus did not really discover America since he did not land on the mainland. The Sun has now been taken over by Alden Capital which will likely result in layoffs and, hopefully, one of the first to go is the moron who wrote that sentence.

Five of the first seven presidents of the United States owned slaves during their presidency and that was 300 years after Columbus had enslaved indigenous people. Most of these presidents were opposed to slavery but not so opposed that they gave up their slaves. Indeed, Jefferson, who had 600 slaves, bedded Sally Hemmings who produced a number of children who did not have his surname.

So what to make of the slave makers and slave owners? In large part, they were a product of their times where slavery was normal. At the same time, most instinctively knew that slavery was wrong.

The real issue is how do we treat historical figures who engaged in lamentable behavior but, at the same time, made significant contributions.

Columbus’ voyages were remarkable as were the voyages of another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the newly discovered continents were named. Imagine the fortitude necessary to sail 3,000 miles over open ocean without nautical charts, much less GPS, in the hope of finding land. Thomas Jefferson not only gave us the Declaration of Independence but founded the University of Virginia and, as President, negotiated the Louisiana Purchase which expanded the new nation westward and included approximately a third of the present country.

There is no reason that we cannot celebrate both Columbus and Indigenous People. Recently, the town of Franklin, Tennessee erected a “March to Freedom” memorial honoring the black enslaved men who joined The United States Colored Troops, a segregated unit of the Union Army, which fought with the Union in the Civil War. The town already had a memorial to Confederate soldiers which could not be taken down because of ownership issues and provisions of state law. Hence, those who objected to the Confederate soldier monument found a provocative way to even the playing field with a monument directly across the street from the Confederate monument.

There is no question that the indigenous people in the New Continent got the short end of the stick, time after time.  The American Indians were either eradicated or forced into reservations which always contained the least desirable land.  At the same time hundreds of thousands of European immigrants – “yearning to be free” – passed the Statue of Liberty and populated the country.

If you are a descendant of an American Indian you will never believe that what happened was “right” because it wasn’t. If, however, you are a descendant of immigrants you are probably grateful for the life you’ve been given. That doesn’t mean that you cannot recognize injustice but it does mean that you are not personally responsible and feeling guilt helps no one. Trying to eradicate the present day consequences of the injustices is more important than anything.

Unfortunately, the demand to admit “guilt” – even when you are not guilty ‒ occurs too often. Condolezza Rice, the first black female Secretary of State, was recently a guest on The View. She was asked about the critical race theory debate and she said: “One of the worries that I have about the way we’re talking about race…[is that somehow] white people have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.” In order for black kids to be empowered, you “don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white.”

The criticism of Rice’s comments was fierce and she was accused of being a “soldier for white supremacy.” This should be news to Ms. Rice who herself was a victim of segregated schools as a child. The current “progressive” position seems to be that whites have to feel guilty even if they are not guilty because, somewhere in the distant past, some ancestor may have been guilty. This is nonsense of the highest order. Implied guilt is not productive as argued by John McWhorter in his column in the New York Times entitled “The Former Secretary of State is Right About the Inutility of White Guilt” (see reprinted article below).

This country’s founding document, The Constitution, began by stating that its goal was to form a “more perfect union.” That is still a work in progress. So as we go forward, we ‒ each in our own way ‒ need to work for the future while cognizant of the past. The future, however, is more important than assigning blame for the past.

Columbus and Jefferson – warts and all ‒ achieved remarkable things. Their sins should not be a cause for a failure to recognize their achievements.

Jefferson deserves the Jefferson Memorial overlooking the Tidal Basin in the nation’s capital and Columbus deserves his day.

