Yes, it is true. We are moving to Collington, a continuing care retirement community (or a “CCRC,”  also called a “Life Plan” community), located in Prince Georges County, about ten miles away. For the last nine and a half years we have been living in the Kennedy-Warren, a huge, iconic, nine-story art deco apartment building overlooking the National Zoo and only a few blocks from our single family home on Macomb Street where we lived for over 45 years. We loved our Cleveland Park house and neighborhood, and we have loved living in the K-W where we have made many friends and have enjoyed a spacious apartment with spectacular views of the city (when the leaves are off the trees). We have been fortunate and are truly grateful. Given the troubled state of the world and our country, as the saying goes, we are the lucky ones.

So why move? Several people have asked me this question including some who are close to my age living in the K-W, which itself falls into the category of a “naturally occurring retirement community” (a “NORC.”) There is a delightful blend of young families, singles of all ages, and a whole bunch of old codgers living here, which makes for a vibrant community. I participate in an informal  group of 15-20 men, who gather every Wednesday to discuss the topics of the day. I would guess that at my ripe old age of soon-to-be 83 (on April fool’s day), I am not much above the median age. Most have had interesting, fulfilling careers, and there is not a single Trump supporter among us.

So why move? Even though I was the one who had a career in the retirement housing field, the impetus for moving now–and also for the move from our single family house–is Embry. In both instances in her calm but decisive way, she proclaimed, “Joe, it is time.”

But what does that mean? For our Macomb Street house, it meant getting away from climbing steep stairs, not having to tend a garden or maintain a house many decades older than us. For the K-W it means not having to prepare dinners (my job, by the way. I am a “Blue Apron” cook.) and more important, putting in place the health care support system that we suspect at least one of us–and probably both of us–may need at some point. We both are in good health for our age now, but the last time I checked we Homo sapiens have a beginning and an end to our lives on the planet Earth. My life expectancy when I was born was around 76 so I have already beaten the odds. However, even when adjusted for gender, class, race and income, I and everyone else my age who is still breathing is walking on thin ice. Something is going to do us in, and in many cases, the checking out process will be challenging and messy–not only for us but also for our children and grandchildren and those who love us. I have lost two “best friends,” my younger brother, Embry’s older brother, and at least a dozen other friends my age. 

Occasionally I scan through the obituaries in The Washington Post, and the ones drafted by the funeral homes often say the same thing: “So and so, surrounded by a loving family, died peacefully on….” Really? I don’t think so. Think about your own experience with your aging parents and grandparents or other loved ones. In the case of Embry’s mother and my father, being part of a continuing care retirement community made a positive difference for them and for us. In other words, making this decision is a gift to your children as well as to yourself.

But it is not just about the checking out process. It is also about squeezing the last drops out of the lemon. Well managed retirement communities, which have in place a full continuum of care are, for the most part, joyful places where old folks continue to live productive and fulfilling lives. I should know. Providing consulting assistance to these communities all over the country for over 25 years, I visited hundreds of these communities. I am a true believer. It is a difficult decision to move to a retirement community for most people for a variety of reasons, but most who do move to well managed CCRCs are glad they did, and so are their children. It is ironic that it was Embry that took the lead, not me, but I was an easy sell.

And why Collington? In 1981 I decided to go out on my own as a housing development consultant. The first assignment that I had after starting Howell Associates was to complete a market and financial feasibility study for a 125-acre property for a new seniors community to be called Collington. Over the years I provided occasional additional consulting assistance to Collington and in the early 2000s I served on Collington’s board for six years as treasurer. So, the short answer is I know the property and have a special place in my heart for it.

But that is not the only reason. What has always stood out about Collington are the residents that the community has attracted. They tend to be well educated, progressive, politically and civilly engaged, and for a retirement community, more diverse  than in most CCRCs. Part of this had to do with the initial planning. The community of almost 350 independent living units and 100 health care units has both cottages and apartments, which are clustered so that the larger, more expensive homes are located close to smaller, less expensive and more affordable ones diminishing social class or income barriers. Collington also made a big effort in the early years to reach out to the minority population and that effort has continued despite the anti DEI backlash across the country. Two other things impressed me when I was doing some consulting work for Collington in the early 2000s. The first was the large library run by residents where several shelves are reserved for books written by Collington residents. The second was a map with push pins showing the countries where residents had lived for a minimum of several months. At first glance the entire world map appeared to be covered with push pins. Over the years Collington has attracted a lot of retired military and especially retired State Department people along with people who love to travel. There are several other important reasons. The first is that since the early 2000s Collington has been a Kendal affiliate. Kendal represents the gold standard for not-for-profit CCRCs and coincidently was the model that I cited when recommending a development program for Collington in 1981. The Quaker values of Kendal are a good fit for the values of Collington’s residents and management, and the affiliation has enabled Collington to broaden its marketing efforts to people who are moving to Washington to be closer to their adult children and grandchildren and are looking for a Kendal community. Other reasons are that the residents are friendly and welcoming, and that the community is more affordable than most of the newer retirement communities. And the final reason is the exceptional marketing staff who alerted us initially to a terrific cottage becoming available soon and how they have supported us during the long move-in process.   

But how is it going to work out? What is life really like living in a CCRC? Will we be surprised or disappointed? That will be the story to follow–interspersed, of course, with other topics of interest like how Trump is destroying our country and other existential issues of the day– so stay tuned.

On March 26 the move happens.

 

 

Shortly after Trump got reelected way back when–all I can remember is that at the time it seemed like a horrific nightmare that upon awakening I thought I would soon forget–I recall going in for a routine checkup with my doctor when I was alerted that for the first time in my life my blood pressure was quite high and should be monitored. She gave me a prescription for meds and a clever blood pressure monitoring device that I am supposed to use every day to send the results directly over the internet to my health care provider. Normal blood pressure is supposed to be in the 110-120 range (systolic). For most of the time since the initial scare, with the meds my blood pressure has been in the 135-145 range, high but not fatal. By the time of the inauguration, however, my blood pressure had inched up again and on that woeful day registered over 200. Five alarm fire! I am now on a heavier dose of blood pressure meds and have given up booze except for special occasions, which thankfully occur frequently enough to cushion the hardship. It dropped back down for a while and then yesterday I checked again, and it was back up to 188. Another alarm! Embry’s orders: “You are not to watch any more MSNBC, read any articles in the newspaper about Trump, or watch any news except for the evening news on PBS, which is ok since you sleep through most of that anyway. Plus no more political blogging! I am going to send Trump a bill to cover your burial expenses if he ends up killing you!”

She is right. The current situation has gotten to me. I have to backoff, calm down, take a break. This will be my last political blog post–at least for a while. My next series will be called: “The Final Chapter: What It’s Like to Live in a ‘Life Plan’ Retirement Community.” In exactly one month we will be moving to Collington, the retirement community in suburban Maryland, which was the community that was the first assignment my fledging consulting firm did feasibility research for. That was 45 years ago–in 1981. Full circle, as they say.