October 29, 2021 by: John McWhorter

The Former Secretary of State is Right About the Inutility of White Guilt

Condoleezza Rice, the first Black female secretary of state, who now heads Stanford University’s Hoover Institution — and who, by her account, attended segregated schools in the Deep South — was a guest last week on “The View.” When asked about the critical race theory debate, she said, “One of the worries that I have about the way that we’re talking about race” sometimes these days is that “somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.” She added, “I don’t think that’s very productive.” Of course, as she and we know, there’s more to the critical race theory debate than that. But about the strain of educational philosophy that looks to raise students’ awareness of racial injustice, she said that for Black kids to be empowered, “I don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white.”

Writing for The Grio, the longtime cultural critic Touré offered a piercing reply, calling Rice a “soldier for white supremacy” and saying that white people today, including children, “should cringe at what their ancestors did.” If school curriculums include the harshest aspects of America’s history, he argued, “I really don’t care if learning this makes white kids feel bad — and if it doesn’t, then they are too heartless.”

I can see how someone arrives at that perspective, because white guilt can seem so central to what Black progress needs to be about — emphasis on “seem.” We’re increasingly encouraged to dwell on “white privilege” and “systemic racism” as key impediments, if not the key impediments, to Black progress. But we must ask just what purpose fostering white guilt serves.

Of course, there is a visceral sense of power in fostering white guilt: One has made people realize something and made them see you as deserving of recompense, as harmed and therefore owed. There can be a sense of accomplishment in just demanding that white Americans sit with past wrongs.

But presumably, the goal is to make America “a more perfect union,” as the Constitution has it. And if that’s the goal, our collective efforts to reach it presumably would be about addressing societal conditions rather than these more soul-focused endeavors. One might argue that a realer, not to mention healthier, manifestation of Black affirmation would come from more concrete markers of progress than the dutiful hand-wringing of well-meaning white people about their forebears’ sins.

A compelling reason for fostering white guilt would be that if doing so led white Americans to go out and foster change in society. And sometimes it can — but is white guilt necessary to or the best way to effect societal change?

For the civil rights victories of the 1960s, it wasn’t. We tend to forget how seismic the changes were during that one decade: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were undeniably huge advances, even if they did not (and they did not) end racism or completely level the societal playing field. In any case, all of this did not happen because white people became guilty nationwide.

America’s white majority, and with them America’s political leaders, got behind tangible change because segregation as policy, and the violence required to maintain it, was pragmatically inconvenient on the world stage during the Cold War standoff. Technology was the accelerant, in that television illustrated the civil rights movement in a way that radio and newspapers could not.

Certainly, the televised struggle, and the sympathy of a white countercultural movement that rapidly grew in the ’60s, created a sense of guilt among a certain contingent of, especially, younger white Americans questioning the establishment. But these white kids, for all the fascination they elicit in hindsight as preludes to us moderns, were a relatively fringe element at the time. The mid-20th-century American (white) Everyman tended to lack the visceral sense of revulsion at racism that we now take for granted as at least a courtesy norm.

In his classic “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy,” Gunnar Myrdal observed that “even the white man who defends discrimination frequently describes his motive as ‘prejudice’ and says that it is ‘irrational.’” In other words, the Everyman acknowledged racism but felt no need to disavow it. For example, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson harbored no special guilt about the challenges faced by Black America but eventually saw it as politically prudent to court the Black electorate.

Thus, in the 1960s, civil rights leaders were able to take advantage of chance configurations. We might take a page from them. The gradual legalization of marijuana could be the start of a general reanalysis of the war on drugs that ravages Black communities. Beyond the current fight over President Biden’s legislative agenda, a new and more targeted demand on infrastructure could and should undergird a focus on training or retraining underserved working-class Black Americans for solid, well-paying vocational jobs. White guilt would be of little relevance amid such on-the-ground developments.

In that light, it bears mentioning that over the decades since the 1960s, when the idea that white Americans need to be guilty settled in among a contingent of Black thinkers, it seems that somehow, no matter what we say or do, white people are never guilty enough and white guilt is supposed to go on in perpetuity. Might it be that the effort to make white people any guiltier than they are is a Sisyphean effort? The dream that white people will, en masse, shed their “fragility” and embrace feeling really, really guilty is about as likely as Schoenberg’s ever being brunch music for more than a rarefied few.

We seek for enlightened white people to acknowledge that they are complicit — to use a term especially popular in recent years — in a system constructed for the benefit of whites. Note that even that word is a strategy to shake white people by the color, in that telling them they are complicit is a fresher way of saying that they should be guilty. Because many white Americans have a way of resisting feeling guilty about things racial that they know are bad but that they themselves didn’t do, using a euphemism such as “complicit” is a way of trying to make the case without eliciting those typical objections: “I’ve never discriminated against anyone”; “I didn’t own slaves.”

But even phrased as complicity, the charge requires not just the occasional acolyte but the white populace as a whole to feel guilty about things people did not individually do, that were often done in the deep past rather than by their parents and that were done within a vast societal system, the operations of which even experts disagree on. That’s a lot. Recall also that most human beings are not, and will never be, dedicatedly history-minded — we live in the present.

What’s more, I don’t completely trust white guilt. It lends itself too easily to virtue signaling, which overlaps only partially, and sometimes not at all, with helping people. I recall a brilliant, accomplished, kind white academic of a certain age who genially told me — after I published my first book on race, “Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America,” two decades ago — “John, I get what you mean, but I reserve my right to be guilty.” I got what he meant, too, and did not take it ill. But still, note that word “right.” Feeling guilty lent him something personally fulfilling and signaled that he was one of the good guys without obligating him further. The problem is that one can harbor that feeling while not actually doing anything to bring about change on the ground.

So, I’m with Secretary Rice. Especially because people can actively foster change without harboring (or performing?) a sense of personal guilt for America’s history. Black America likely will not overcome without some white assistance. But I’m not convinced that the way this happens is with white people’s cheeks burning in shame over their complicity. Maybe they can just help.

Opinion polls over the years have indicated that Americans pretty much loathe Congress but almost always like their Congressman. My Congressman is John Sarbanes (Democrat, 3rd District, Maryland). Sarbanes has an impressive educational background. After graduating from an elite Baltimore prep school, he received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Harvard.

His educational pedigree is, however, no match for his political pedigree. He is the eldest son of Paul Sarbanes who was a United States Senator from Maryland for 30 years (1977–2007). The Senator’s most notable legislative accomplishment was the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 which reformed corporate accounting rules after the Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and similar scandals. These scandals resulted in investors losing billions of dollars when the stock prices of companies collapsed in spite of having received “clean bills of health” from public accounting firms.

Representative Sarbanes is the lead sponsor of House Bill 1 (For The People Act) now pending in Congress. Recently, it passed the House of Representatives on an almost straight party line vote of 220-210 but has been scuttled in the Senate by Republican opposition. Depending on your point of view, House Bill 1 is either a Democratic power grab seeking to overrule state voting laws or a necessary antidote to Republicans denying people the right to vote. However, the provision which most interests me is the proposal to set up non-partisan gerrymandering committees in each state.

House Bill 1 provides that there will be independent commissions in each state to design congressional districts. The commissions will consist of five Democrats, five Republicans and five Independents and the majority vote will prevail but only if at least one Democrat, one Republican and one Independent is in that majority. So, if the Democrats or the Republicans refused to vote with the majority, the vote would not be effective. I think that the majority vote should be just that and that one party or the other should not have a veto power.

Indeed, I think House Bill 1 is a repeat of the fundamental problem with our current redistricting process where incumbent politicians select their voters rather than the other way around. Currently 90% of the seats in the House of Representatives are “safe” for incumbents. This certainly contributes to the partisan nonsense that we now witness in Congress.

The term “gerrymandering” is derived from Elbridge Gerry who approved a redistricting plan for a state senate district in Massachusetts which, critics said, resembled a salamander, a mythological dragon like monster. Hence, the word:  “Gerry Mander.”