So how worried should we be about Trump, Musk, and their radical agenda? The short answer is “very.” Of course, you know this. Everyone I know knows this. As far as I can tell everyone I know is terrified. My heart goes out to all those people in USAID who have lost their jobs, and in many cases their homes, and had their careers jolted. Those working overseas have been uprooted, having to pull their kids out of school and figure out what to do next. Even more tragic is what will happen to all the people they were helping, who desperately have depended on them for food, shelter and medicine. And this is just the beginning. Medicaid is on the chopping block, budgets of all federal agencies are being slashed, and good people are being laid off or fired in every agency. I was at a board meeting yesterday of one of the nonprofit, affordable housing corporations I belong to where we were warned that if the HUD money is sharply reduced or disappears–as appears likely–the hundreds of low income families we are serving in DC will end up back on the streets. Also many nonprofit organizations dependent on significant HUD funding will likely fail. Trump and Musk today announced that the HUD budget at a minimum would be slashed in half. No wonder my blood pressure has spiked again. Then there is the environment and the attack on all the environmental regulations that have been in place for years. If this is not a death knoll for life as we know it on the planet Earth, I don’t know what is. Add health care for poor people to the list. And income support for them. Instead, Trump and Musk are giving  tax breaks for the billionaires and tax increases for the middle class, the working class and the poor. Schools and educational support will be impacted. So will nutrition support for those living from paycheck to paycheck. And what about the outrageous cabinet appointments Trump has made? And if that is not enough, Trump is cozying up with Putin and showing signs of pulling out of NATO.

Lord have mercy!

And how is the Republican Party responding? With a couple of exceptions, Trump has the full support of every elected Republican official in the House and the Senate. They have become sycophants. Afraid of being “primaried out” by Musk, who has warned that if they do not fall in line, he will spend millions supporting a right wing, extremist opponent in their next election primary, they have caved. When Trump asks them to jump, their response is “how high.”

These are the times we find ourselves in. We knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad.

The existential question is will our democracy survive? The legislative guard rails have disappeared since Republicans control both the House and the Senate. It will come down to the Courts where the Republican appointed judges on the Supreme Court number six, at least two or three of whom fall into the sycophant category. The legal guardrails and the court system are all we have left standing between being a democratic republic or an authoritarian regime headed by an unhinged nutcase. We do not know what Trump will do when faced with a definitive court decision that prevents him from doing what he wants. The minute he tells the courts to stuff it and disobeys a binding decision, game over. Democracy has lost. Chalk up “the American Experiment” to history.

Some historians and those focusing on the Big Picture may take a more sanguine view and point out that nothing lasts forever. Great nations come and go. It was not all that long ago that the Greek Empire called the shots when the Greeks ruled the roost for about 600 years but eventually fell to the imperial Roman Empire, which lasted about 400 years. There was also the Ottoman Empire which lasted even longer, about 800 years, and the Brits, who were dominant for about 400 years and so it goes. The Mongols, the Spanish, the Russians, the Persians, the Egyptians, and the Chinese all had their time in the sun. Every great Empire has risen and fallen and ultimately come to an end, but life did not come to an end in those empires. Life changed but these countries morphed into something else, often for the better. Maybe it is just our time even though our world dominance did not really begin until after World War II. We have been Top Dog for only about 75 years. But, hey, things happen faster nowadays.

My concern is not so much about the United States. Many of our most vulnerable people will suffer under Trump, and that is a terrible thing, but eventually there will be a reckoning, and life will get better. We will stumble through this dark night of the soul though this does not necessarily translate to continuing to be the world’s dominant country. That honor will probably go to China or maybe eventually to India. Rather my concern is about the Planet Earth. What makes the times we are in now so different from everything which has preceded us are the two major threats that could alter life forever as we humans have known it. The first is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. One misjudgment or mistake or calculated action could end human life on the planet. The second, of course, is climate change and the inability of our small planet to continue to support a human population of the size of where we are now. There is a tipping point somewhere when there is very little that humans can do to alter the decline and demise of this beautiful blue planet, which we humans have trashed. Scientists warn us that we are edging closer to that point–just as our President is unravelling so many climate change initiatives. I suppose it comes down to the line from T.S. Elliot that the Earth does not end with a bang but a with whimper. Either way, the ending is not a happy one. In the few years I have left I am not concerned, but when I think of my grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and great, great….

This is it for woeful political stuff–at least for now. “The Final Chapter” starts next. Stay tuned.

 

 

From the Webster Dictionary: “Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime  that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with an autocratic government headed by dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

You may argue that we aren’t there yet, and that the definition does not apply to the Unites States. The key word here is “yet.”

Friends, we are surely headed in that direction. Trump’s lapdog vice president, Yale Law School graduate JD Vance, is arguing that the administration should ignore any action by a judge or court of law that prevents the Trump Administration from doing what it damn well pleases. The immediate issues are closing USAID, temporarily shutting off federal funding for most federal agencies, and firing career civil servants without cause. I don’t know what they teach at Yale Law School but suggest that Vance might have slept through his constitutional law class. What I learned as a history major at Davidson was that in the United States we have three equal branches of government, not a president with dictatorial powers, and that a system of checks and balances is key to preserving democracy. The next big test is whether Trump follows his vice president’s advice and tells the courts to stick it. Also coming up is birthright citizenship and Trump’s claim that it does not apply to children of undocumented parents despite the language in the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be interesting to see how the “originalists” Alito and Thomas get around that one. Surely most of these cases related to Trump’s presidential powers will end up in the Supreme Court, where the outcome remains unclear. Will the other “conservatives” other than Alito and Thomas fall in line with The Boss? There may be hope that Barrett and Roberts might join the three judges appointed by Democratic presidents, but who knows?

The third big issue will be the power of the purse. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the right to pass laws and to spend or not to spend money–not the President of the United States. In the bizarre Trump world we live in now, Trump has authorized Elon Musk, a private citizen, to use his cadre of whiz kids to rip through previously secure government computer systems to radically cut costs and realign priorities. Their goal is to reduce domestic federal spending by at least a trillion dollars (down from the original goal of three trillion) while reducing taxes for the billionaire class. Will Trump be able to get away with this?

And what will Congress do? Well, we know that the House and Senate Republicans today almost to a person stand by their man. Is there anything that Trump will do which will cause any of the Republicans to oppose him? And they control both Houses of Congress. 

Some of Trump’s advisors have argued that it really does not make any difference anyway what the Supreme Court or the Congress does because the enforcement of laws is the responsibility of the executive branch. Trump will simply order his minions at the Justice Department and the FBI not to lift a finger. Nothing will happen to anyone who breaks the law on Trump’s behalf.

Is it overreacting to label what we see unfolding as an attempted fascist takeover of the world’s oldest functioning democracy? Is it wishful thinking to ask what we can do to prevent this from happening?

Well, I admit that the movie has not yet ended. Indeed, it is just getting started. But how it ends will depend on the American people and the resilience and courage of those who oppose Trump to rise to the occasion. What that means and how effective that will be will soon become evident as the Resistance builds. Pray that it will prevent the worst from happening.

 

Trump was sworn in just over two weeks ago. During this time Trump’s Shock and Awe Campaign has resulted in these actions: pardoning everyone involved in the January 6 Insurrection, appealing  to  over two million people who are civilian government employees to leave government to  be replaced by Trump loyalists and sycophants, firing top officials in the CIA and FBI, threatening to make Canada the 51^st state, using tariffs to bludgeon Mexico and Canada into falling into line with  his mostly unnamed demands, threatening to reclaim the Panama Canal, closing down USAID, threatening to force Denmark to sell  Greenland to the United States, proposing that the U.S. take over Gaza, replacing the demolished buildings with luxury resorts and hotels while shipping off the residents who remain to undisclosed locations, using Guantanamo as the first site for relocating undocumented immigrants while standing by his pledge to get rid of all 12 million undocumented people, threatening organizations involved in DEI or climate change initiatives, and empowering Elon Musk to use AI to radically reduce government spending across every agency. What have I missed? Oh yes, no trans people on girls’ sports teams anymore, criminal investigations of everyone involved in the numerous legal actions against him and pledging to radically reduce taxes for billionaires. Plus he has nominated the worst people for cabinet positions in the history of the Republic. And all this has happened in just 16 days. By tomorrow the list of horrific threats and actions by Trump will surely be even longer.