Gerrymandering is fairly easy to understand but it has been brought to new levels by the equivalent of google political maps. Basically, partisans will slice and dice voting precincts so that a Congressional district is loaded up with one party or another. The idea is that Bozo the Clown can be elected if he is of the correct party. And, the thing is that it works. Twenty years ago, Maryland had 4 Republicans and 4 Democrats in the House of Representatives. It now has seven Democratic Congressmen and one Republican.

Maryland is a blue state with Democratic registration being approximately 1.5 million voters, Republican voters amounting to 850,000 and Independents being almost 400,000. A non-partisan drawing of maps would give four Congressional districts to the Democrats, two to the Republicans and two would be tossups.

Recent polls indicate that 65% of all voters ‒ Democrats, Republicans and Independents ‒ remain opposed to partisan gerrymandering. The only real opposition comes from partisans and incumbent members of the House of Representatives who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than agreeing to fair maps which keep neighborhoods and communities of interest together.

The recent Supreme Court decision, Rucho v. Common Cause (North Carolina Republican gerrymandering) and the companion case of Lamone v. Benisek (Maryland Democratic gerrymandering) held the federal courts were not the proper forums in partisan gerrymandering cases since such gerrymandering was a “political question” which could not be resolved by the Judiciary.

According to the New Republic, “America’s Most Gerrymandered District” is ‒ good gosh, the one I’m sitting in ‒ that of Congressman John (For The People) Sarbanes’ Maryland District 3.  An official Maryland website indicates that District 3 “wanders” through Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel and Baltimore County and also Baltimore City. I suppose that the “wandering” is one way to describe it. The better way is to look at it.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Maryland geography will immediately see that this district makes no sense. At more than one point the various disparate parts are joined together by a single block. The tony liberal precincts of Montgomery County have absolutely nothing to do with Baltimore City hardscrabble precincts except, of course, they both vote Democratic.

Congressman Sarbanes has received in excess of 69% of the vote in the last two congressional elections. He has an absolutely “safe” district as do many Republicans in Texas or Ohio. This is the real problem with “gerrymandering.” A Democrat or Republican with a “safe” district has absolutely no incentive to “come to the middle.” He or she can remain comfortably on the left or on the right and be reelected.

I spent over 40 years working in the Maryland General Assembly. In just four of those years, right after the decennial census, you would see Maryland’s 8 congressmen / women ‒ being ferried by their drivers from their offices in Washington to Annapolis ‒ in order to “help out” with the new Congressional maps. Indeed, Congressman Sarbanes was intimately involved in creating current District 3. I think it is fair to say current District 3 helped Congressman Sarbanes a great deal but the “people” very little.

So is there a cure? It occurs to me that the solution is fairly simple.

First, create an Independent Redistricting Commission composed of 15 voters who are “registered” Independent. Republicans or Democrats need not apply.

Second, the maps drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission may not be overruled unless the state legislature musters 75% of its members for a substitute.

Third, the Independent Redistricting Commission shall do its best to create compact districts that do not “wander” around the state and which are consistent with constitutional and statutory requirements.

Finally, incumbent congresspersons will be invited to testify before the Commission but they shall be the last witnesses, not the first as they are now.

So will any of this make a difference? Just imagine if 50 congressional seats were no longer “safe” but tossups so that candidates had to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. Congress is now almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but the current Republicans and Democrats are in “safe” seats so they have no incentive to compromise but only to toe the company line. If 50 seats are no longer strictly partisan but held by people who appealed to both Democrats and Republicans, it would completely change the current dynamic and make all the difference. Dedicated partisans will not like this change but 99% of the “people” would.

So, do I hate Congress but like my Congressman? Hate is an awfully strong word. Let’s just say that I am extremely disappointed by Congress and its failure to work “for the people.” As for Congressman Sarbanes, he is a member of our disappointing Congress and, while he can file legislation saying it is “For The People,” his actual behavior reveals that may not be the case.