In the meantime, while Democrats are shell shocked, Republican senators and congressmen are standing by their man, terrified as to what might happen if they do not fall in line. Any elected official who opposes Trump is fearful of being “primaried out” in the next election with massive financial support provided to their opponents by Musk and his billionaire and techbro friends.  And Republicans control all branches of government including the Supreme Court where at least four judges (Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch) will never let Trump down.

Can all this really be happening?

The fundamental questions are whether there are any guardrails left and will they hold. For the first time in my long life of (almost) 83 years, this is the first time that pundits are pondering whether this may mark the end of our democracy as we have known it.

Fasten your seatbelts. It is probably going to get worse before it gets better. Keep the faith that it will get better and do what you can to make a difference: give money to organizations like the ACLU and CASA who support immigrants, support Democrats who will be running in two years, speak out, write to your elected officials to oppose these outrageous actions, and when the opportunity comes, join peaceful demonstrations. Have faith that we will get through this.

The George W. Bush “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was initially hailed as a huge success, turned out to be the opposite. Bush’s approach left no room for followers of Saddam Hussein to remain in the government to help stabilize the divided country, facilitated a decades long insurgency, and created instability in the Middle East, which persists to this day. Furthermore, the pretext of weapons of mass destruction turned out to be a lie. The Shock and Awe invasion was a disaster.

Trump unleashed his own Shock and Awe initiative this week, this one on the American people. Following the instructions of the Project 2025 playbook, a week following Inauguration Day, Trump ordered an indefinite freeze on most federal spending. But wait! The next day the order was rescinded. The initial announcement, which targeted all spending except Medicare and Social Security, sent immediate shockwaves throughout the economy and the country. Still, damage was done. Do Trump’s people have any idea as to what they are doing?

 Make no mistake, however. More is to come. Deporting undocumented immigrants is first on the list. His press secretary boldly announced yesterday that Trump considers any immigrant without proper papers a criminal. Today the Trump Administration announced that Guantanamo would be expanded to accommodate the first wave of deportees. There are an estimated 12 million people who are undocumented, the vast majority being law abiding, hardworking people, who pay taxes. Many industries depend on them to do the heavy lifting and work Americans do not want to do–farm laborers, construction workers, hospitality and restaurant workers, and many others. Rumors are that Trump has already worked out a deal with the private prison companies to build massive concentration camps across the country. If Trump carries through on this, he will initiate a reign of terror, separate more families, cause irreparable pain and suffering, deplete the work force, and trigger high inflation.

The federal defunding announcement this week was just the initial shot across the bow. Trump and co-president Elon Musk also announced that they are offering federal employees a golden parachute to leave en masse to be replaced by carefully vetted sycophants. This will result in the most competent people leaving the government (because they can get other jobs) and the low performers staying, which is probably what Trump and Musk want anyway. So, buckle your seatbelt. We are in for a wild ride.

The only good news is that in scanning The Washington Post this morning I noticed that Trump had chosen Led Zeppelin to head up the EPA. Terrific choice, I thought, even though he is a British citizen, and probably knows little about anything besides rock music. Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel after all. But when I looked more closely, I discovered that the guy is actually named Lee Zeldin, a former Congressman from New York and outspoken climate change denier.

Oh, well.

Hang in there, as they say. Have faith that we will get through this and do what you can to ease the suffering. Our legal system will provide some guard rails and resistance will  happen.

 

 

Our new president, Donald Trump, won the election (barely) I believe for three primary reasons: First, he received unlimited financial resources from the Tech Bros and other billionaires and was more skilled in social media. Second, we Democrats made some mistakes, coming off as elitist and insensitive to the everyday situation most working class families face and the devastating impact of inflation on those who live from paycheck to paycheck, and third, and most important, Joe Biden should not have run for reelection. Period. He should have announced at the midterms that he would not run for a second term (as he said he would do when campaigning for the office in 2020) and that he was going to pass the torch to the next generation. I do not believe that any candidate could have survived the disastrous debate performance that Biden had. He came across as too old, and he is. I am just a tad older, and I know how I–and almost everyone I know– have slowed down after passing eighty. Plus, the electorate clearly wanted change from the status quo.  Kamala I thought did about as good as could be expected given the hand she was dealt, and few could have overcome the obstacles she faced. In fact, it is surprising that the race was as close as it was.

Part of the reason Trump won is that he did better than expected in getting votes from people without a college degree–White, Black and Hispanic. (see Brooking Report by William H Frey, “Trump Gained Some Minority Voters, but the GOP Is Hardly a Multiracial Coalition” Dec 5,2025.) One reason for this is that he campaigned as anti-establishment and populist, supporting the Little Guy, the working class, and calling out the Democrats for being elitist and too “woke.”

Welcome to the Great Bait and Switch.

There is nothing in Trump’s agenda that is going to help the working class.  Every responsible economist has warned that sky high tariffs will result in much higher prices in the U.S. Yet Trump places this as the centerpiece of his economic agenda. If he is able to implement this initiative, how long will it take for people to realize that it is not working? And what happens when our trading partners respond in kind with higher tariffs on American goods? Demand for exported goods and services will surely plummet. His fundamental economic initiative makes no sense.

And what about the mass deportations of immigrants? Undocumented immigrants account for over five percent of the total workforce in the United States with very high numbers in areas like agriculture (13.7%), construction (12.1%), administrative support (9.7%) and hospitality/food service (7.1%).  With an unemployment rate of around four percent, if these workers are hauled off to “holding centers” and deported, who is going to do the work? Plus, wages will surely increase due to the need to recruit from a smaller work force pool, also causing more inflation. Plus, what is the tab going to be if millions of people are housed, policed, and fed in deportation camps and then packed into planes and trucks? Where will the money  come from to pay for this? In a word this is insanity. Even if he stops the madness after deporting only the criminals, which seems highly unlikely, the cost is still likely to be high.

And what about the proposed “Agency on Government Efficiency” that Musk is supposed to head up? Social Security and Medicare ($3.8 trillion) account for more than half of the budget. The military accounts for another $820 billion (15 %) and paying interest on the national debt $726 billion (14%). In other words, these items, which have been considered off limits for budget cutting, amount to over 80 percent of the budget. That does not seem to be bothering Musk, who has pledged he will get the job done although he has warned that for a period some Americans may feel the impact.

But what is Musk’s real job? To figure out how to cut more taxes, of course. But not for everyone, just the “job creators” like himself. He has hinted that the low hanging fruit will be the ACA (naturally), SNAP (food stamps), social services, education, housing assistance, foreign aid, health care, clean energy, climate change, and similar initiatives. But many economists warn he can’t make a huge dent without touching entitlements.

Good luck.

Friends, we are headed for some rough sledding. As bad as Trump’s “policies” appear and how they will likely cause pain and suffering, especially for the working class, the poor and the disadvantaged, the hardships that we will likely face pale when compared to the temperament and character of Trump himself. He is a card carrying narcissist and wannabe dictator. With this deranged egotist at the helm, our 250 year old democracy is at risk.

 

 

I can’t remember what I said at that chilly Episcopal church on that fateful day that got me into trouble and why it so upset the ornery parishioner sitting next to me. But what I can tell you is what I believe now and why I describe myself as “Universalist Episcopalian.”

A major issue today –as it has been for decades, even centuries–is the apparent conflict between religion and science and how to reconcile the two. We know so much more now than the religious people did who composed the early Jewish scriptures that we Christians call the Old Testament of the Bible. And we know so much more now about how the world works than the brilliant scholars and theologians who over the years have interpreted the scriptures.

This is what science tells us: The universe started with the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago. Virtually all scientists who study the universe agree on this now. Our planet was formed about 4.6 billion years ago when gravity pulled together cosmic dust to from a solar system with our sun in the center and eight major planets circling around it including Earth. The planet Earth is in the “Goldilocks zone” –not too far and not too close to the sun, providing the right temperature for life to begin. Plus, it is large enough for its gravity to hold an atmosphere and is rocky with a hot core. Scientists tell us that these are the conditions that are favorable for life to form.

The first major challenge to the veracity of the creation story in the Bible came in the mid-Sixteenth Century. A Polish scientist named Copernicus figured out that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not vice versa. Galileo followed early in the Seventeenth Century with more discoveries that confirmed what Copernicus had discovered and expanded on that by announcing that some of the stars in the sky were planets like the Earth. And our Sun was just another star. In other words stars did not revolve around the Earth, a finding which shattered the idea that Earth was the center of the universe. For his efforts Galileo was tried and convicted as a heretic by the Inquisition and spent the remaining years of his life under house arrest. Darwin came later in mid Nineteenth with the stunning discovery that we humans were not created by God on the Sixth Day as the Bible says but rather evolved from lesser species over a period of millions of years due to a process he called “natural selection.”

It is not hard to imagine what a stir this caused at the time. If creation did not happen as it was described in the Bible, then what else is in the Bible that might not be true? While many scientists defended Darwin, religious leaders and others immediately rejected his theory, not only because it directly contradicted the creation story in the Book of Genesis, but also because it implied that life had developed due to natural processes rather than as the creation of a loving God.

 And of course, the early scientific discoveries were just the beginning. Einstein, modern physics, and the discovery of subatomic particles were to come later and raise more questions about traditional religious authenticity and what is true and what is not. In the early Twentieth Century Edwin Hubble discovered that some of the stars in the sky–which at the time were thought to constitute the entire universe–were not stars but rather were different “galaxies” with their own stars. Furthermore, our sun was just one star of the many millions of  stars in our galaxy, called the Milky Way. Now, using advanced telescopes many scientists believe that the number of galaxies in the universe number over one trillion. Some even believe that our universe may be part of a “multiverse.”

These discoveries, of course, happened many centuries after the Bible was written. This is important because the writers of holy scriptures were dealing with what they knew at the time, not what we know now.

Yet these discoveries were quite controversial at the time and had a huge impact on traditional Christianity. Some Christians made the transition and started to interpret the Bible in less literal ways. Others hunkered down and still maintain that every word is true in the Bible. According to fundamentalists and some evangelicals, those who do not believe the Bible’s total authenticity should be condemned for their heresy.

And there is more: What does science tell us about life on the planet Earth? We now know that our planet came into being when our solar system was created 4.6 billion years ago and that in another five billion years our sun will give out of hydrogen and die. Before that happens, it will turn into a red giant and then a white dwarf. The red giant phase will start a couple of billion years from now and will encompass Venus and cause temperatures to rise astronomically on Earth.

There are many other findings and discoveries that challenge traditional orthodoxy. Scientists tell us that the earliest cells that produce life began to appear on this planet starting about 3.5 billion years ago, about a billion years after the planet was formed. What is even more interesting is that over the course of 3.5 billion years of life on Earth there have been five mass extinctions, which wiped out between 85 and 95 percent of all the plant and animal life that existed on the planet at the time. The last mass extinction happened 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Yucatan causing a kind of “nuclear winter” that wiped out the big dinosaurs (which had roamed the Earth for over 165 million years!) opening the way for us mammals to flourish and multiply. It turns out that these mass extinctions tend to happen every 100 to 250 million years. Those who keep track of this sort of thing warn that the Earth has already entered the Era of the Sixth Mass Extinction. We humans are the culprit because we have destroyed the habitats of so many animals which have now disappeared. The important question is whether we humans also  will be part of the Sixth Mass Extinction. Now that we have nuclear weapons, it is certainly a valid question.

And what about us, the human species, Homo sapiens? The creation stories (there are two) in the Old Testament say God created man on the last day before He rested. Well, it was a long day. Archeologists discovered the remains of “Lucy” in 1974, who was the oldest human-like creature ever found, estimated to be 3.6 million years old. It turns out that there have been many human-like creatures before we Homo sapiens arrived on the scene. The Smithsonian has listed some 21 species. Some scientists believe there were many more. Homo sapiens evolved late in the game, “only” about 300,000 years ago, and the rest is history. What distinguishes us humans from other human-like creatures like Neanderthals is the large size of our brains compared to the size of our bodies. In other words, compared to our human-like, deceased cousins, we are smarter, and part of being exceptionally smart is to ask questions about the meaning of life.

Voila! Enter religion and the belief in a higher, invisible power that humans believe influences life on the planet. This higher power is called “God.”            

If you look up the word “God” on the internet, this is the definition you will find: “The supreme or ultimate reality: being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness, who is worshipped (as in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) as creator and ruler of the universe.”

Humans developed the idea of gods being real very late in the evolutionary process–“only” about 50,000 years ago. It took much longer for the idea of many gods to evolve into the idea of one supreme deity. The early Hebrew religion, which began in the 15^th Century BCE, or about 3,500 years ago, acknowledged many gods but believed their god, YWH (or “Yahweh”), was the most powerful and the highest of all the gods. Monotheism did not supplant Hebrew polytheism until at the time of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, or about 3,000 years ago; and even then, it remained the belief of only a small elite group before gaining ascendancy in the Babylonian exile starting about 600 BCE or 2,700 years ago.

Christianity was the first religion to make the direct connection between a distant God, creator of the universe, and humans on Earth. While we date the modern calendar from the birth of Jesus, Biblical scholars put his birth at between 4 and 6 BCE. His ministry only lasted a year (according to the “synoptic gospels,” three years according to the Gospel of John.) Most Biblical scholars put his death on the cross at 30 CE. 

When you use AI to find out about Jesus, here is what you get:

The gospel that Jesus preached was “the gospel of the kingdom of God,” which was a message about the good news of the coming Kingdom of God. The word “gospel” means “glad tidings” or “good news”. 