The Topps Company, Inc. is a distributor of baseball cards originally packaged with gum as well as cards in other sports. For all practical purposes, Topps has enjoyed a monopoly on baseball cards for the last 50 years. And the business of baseball cards is not insignificant. For example, a Topps 1955 rookie card in mint condition featuring Roberto Clemente can be had on eBay for a little over $21,000.

But the Clemente card is going for chicken feed. The Topps 1952 rookie card for Mickey Mantle was auctioned this year for $5.2 million and the rarest of baseball cards (Honus Wagner from 1910 and originally free with a pack of cigarettes) was just auctioned for $6.6 million.

Which brings us to the business of saints. The Roman Catholic Church (and closely related churches like the Greek and the Russian Orthodox Church and the High Anglicans) have a monopoly on the creation of “saints.” The reason for this is that the other religions don’t really have any interest in recognizing “saints” because most of them believe that any faithful person who has died is already a “saint.” Indeed, most Protestant religions believe that one speaks directly to God and the Catholic notion that one approaches God through a patron is a theological non-starter and was one reason for the Reformation.

So, for example, you don’t find any Methodist Church named after a “saint” unless it’s a Saint from the New Testament like Peter, Paul, Mark, John or Stephen. Not so with Catholic institutions, all of which have religious names. In my area, we have a number of Catholic hospitals (Saint Joseph’s, Good Samaritan, Mercy, and Saint Agnes) as well as any number of Catholic parishes and schools named after Catholic “saints.”

It seems to me that Protestants miss out by not recognizing saints. Catholics, for instance, have saints for absolutely everything (and I mean everything to the point that one says “you’ve got to be kidding” but it turns out you’re not as there is even a patron saint for skiers and snowboarders, St. Bernard of Montjoux who spent decades in the Alps as a missionary). There is a Saint to pray to when you’re missing things (Saint Anthony) or for lost causes (Saint Jude). There are patron saints for professions (Saint Thomas More for lawyers, St. Luke for doctors, St. Thomas Aquinas for academics), for animals (Saint Francis of Assisi), for diseases of the throat (Saint Blaise), for travelers (St. Christopher), for immigrants (Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini) and for musicians (Saint Cecilia). And then there is the Virgin Mary who is not a saint but someone far greater and to whom you pray for her to intercede for you with God for just about anything.

The Virgin Mary, in Catholic tradition, has appeared mostly to children. There is Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. It seems that the Virgin Mary has appeared repeatedly throughout the world. And then there is the “Virgin of the Poor,” who appeared in 1933 in Banneux, Belgium to teenager Mariette Beco with a message. The Virgin of Banneux told Mariette that she had come to alleviate the suffering of the poor and broken-spirited. This was the first time that the Blessed Mother had appeared on behalf of the poor. 

When 27 year old Father Al Schwartz reached South Korea in December of 1957, he did not speak the native language and he encountered a dystopian society that was real, not imagined. “It looked like the end of the world. Everywhere I looked I could see squalor, shacks, shanties, slums and refugees…” He was devoted to the Virgin of the Poor and had both visited Banneux and been ordained a priest a few months earlier. He had dreamed of being a foreign missionary since he was a young boy.

The fighting in the Korean War had ended on July 27, 1953 but it was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II. Virtually all of Korea’s major cities had been destroyed. There were at least 100,000 orphans in South Korea.

Father Al was bound by train for Busan, an impoverished town far south of Seoul. At one of the station stops, ten or so boys raced onto a train car and he recounted them as “scurrying under the seats and reaching between the legs of passengers for discarded pop bottles, scraps of food and cigarette butts. They pushed food hungrily down their mouths…..The boys were uniformly filthy and in rags, and their eyes burned with a fierce, scared, hunted-animal expression. When the conductor appeared in the doorway the boys scampered out of the car in near-panic carrying their spoils with them.”