The gospel of the kingdom included:

• The message that Jesus had saved sinners 
• The idea that Jesus’ resurrection inaugurated a new creation 
• A place of peace and perfect righteousness 
• The idea that the Kingdom of Heaven was near and present, not just an afterlife heaven 
• The idea that people should repent and believe in the gospel 
• The idea that people should seek first the Kingdom of God 

Jesus taught the gospel of the Kingdom in many ways, including: 

• Teaching in synagogues
• Healing people who were sick or diseased
• Preaching in cities and villages
• Sending his disciples to preach the Kingdom of God
• Performing miracles

However, the gospel that Jesus preached and that his followers preached about him would not have emerged as a new religion were it not for the Resurrection or what I call “the Resurrection Experience.” On the third day following his death, Jesus was believed by his disciples to have risen from the dead. Something surely happened for them to think this, and it was compelling enough to believe that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God. The Resurrection was followed by Pentecost, 50 days later, when the Risen Christ appeared to a large crowd of his followers before ascending to heaven. However, this new religion probably still would not have resonated and spread were it not for an erudite rabbi named Saul of Tarsus, who personally experienced the Risen Christ on the Road to Damascus. (And immediately changed his name to Paul.) Scholars do not know the exact date of this event, but most put it at a few years after the Resurrection.

Now in my view, what I have just described is the basic story of the origin of the Christian religion. Paul and other missionaries took the message that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of Humankind to people living in the Roman Empire where it resonated especially among the Gentiles. And we know the rest: Christianity is now the most popular of all the world religions where almost 25 percent of the people on the planet Earth (who were surveyed by the most recent Pew Research Center poll on religion) say that they identify as Christian. Almost as many say they are Muslim, and their number is expected to overtake Christians in the next few decades.

But the question remains whether the Christian message is true. And what does it mean? And if you do not believe that the Christian message is totally true, does it mean that you are doomed to an eternity in hell, as some who call themselves Christians argue?

And what about devout believers in other religions? Are they also excluded from heaven and eternal life? Some people believe this.

Well, I don’t.

Here is what I do believe:

1. We humans are by nature religious creatures. This is due to the large size of our brains. Just think of what we as a species have accomplished–the fabulous art, literature, science, music, athletics, medicine, technology–and philosophy and religion. The list is long. Because of our large brains we cannot help asking questions regarding the meaning of life and of our lives. Religion involves the process of trying to figure this out–and probably even more important–in trying to live lives of meaning and purpose.
2. Religion can take many valid forms. As noted above, the earliest religious beliefs began about 50,000 years ago and have evolved to what they are today. There are at least five major religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism and a whole bunch of less significant ones. The sad thing is that there have been so many religious wars between and even within religions. Christians versus Muslims, Protestants versus Catholics, Sunni versus Shiite, the Crusades, and the Salem witch trials. The list is long. Just look at what is happening right now in Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan, Syria, and Iraq. It is true that religion is usually not the sole or even the main cause of these conflicts, but it is a factor. How many millions of human beings have died over the centuries because religion was a factor?  For many people who say they are religious, it is often “my way or the highway.” I have been warned more than once by people who attend church regularly that due to my inclusive view of Christianity I am walking on thin ice. My belief is “one destination, many pathways.” This is why I call myself a “Universalist Episcopalian.”   And when I get a lot of negative pushback, I think of   Mark Twain’s famous comment, “I will take heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
3. You don’t have to be a formal member of a religious institution to be religious or have a religious faith. Of the number of people who answer the Pew Research Center questions about belief in God, only about 15 percent say they are agnostic or atheist though the percent who do not participate in religious activities is far higher and varies widely by country and religion. The takeaway here is that people can be religious and have a religious faith without being part of an organized religious community or congregation.
4. Most people believe in an afterlife. Despite not being part of a formal religious group, according to recent Pew surveys, a large majority of Americans–and people in other countries– believe in life after death, with around 80% of Americans reporting belief in some form of afterlife. What an afterlife might be like includes a wide range of beliefs– heaven, hell, reincarnation, and other spiritual continuations. I must confess that this is one thing about religion that I have a hard time getting my arms around. What would an afterlife be like? The creeds used in the Episcopal liturgy state, “We believe in the “resurrection of the body.” How does cremation figure in and what about those who have been disfigured or deformed? And how does this all fit into a universe with more than a thousand galaxies? What happens when we die will remain a mystery to all who are alive. The analogy that I tend to cite about our life on Earth is this: We humans are all in a race that has a beginning and an end. The beginning is birth.The end is  death. The goal is to give the race our best effort until we cross the finish line. It could be short as was the case with our first child, Katherine, or long as was the case with my father, who lived until he was 92. But when we stumble across the line, we want to be able to say, “We’ve given it our best shot.” What happens next will take care of itself.
5. The reason a lot of people attend church often has relatively little to do with religious beliefs. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where everyone was supposed to attend church on Sundays and most did. I did not have a single friend whose family did not attend church. (I did not have any Jewish friends.) I am an Episcopalian because my parents were very committed Episcopalians. That probably is the main reason I am an Episcopalian now. I suspect that there are some readers who could ask if I do not believe everything that is in the Nicene Creed, which Episcopalians say every Sunday, why even bother with church. My answer is that there is something important about being part of an accepting, diverse religious community where the conversations are not exclusively about politics, how the our favorite sports teams performed, or how bad Trump is, and where religious concerns are discussed and where prayer and worship happen. Being part of an accepting and honest spiritual community is a strong motivator for me and for many. It provides the opportunity to focus on religious issues and questions, even though there are often no hard and fast answers. After all, we are merely human and true understanding of the meaning and purpose of life and of what happens after we die is above our pay grade. It will always remain a mystery. This is the way it works for us Homo sapiens on the planet Earth. 
6. Sadly, we are a fundamentally flawed species. The Bible has a word for this. It is called Original Sin. Yes, we Homo sapiens are capable of accomplishing great things–which I identified above–art, music, literature, science,  technology, medicine, and many more achievements. And we are capable of  selfless love, kindness, and sacrifice. Many on the planet have lived kind and gentle lives. Yet on the whole we treat other members of our own species terribly, and we are  responsible for what is now the Sixth Great Mass Extinction due to our destroying the habitats of so many living  creatures. We continue to trash this beautiful planet and are the main culprits in the devastating climate change we are now experiencing. Our primary means of resolving conflicts continues to be war and physical force, and there are wide differences between those who have enough resources to live comfortable lives and those who don’t. Most frightening, we have the wherewithal to destroy life on this planet with our nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; and if past history is any guide, odds are that  unless these weapons of mass destruction are destroyed, at some point we will use them. We are also herd animals. Our leaders make a huge difference. We have had the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Mao, and  Putin but also both Roosevelts, Churchill,  Kennedy, Mandel, Gandhi, and Obama.  It appears we are entering a dark period in the history of the planet Earth with regard to the leaders of many nations, especially the United States. All of us humans have our flaws, however. We are far from perfect. That is why besides the Lord’s Prayer, the one prayer that I am most comfortable saying in the Episcopal prayerbook is the confession. 

Some have asked me why I have remained an Episcopalian and have not jumped ship to become a Unitarian. The other All Souls Church in Washington, by the way, is All Souls Unitarian Church. The honest answer is probably inertia, habit and convenience (All Souls is a short walk away.). However, despite its faults, the Episcopal Church provides a big tent where there is room for all who seek  spiritual truth, even for people like me. Plus when done right the Episcopal liturgy can be quite beautiful and even inspiring, though I admit that I would not protest if in the future the Nicene Creed was dropped or at least made optional. At All Souls we have been blessed with excellent clergy over the years and have an extraordinary rector now, a mature woman and a former Brit, whose strong faith and authenticity are genuine and contagious. And against all  the odds–in the era of the Great “Dechurching”–our congregation  is growing again.