The boys on the train had been one thing but what he found in Busan ultimately determined the course of his life. A few days after arriving he walked with a guide across a bridge to the island of Yeongdo into hundreds of mountainside hovels where there was tuberculosis, a scarcity of food, despair and illnesses brought on by the frigid winds blowing off the Sea of Japan. Fresh air was overwhelmed by the smell of disease, human waste and decaying garbage. He entered one 12’ by 6’ structure where 12 boys lived subsisting as rag pickers.

Within a year, it appeared that his missionary days were over. Dreadfully sick, he had to return to America to recuperate. While home, he went on an extended retreat to a Trappist Monastery in Virginia where he met a man named Gratian Meyer who owned a direct mail and marketing company. It was the beginning of a non-profit company called Korean Relief, Inc. which became so successful that some American bishops complained to the Vatican that funds were being diverted from their jurisdictions. Father Al had no idea of what he had begun. Entertainers, athletes and celebrities signed on to become sponsors of Korean Relief including Bing Crosby, Roger Staubach, Willie Stargell, Jonas Salk, M.D., Phyllis Diller, Ed McMahon, Mamie Eisenhower and Rose Kennedy.

Father Al had recovered his health and now had the wherewithal to help the “starving and the silent” in Busan and throughout South Korea. He didn’t return to his modest rectory in Busan but instead moved into a one room mud hut that lacked electricity, running water and plumbing but was just like the homes of his destitute parishioners and where they would feel comfortable visiting.

And the money poured in and with it began the construction of free sanitariums, free hospitals to aid the sick; then Boystown and Girlstown to house and educate all the orphans; developmentally disabled facilities and shelters for the homeless. The money kept coming.  And, so too, did the construction of new and better facilities.

But the money would’ve been useless without his creation of an order of nuns known as the Sisters of Mary. The Sisters were the foot soldiers to staff the sanitariums, the hospitals, the orphanages and the other facilities. They too were drawn from Korea’s poor and were tasked with caring for those who were also poor.

It did not end in Korea. It was replicated in the Philippines and then, as Father Al was dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease, it was started again in Mexico. He died in 1992 but the Sisters of Mary, led by Father Al’s chosen designee Korean born Sister Margie Cheong, carried on for the Virgin of the Poor. There are now also free boarding schools for poor children in Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras and Tanzania.

There are three successive stages to becoming a saint in the Catholic Church: the first is Servant of God, the second is Venerable and the third is Blessed. Before being declared a saint, two miracles must be attributed to that person.

In 2015, Father Al became the Venerable Aloysius Schwartz.

Maybe Catholics go overboard when it comes to saints. But then, maybe not. It is important to recognize that there are saints among us.

In 2003, at age 57, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) after experiencing numbness in my face and tingling in my feet and hands. For about 12 years that diagnosis changed my life very little. I would experience tingling and numbness from time to time but very little else. I had what is called “remitting relapsing” MS. For about 2/3 of those with that diagnosis, that would be as far as the disease progresses. However, for about 1/3, the disease will become “secondary progressive” MS, the operative word being “progressive.” Having received an inordinate number of good “breaks” in my life, I missed a good “break” this time.

By 2014, I was walking with a cane which became 2 canes and then a walker. It is a humbling disease. It affects your bowels and bladder, your ability to sleep, your small muscle control and your mental health.  In my case, the worst problem is loss of control of my legs. Simple things, like getting into bed are difficult because my legs don’t work. I need to use my hands to control my legs which are like deadweight. Walking without holding onto something is impossible as my balance is effectively gone. When I stand, my hamstrings and calves ache as if I had just completed a marathon. Steps and putting on long pants are Olympic events.