And finally this: A few years before I graduated from Davidson, a student graduation speaker who was expected to deliver an inspiring speech of 15 or 20 minutes was said to have made the following address and then sat down: “Many people have lived, and many have died. One who lived two thousand years ago whose name was Jesus Christ said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ I have nothing more to add.”

Neither do I.

 

 

Our second year in Chapel Hill was easy compared to the first. The birth of Andrew Martin Howell occurred on July 6,1970 at Duke University Hospital nine months after Katherine’s death. That summer following my graduation we departed for the Washington area where I had landed a job working for a UNC professor who was studying the low income white, working class population in the United States. The three of us settled in Mt Rainier, Maryland, a Washington suburb, in an old house on what I called “Clay Street” in the book I wrote, Hard Living on Clay Street. My job as a “participant observer” was to hang out and get to know people and then write up my experiences. We were still in our self-imposed exile from attending church though as part of my job as a participant observer I attended every church in the community at least once–Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Pentecostal. We had lived in the Clay Street community for only a few months when Andrew developed what we thought was a routine eye infection, but when we took him to a pediatrician, she immediately called the hospital and told us to rush him to the emergency room. It turned out to be a serious staph infection. We rushed Andrew to Holy Cross Hospital where he remained in the ICU for three days. The doctors at the hospital threw every antibiotic that they had at him to no avail. Embry and I traded off sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news. On the third day a glum doctor appeared to inform me that things did not look good. Embry was off duty at home resting. I could not believe it. Here we go again, I thought. This would be too much–especially for Embry. The timing was very close to the one year anniversary of Katherine’s death. If situations like this do not get you praying, nothing will.

I decided it was best not to convey this news to Embry and to wait, praying that the anticipated horrific news would not happen. The door to the waiting room opened several hours later. I held my breath and braced for the worst. Two physicians entered, this time smiling. Andrew’s fever had started to subside. He was going to pull through! I phoned Embry with the news. We both cried. And we both offered prayers of thanksgiving.

Now life on the Planet Earth is hard. It is hard for everyone at one time or another and especially hard for people who get dealt tough hands to play–poor parenting, poverty, mental and physical illness. The list is long. We humans slog through life as best we can. And we all die. That is just the way it is, not just for us Homo sapiens but for every living plant and animal on the planet. And how God fits into the picture is not as easy as the UNC chaplain would like people like me to believe.

We returned to Chapel Hill after our year on Clay Street.  Embry got a masters in biostatistics and I wrote Hard Living on Clay Street. Then we moved back  to the  Washington area where we bought our first (and only) house in Cleveland Park, a fabulous neighborhood in DC between the National Zoo and the National Cathedral, where we lived for 42 years. We both were able to get entry level jobs and had fulfilling careers. We could not have been more fortunate. I had several jobs (in real estate research, then the development of affordable and seniors housing) all but one located in Washington’s central business district. I routinely walked to work almost every day. Embry and I bought our first sailboat in 1974, which started me on a passionate life pursuit of sailing–both cruising and racing. I also began the routine of serious running during lunch hours, usually with a guy who has remained a lifelong friend and also a fellow sailor.

 Jessica was born four years after Andrew in 1974 (several weeks prematurely but she came through fine). We had a live-in babysitter, a young woman from India, Punam, who stayed with us until our children were well into high school and remains a part of our extended family along with her two now grown daughters and their families. Both our children attended neighborhood schools permitting them to walk to school all the way through high school.

 Life was good.

In 1972 when we  were starting to look around for churches following our self-imposed exile in the wilderness, we heard about an Episcopal Church which had the reputation of being a leader in progressive thought, action and theology. A dear friend and former classmate at planning school was visiting us at the time and was curious about what Christianity was like. She had been brought up as a secular Jew in an intellectual family which always had a Christmas tree during the holidays. She was curious as to what that all meant. We decided to take her to this church, which we had not attended ourselves, but thought would be a good opportunity also for us to see what it was like. The dynamic former rector had departed a year before, but we assumed that his replacement would probably follow in his footsteps. The church was located at the edge of a low income, Black neighborhood, and the spring morning when we attended was chilly. As we entered the aging building, I noticed that many panes were missing in the stained glass windows causing the temperature inside to be about the same inside as it was outside. There were not that many people present. Not exactly what we had anticipated but sadly probably not that unusual for the times we were in.

The big surprise came in the middle of the sermon, which I had not been paying much attention to. The substitute preacher suddenly stopped in mid sermon and declared that the congregation of no more than 50 or 60 people would now split up into groups and discuss the passage “Man cannot live by bread alone, but only by the very word of God.”

What?

 Our friend wanted to see what a typical Christian church service was like, but I had never experienced anything like this.

She had no problem, however, and assumed that this is just what happened in Episcopal church services. Our group included eight or nine people, all middle aged and white, and all with overcoats on and shivering. Embry was assigned to another group. Someone turned to our friend and asked her to start off the discussion. She perked up and jumped right in with an enthusiastic explanation that made absolutely no sense. The other people had puzzled looks on their faces, and then the guy next to me stopped her in a gruff voice proclaiming she did not know what she was talking about and that someone else should speak. Everyone else nodded. Our friend was crestfallen.

I was next. I was embarrassed for our friend. My heart was pounding. This was not the way that typical Episcopal church services were supposed to work.

I gathered myself together and responded with what I felt was the most compelling and most profound explanation of the meaning of Christianity that I had ever expressed. My Union Seminary education had finally paid off. I dug deep. I was authentic. I was compelling. Though I did notice puzzled looks on a few people’s faces as I finished my inspiring remarks, I sat back in the pew with a satisfied smile.

The guy next to me, who had insulted my friend, frowned and replied, “Is that it? Is that what you believe?”

I nodded with confidence.

“Well, if that is what you believe, if that is what you think Christianity is all about, I suggest you join the Democratic Party. There is no place for you in this church or any Christian church. In fact, you are exactly the kind of person we are trying to drum out of here!”

By this time there was no time left for anyone else to speak and the preacher called us back to our seats to finish his incomprehensible sermon.

After the service was over and we walked out of the chilly building, I apologized to our friend for the experience and assured her it was not typical. I was especially sorry for the terrible way she had been treated.

She smiled and replied, “Oh that, don’t worry about that, but did you hear what they said when going to communion, ‘Eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus.’ Oh my God, these people are cannibals!”

It was another couple of years before Embry and I got up the courage to darken the door of another church but eventually found a good one, another Episcopal church, not far away with a charismatic and kind rector who became a good friend and later went on to become the Bishop of California. I think that our primary motivation then was that we now had two young children. We wanted to have them baptized and we could not imagine having them not being exposed to the Christian faith and being part of a warm and loving community. We switched to the National Cathedral several years later when our son sang in the Choir of Men and Boys from the fifth grade all the way through high school; and when he went off to college, we joined our neighborhood church, All Souls Episcopal, where our daughter served as acolyte for several years before she headed off to college.

Both children  went to good colleges, and both have made us proud–wonderful spouses, terrific children (boy/girl each) and successful, meaningful careers. As the saying goes, we have been blessed. The neighborhood church was a struggling congregation at the time. Embry had responded to an ad in the Post recruiting choir members. But we have hung in there and have been loyal members through good times and bad since the mid 1980s. I have served on several church vestries and have been a senior warden twice. Embry has always sung in the church choir, served on vestries, and is currently senior warden. You could say we have paid our dues. But that does not mean that we do not struggle with faith and belief as do many people. Afterall, we are mere humans.

In Part 6, the final entry, I describe my “Universalist Episcopal” theology that got me into so much trouble at that chilly church in 1972 and occasionally at other times. 

 

 

 

 

 

As the saying goes, the Lord works in mysterious ways. When I graduated from Davidson, I had no idea what city planning was or that it even existed as a profession. But by chance I had been able to take a couple of planning courses at Columbia and then work for a year in the Department of City Planning in New York City. My assignment was to work in one of New York’s most distressed neighborhoods in Bushwick where I staffed the small outreach office where neighborhood residents (mostly very poor) could come in and complain about rats in their basement and leaky roofs. I loved the job and loved the course work at Columbia. So, in the spring of my senior year, I decided to apply to city planning schools. I did some research, applied to the “top five” and got accepted  with a fully paid “social policy fellowship” by the School of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They also offered a job to Embry as a computer programmer, who would be assigned to work for a faculty member doing a big research project on transportation. Now how lucky was that! So off we headed to Chapel Hill in the summer of 1968.

At last, the inklings of a possible career path not as an ordained Episcopal priest appeared out of the shadows.

We lived off campus in a modest house in a modest neighborhood where we were the only White people, rode our bikes to the campus, and immediately made lots of new friends, who were a lot like our Union friends but without the angst and brooding about religion and the Christian faith. And how refreshing that was! Both of us by this time had had enough of that angst, which I believe was responsible for our “religious exhaustion.” We mutually declared a respite and for the first two years that we were in Chapel Hill did not darken the door of a church or religious institution. I loved the classes at the planning school. Embry loved her work. We loved our new friends. And we loved Chapel Hill. And best of all on November 28, 1968, Thanksgiving weekend, Embry gave birth to a baby girl (by natural childbirth), whom we named Katherine Lindsay Howell. Allard Lowenstein, the famous activist and Congressman from New York City, and his wife Jinny were sleeping on our sofa bed in our tiny living room when we rushed off the hospital in the middle of the night.

And how we both loved Katherine, especially Embry! There is a special bond between mother and infant that I believe we men are not capable of feeling. The story of our second year in Chapel Hill is really the story of Katherine. Like most parents, I suppose, we thought she was cutest, smartest, and most adorable child in the world. We were able to find excellent childcare in the home of a kind woman who took care of the infants of several planning school parents. And all was right with the world. Until it wasn’t.

When Katherine was a few months old when she exercised on her contraption that hung from the ceiling sort of like a tiny swing, we noticed that she turned slightly blue and seemed to have trouble breathing. She seemed ok after that and for the next few months. Then when it  happened again and was more pronounced, we took her to the UNC hospital immediately; and after running a few tests, the hospital referred us to a child cardiologist, a kind and gentle person, who performed more tests. His conclusion was that she had a heart defect, though probably not serious, and which, if necessary, could be corrected by a fairly routine operation called a “Blaylock-Taussig Shunt.” He suggested that we wait a couple of months to see if the situation cleared up by itself, which he said was often the case. When it didn’t, he scheduled an operation for late October about a month shy of Katherine’s first birthday. He assured us that the operation was now routine and that the chances of success were very high. The surgeon who would be doing the procedure had the highest rating as a heart surgeon. Of course, we were apprehensive, but were relieved when the cardiologist appeared smiling following the surgery and told us it had been a success. He suggested we go out for a meal and check back later in the evening, but for now we could relax. Good friends had invited us to a quiet evening dinner at their home, which we had accepted pending good news. At last, we could relax and enjoy a quiet meal.

At nine o’clock just before desert was to be served, their phone rang. I was handed the receiver. It was the hospital. We should come there immediately. Suddenly the mood shifted. We thanked our hosts and drove in panic to the hospital not saying a word to each other. There we were met by the cardiologist whose earlier smile had faded into a disturbed frown. He was uncertain of the details, but the procedure had not gone well. He would keep us posted. We slept in the waiting room until around seven the next morning, awakened by the cardiologist who delivered the news: Katherine had not made it. As we sat there in stunned disbelief, the surgeon who performed the operation charged past us, did not look at us or say a word.

What happened next is still a bit cloudy in my mind. So many people needed to be notified. So many plans had to be made. My parents flew the next day from Nashville. Embry’s parents arrived a couple of days later, having to abandon a cruise in the Mediterranean.  Food began appearing on our doorstep. Planning school friends stopped by. More food came. We sat among friends in our small living room, most of the time in silence. The chair of the UNC Planning School and his wife came as did so many of our close friends. What a difference that made!

The cardiologist was also a steady presence, and his kindness helped ease the pain. One thing he said I will never forget: “I know what you are going through is extremely difficult. There is nothing harder than losing a child but keep this in mind. Katherine had a good life. She was deeply loved. Yes, it was tragically short, but in the big picture of things, human life on Earth is short for all of us. The love is what counts.” In some circumstances one might consider this comment to be a cheap shot, but not with him. It was genuine, sincere, and so true.

The funeral was held a week later in Davidson, just under a three hour drive from Chapel Hill. We anticipated a small gathering followed by a burial in the Davidson cemetery where the Martin family plot was located. When Embry and I arrived in Davidson and entered the living room of her parent’s house, we were stunned to see my entire planning school class of some 25 people seated on the floor and spread out across the house. I was speechless.

Shortly after Katherine’s death, the cardiologist asked if we had any religious affiliation or connections to a church. At that time after four years of intense religious involvement at Union and at St Mary’s Church, we were taking a breather and had no church connection. He then asked if he should let the hospital chaplain know and I consented. Afterall, having served as a hospital chaplain two summers before, I understood that there was a role for chaplains. The next day a self-assured, middle aged man in a gray suit appeared on our front porch carrying a Bible and smiling. I offered him a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair. Embry was not home.

He got straight to the point. “Mr. Howell, are you aware that God is all powerful and all good? Whatever happens is God’s will and you have to accept it. That is the essence of Christianity. If you don’t believe that, you are not a Christian.”

“Oh no,” I said to myself, feeling my heart pounding, “How did I get this guy? ” I managed to regain my composure and responded that I did not understand what his point was and asked if he was implying that it was God’s will that our daughter died.

He answered, “To be a Christian you must accept the truth that God is both all powerful and all good. That is what the Bible says.”

“Excuse me…”

“Mr. Howell, that is the way it is. That is the truth.”

“That it was God’s will that our daughter died? Really?” I raised my voice almost to a shout.

“That is what you learn in seminary. And God probably has his reasons. Have you examined your own life and what you or your wife might have done to anger God?”

“Well, that is what you learned at your seminary but not at my seminary. And by the way, I also have served as a hospital chaplain where we did not go around telling patients that their misfortune was God’s punishment!”

I stood up and showed him to the door.

To his credit, the chaplain called me up the next day and apologized, offering to come back for another talk. I told him that that would not be necessary.

It would be a couple of more years before Embry and I gave up our exile in the wilderness and gave organized Christianity another try. But who is to argue that the experience of losing a child is not a deeply religious experience whether you are a devout Christian or a religious person or not. God was present in the support and love we received from our friends and family, from the wisdom and support from the cardiologist, and from the courage and strength given to us that allowed us to get through the ordeal of losing our first child. This is an experience which I believe points to a universalist religious world view and the first hint on how and why  I now call myself a “Universalist Episcopalian.” How that happened will be the subject of the final two blog posts.