Even though I can’t move my legs, they move themselves with periodic and uncontrollable spasms, particularly at night when I am trying to sleep. My right leg is particularly recalcitrant as I can’t get my foot off the ground without an orthopedic assist and my right foot is always swollen and numb and either icy cold or fiery hot. And then there is “fatigue” which is constant. If you like to take naps, MS is the disease for you.

So many things that I liked to do (golf, recreational running, boating, sculling, etc.) were now off the table. My default position is now a reclining easy chair with legs up.

But just as you’re starting to feel sorry for yourself, you go to the neurologist’s office and see a 30 year old very upbeat young man who has the same problem and he has a long lifetime ahead.

The world record for the 100 meters is held by Usain Bolt at 9.83 seconds. My record for the 100 meters is 240 seconds. Given my mobility issues, that doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that the world record for a mile (1609 meters) is seventeen seconds less than my 100 meter “record.”

Many of you are probably now saying “Hey, I didn’t RSVP to a pity party.” Fair enough. But I recount this because it is the place from which I think about God.

While the then known world was worshiping multiple gods, the Jewish people gave the world the most significant idea about God in human history, to wit:

1. God exists;
2. There is only one God;
3. There are no other gods;
4. God is transcendent and above earthly things;
5. God created the universe without help and;
6. One’s job on earth is to follow God’s rules.

Christianity and Islam, which are both closely related to Judaism, also embrace the concept of one God and the admonition to follow God’s rules. The great Eastern religions do not recognize a God. Hinduism is not monotheistic, Buddhists are agnostic about a God and Confucianism recognizes no God.

So, what about this Jewish/Christian/Muslim God? For nonbelievers, God is a convenient myth invented by man to explain the origin of existence. For believers, God explains existence. Nonbelievers ask how a merciful God can create a world of such pain and suffering. Believers are thankful for a pathway to be reunited with God in an afterlife.

As to believers, some see the present world as a “vale of tears” to be endured on the way, in Saint Augustine’s words, to the City of God. That City is reached by mitzvahs, good works and a righteous life.  Other believers – like my wife – believe that the present world is a gift from God even with all of its hurts and disappointments.

Believers or nonbelievers ‒ which group is right? Nonbelievers really can’t explain where everything came from (who or what ignited the Big Bang) and believers can’t explain where God came from. In short, no true or pat answer but only matters of unprovable belief or faith.

I am a “Cradle Catholic” as I was baptized at approximately one month of age without my express consent. I earned a Master’s Degree before I ever attended a non-Catholic school. So while I was effectively indoctrinated, that does not mean that I accept everything (why, for instance, cannot women be ordained as priests?). Still, I attend Mass on a regular basis and find serenity and peace in the familiar liturgy.

In our current secular society, religion is often deemed “passé.” The number of churchgoers is in decline not only in this country but throughout the West and the number of non-believers increases each year. But there remains a yearning throughout our secular societies for “meaning.” For thousands of years, that “meaning” was provided by organized religions.

In 1946, Vicktor Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor who lost his wife, mother and brother in the camps, wrote an extraordinarily influential book which was translated into English in 1959 with the title “Man’s Search For Meaning.” His work posited that the search for life’s meaning was the central motivational force for human beings. Frankl’s work was perhaps the most important contribution to the field of psychology in the 20^th Century.

I don’t believe that it is accidental that all major religions have a concept of an afterlife. Indeed, I think that human beings intuitively know that “here” is not all there is. This intuition serves as the basis for religious thinking. I think it would be foolish to ignore the wisdom passed down by past generations.

That is not to say that “faith” comes easily. The commentator David Brooks recently said that ‒ with respect to “faith” ‒ it was good if one had “faith” on three out of every seven days. “Faith” requires a suspension of what we know and experience and the substitution of belief.

I think that Vicktor Frankl’s insight is correct and that man seeks “meaning” in his life’s journey. On one of my “faith” days, this is what I believe but obviously cannot prove.