 

 

 

 

 

During the Christmas break in the middle of my second year at Union Seminary, Embry and I were married on December 28,1965 in the Davidson College Presbyterian Church. Since her father was president of the college, everyone in the small town was invited, and the huge church was comfortably full. Her uncle, an ordained Methodist minister, political radical and college professor living in West Virginia, performed the ceremony. The bridesmaids and groomsmen numbered fifteen or sixteen. The reception consisted of punch and cookies as people lined up at the president’s home in a receiving line, which took well over an hour. Not a drop of liquor was served and in two hours everyone had departed. My, how customs have changed from those days! We spent our honeymoon week in her parent’s lake house a few miles away.

Having Embry with me made an enormous difference, and the second semester of my second year at Union went well. Embry enrolled in Barnard College and went on to graduate two years later, majoring in math. As a Southerner, she was a curiosity to her classmates, who were mostly from New York City. The first semester of 1966 we lived in the dorm for married Union students in a room overlooking Broadway at 120^thStreet. Teachers College and The Julliard Music School were across the street, and it was not that unusual to hear a budding music student practicing an aria as he or she waited at the bus stop outside our window.

But a nagging question remained: What to do next. Some of the classes were excellent, others not so much, and my doubts about becoming ordained continued. Toward the end of the second semester, elections were held for class officers of the Union student body for our senior year. Several people talked me into running for president of the student body. With mixed feelings I accepted the challenge and delivered a speech which compared to my opponent’s speech seemed uncomfortably short and, I was told later by friends, somewhat melancholy. The following day I announced that I was withdrawing from the election and would not be attending Union my senior year.

It felt like a huge bolder had been lifted from my shoulders.

Now the fact is that I was not dropping out of seminary. I was just taking a year out to participate in a new program called MUST (“Metropolitan Urban Service Training”), a Union program set up for people like me confused about career choices. There were six seminary students, all men, and two leaders–one clergy and one non-ordained Union alumna– and the rules were that you had to work in a secular job and affiliate with a church, which you were expected to attend regularly. Every week there would be a group discussion about our experiences and how our jobs were going, and there were no expectations as to the outcome. Without question this was my best and most consequential year at Union. Embry and I joined a small, racially diverse Episcopal church on the edge of Harlem called St Mary’s Manhatanville, whose rector had a profound impact on me. Slightly balding, a tad overweight, in his mid 40s and originally from the Midwest, he described himself as a humanist first and a Christian second. His low key message of unconditional love and the call for social justice was genuine and honestly and humbly communicated in a way that applied to all humans, not just Christians. Often with  smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, he smoked a big cigar, and never took himself too seriously. It is fair to say that he changed my life and was the impetus for my eventually landing on my feet as a “Universalist Episcopalian.”

Embry and I traveled that summer all over Europe using the small inheritance I received from my grandmother. This was the infamous summer of 1967 when Newark and many American cities were burning and calls for revolution were in the air. It was not unlike the times we are in today when the fear of change also is in the air, and no one knows where we will land.

Before the MUST program began in September, I had a scheduled, routine meeting with my bishop, who was in town for counseling and treating his postulants to dinner and a show.  When I announced that I planned to take a year out to participate in the MUST program, his jaw dropped just like it had when I told him I was going to seminary two years before, and his face turned a bright red.  “That’s it, Howell,” he exclaimed. “That is the last straw! You have got to admit I have been patient allowing you to attend a heretical Protestant seminary, but this is too much. I am not throwing you out, but for every year you have spent at Union, if you want to be ordained, you will spend a year at Nashotah House.”

 Nashotah House is the ultra-conservative, Anglo Catholic seminary in the deep woods of Wisconsin. He knew it was a deal I could never accept and had given me an honorable way out. He gave me a firm handshake, a slight smile, then a gentle pat on the back, and I think I noticed a faint tear on his cheek. We both knew this was probably the last time we would meet. The following week I wrote a letter to him resigning from being a postulant in the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. Sadly, I never saw him again. In 1980 he died quite young, at age 68, following an illness which forced him to retire at age 65.

The MUST year was for me one of the best in my life. We lived off campus on Riverside Drive near 125^thStreet in a modest apartment building showing its age. Our tiny studio apartment had two windows opening onto a fire escape and airshaft. But it was ours and we loved it. We also loved our Siamese/Russian Blue cat whom we named Minette. Embry loved Barnard. And most important we loved each other. We visited museums, walked in parks, ice skated in Central Park, got free tickets to concerts at Lincoln Center, and had many friends. Crowded potluck dinner parties with friends from Union and others we knew in New York happened on many weekends and often lasted until after midnight. And, most of all, I was freed from the angst and introspection that seemed to plague so many Union students.

I had four different secular jobs–an “editor” (actually, more like a proofreader), a sales manager at Macy’s in the toy department during the Christmas holidays, a clerk-type job I can barely remember, and finally a six month job working for Shelly’s All Stars, an afterschool playgroup. Driving one of Shelly’s huge station wagons, I picked up kids from their fancy private schools in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side and drove them to museums, gyms, or to Central Park to play ball or hunt dinosaurs before driving them home to their parent’s elegant apartments. To keep them occupied on the way home, I invented the imaginary character of Freddie M. Freenball, a mischievous kid who had miraculous adventures in New York City, who was the hero of stories I told as I drove them home and then retold years and decades later to both of our children and to all four grandchildren.  I loved the work and loved working with Shelly. I was tempted to keep the job with Shelly but decided to return for my last year at Union while Embry completed her senior year at Barnard. That was in 1968, the year that Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated and the War in Vietnam was raging.

My last year at Union was very different from the first two. For electives at Union, I took two planning and urban development  courses in the masters program at the Columbia University School of Urban Planning and miraculously was able to land a field work position working for the New York City Department of City Planning two days a week. My senior thesis at Union was about creative playgrounds in public housing projects in the city. By this time, Union had given up on me. I got an A on the thesis and no comments from the faculty. By the time we were supposed to graduate, all of Columbia University plus Barnard had shut down due to student protests and threats of violence. Embry received her diploma in math (and a Phi Beta Kappa membership to boot) from a secretary working in the math department. Union was also shut down though the seminary managed to have a small, low key graduation service at Riverside Church.

By this time most of my friends were moving in different directions. Except for my (brilliant) roommate before Embry arrived, who went on to get a PhD from Yale and later taught religion at a prestigious college, almost everyone was moving away from a career having much, if anything, to do with the Christian Church–working in the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, teaching, social work, government, med school, or law school. Only a couple of my Union friends got ordained and neither lasted very long as a minister.

So, what to do next? What would Embry do? Since Embry now had with a bachelor’s degree in math, at least she had some marketable job skills. In January of 1968, she had landed a job as a computer programmer for a large corporation in Midtown and loved it. She was one of the original programmers at the forefront of the digital revolution, though of course at the time she did not know that and it seemed like just another job at a big company (and she had no idea as to what the company actually did.) But at least she had job skills. I had none. Who would hire somebody like me? The year I spent in the MUST program informed me what kind of job I might expect to get–a counselor/driver or an editor/proofreader or maybe a salesclerk at a department store. What kind of career path would that be? And what would be the place for church and Christianity in our lives?

 We had to figure out something. What we did and what happened next will be the subject of Part Four of “Confessions of a Universalist Episcopalian.”