Human beings have a “divine spark” and seek to be reunited with divinity in the world after death. The world we live in is a wonderful world and, although terribly imperfect, is a way station to a better world. There is a City of God but entrance is conditioned upon laudable behavior.

As a believer, there is one major problem. If God created the universe, why is there such suffering and cruelty? It is not enough to say that it is created by man because a great deal of it has nothing to do with man. Why, for instance, do innocent people suffer and die from starvation, typhoons, earthquakes, malaria and the like? Why would a merciful God allow this to happen?

If I ever get to the City of God, the one question I would ask is the one that the exasperated Desi Arnaz would always demand of Lucy in the old TV show “I Love Lucy.” Imitating his Cuban-American accent, the question would be: “God, you has a lot of ‘ess-plane-ing’ to do.”

The one question that I would never ask is “why me?” I think there are a lot of good answers to that question and I’m pretty sure one of them is “why not?”

For the last 15 years a remarkable black man named Thomas Outlen (Mr. Outlen to us) has cut our grass, cleaned snow and handled landscaping at our house. While college educated, he now operates a modest grass and landscaping business and is sometimes assisted by his 3 sons who are in their 20s and live with their dad.

When the boys were younger, he became disenchanted with their elementary school education and so he homeschooled them. All three were then accepted at the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, then on to college to get their degrees. All three (Thomas, Jr. and twins, Neiman and Aaron) now have good jobs but still find time to help their father.

A number of years ago I represented Mr. Outlen in a dispute with his now former wife over his entitlement to ownership in their marital home. His name was not on the title but he alone had made the mortgage payments for 15 years. The trial took the better part of the day and resulted in a judge ruling in his favor, a ruling that was upheld on appeal.

But what I remember about the trial had little to do with the case. During lulls, Mr. Outlen was reading a book by Paul Tillich, a German-American. Tillich was a Christian existentialist theologian and a leading Protestant thinker who immigrated to the United States, taught at the Harvard Divinity School and at the University of Chicago. He may be the most celebrated theologian of the 20th Century. I knew about him in the sense that I recognized his name and may have read one of his books while in college. To say that Paul Tillich is “dense” in his thinking is a massive understatement.

Mr. Outlen has a wry sense of humor. A few years ago two baby foxes were squashed by a passing car on our front street. My wife asked Mr. Outlen if he could dispose of the carcasses. He along with Neiman and Aaron conducted a funeral in the rear of our property and he reported to my wife that they had said a few prayers and had even christened the two baby foxes. Their names: Neiman and Aaron.

I think it is safe to say that Mr. Outlen is the only person in the history of the Baltimore City Circuit Court to have brought Tillich to a trial. Years later, I was kidding Mr. Outlen about reading Tillich during the trial and he then said something that remains with me to this day: “I read people like Tillich to keep my mind straight; otherwise the anger will well up in me.”

Martin Luther King once said: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” This is one of the favorite sayings of President Obama but, I think, it is probably wrong. Why wrong? Because it assumes, that justice will always prevail when I think that the truth is that it will only prevail if people help it prevail. True justice is not self-executing but is a goal to be attained and, in this world, will probably never be reached. 

Which brings me to Juneteenth, the recently declared federal holiday representing June 19, 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas became aware of the Emancipation Proclamation issued two years earlier. They were the last slaves to be set free. For those interested in numerology, the first African slave landed in the Virginia colony in 1619. The last slave received their freedom on 6-19. I don’t know if Juneteenth was the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. I do know that America then began the very long road ‒ with numerous fits, starts, reverses and progress ‒ to a destination where, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.” We still have not arrived at that destination.

The notion that “all men are created equal” is – contrary to the word of the Declaration – not “self-evident” as the history of mankind reveals. It is, however, a proposition on which the United States was founded and is a proposition that must govern our future.

Hopefully, in that future, Mr. Outlen’s sons, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren will find that equality and be able to release all feelings of anger.

If there was ever a person who was created “equal,” it is Thomas Outlen.