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.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

While there were other Episcopalians at Union besides me, I do not think that any were any other “postulants.” Serious candidates for the Episcopal priesthood typically go to Episcopal Seminaries. This was certainly the case in the Diocese of Tennessee where I was the one exception. General Theological Seminary, also located in New York City (in the Chelsea neighborhood), was the flagship Episcopal seminary at that time, and it could not have been more different from Union. The student body did not include women, (who of course could not be ordained at that time), and the students and many faculty all ate lunch and dinner together in a large dining hall with assigned seating, usually proceeded by a sung blessing. They also attended daily worship services in the chapel, often followed by small gatherings where afternoon sherry was served. I visited General several times and while spooked by the spiritual, monastery-like culture, I was very impressed by the sense of community. It is quite possible–perhaps even likely–that if I had attended General instead of Union, I would have become an ordained Episcopal priest. That I did not go to General I consider a blessing. I dodged a bullet. I believe that being an Episcopal priest–or a Protestant minister, for that matter–has got to be one of the hardest jobs in the world: Showtime every Sunday, low pay, dubious prestige, and ornery parishioners to put up with. Above my pay grade, as they say in Washington. This is not to imply that for many people it is not a rewarding career. Some are born to be religious leaders and genuinely feel “called.” A close friend from my Mexican summer adventure did attend General and went on to have a storied career as rector of several prestigious Episcopal parishes and toward the end of his career served as dean of General Theological Seminary. For those who stick with it and feel called it can be an extraordinary and rewarding life’s work. However, that was not the pathway for me nor for any of the friends that I made while at Union.

While it seemed to me that the students at General were already fully committed Christians with their eye on ball of becoming the rector of a big Episcopal church or similar job, most Union students were, like me, still in the spiritual search mode. We came to Union to better understand Christianity, to seek “Truth,” and to find God. The courses at Union were taught by distinguished scholars and intellectuals and some of the wisest people in Christendom. My hope was to find the Holy Grail of meaning and purpose, to build a spiritual foundation, and achieve some kind of enlightenment– only to realize that scholarly research will not get you there. Experiencing a spiritual presence in one’s life has more to do with prayer and spiritual practice than scholarly pursuits, which of course should have been obvious, but, hey, I was young.

Union had its strong points, however. Most of the faculty were brilliant. Fellow students were friendly and compatible, and many were focused on “church in the world” initiatives. Several remain life long friends.  During my four years at Union  many students were involved in social justice efforts, the Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam War protests. I was part of that group, and in the summer of 1966 worked with Embry (We had gotten married four months before.) with SNCC (the most radical civil rights group at the time) in Baker County in Southwest Georgia where we lived with a Black family, registered voters and worked in a fledging Head Start program (described in my book Civil Rights Journey). It was an experience of a lifetime.

 An enjoyable part of my early Union experience ironically were the periodic dinners that occurred when the Bishop of Tennessee made the trip to New York to visit his postulants, all of whom except me were at General. As was his custom, he would treat his charges to dinner at a fancy restaurant followed by a show or a visit to a jazz or blues club. I did not know many of the five or six General Seminary students that he treated, and they did not know me or understand how or why someone at Union Seminary should be part of the bishop’s special evening on the town. What made the experience even more puzzling for them was that the bishop would usually insist on having me sit “at his right hand” at dinner. It drove them crazy. I loved every minute. I think these evenings were as much for his benefit as for his postulants. Always seated at the head of the table, he would sip on the first of several martinis as he smiled and enjoyed the company of people who were in awe of him.

My first year at Union was not easy. Most important I had fallen in love with Embry Martin, whom I had met the spring of my senior year at Davidson College and who was a student at Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg Virginia. We were able to see each other only a few times my entire first year at Union. So that was difficult, but even more difficult was the field work experience I had that year. I was assigned to work every Sunday at an Episcopal church in the Lower East Side. The rector was egotistic and arrogant. He later admitted that he disliked me from the first time we met because I was from the South and all white Southerners were in his view evil people. He told me toward the end of my two years at his church  that his primary goal was to break me of my “naïve, adolescent enthusiasm,” and he came close to succeeding. Nor was I that impressed with the classes or the professors at Union. Being famous and writing scholarly books does not necessarily translate into also being a good teacher, though surely many were. Furthermore, there was nothing at Union that came close to the community life I had observed at General. I was beginning to have serious doubts whether being a postulant was a good idea. Nevertheless, having no better alternative, I reupped for a second year  and three years later in 1968 graduated.

The summer following my first year of seminary in 1965 was the most challenging. Embry had managed to get a job as a counselor at a day camp in a United Church of Christ parish in a low income, predominantly African American neighborhood in Boston. She and several other volunteers lived in a group home, and we got to see each other on weekends. That was the highlight. The lowlight was my job, which was to function as a chaplain at Boston City Hospital as part of what was called a “clinical training program.” I was assigned to two wards in this inner city hospital where I functioned as a Christian chaplain for anyone who signed up to be visited. Here I was–young and inexperienced and without a strong faith myself– and my job was to provide spiritual healing and comfort to people in great distress, including several on my watch who died. I performed my first (and only) funeral in the living room of a white, working class family in South Boston whose 23 year old daughter died of cancer. Every person I visited was desperately poor and most were very ill. One was a recent Puerto Rican immigrant who had broken both legs when he jumped off a bridge trying to commit suicide and ended up landing on two elderly women both of whom died of head injuries. He had been charged second degree homicide. Making matters even worse was that every day for a couple of hours I was part of a sensitivity training group that included six seminary students and two leaders, all men. I learned later that the purpose of the group was to break down the defenses of each participant and then to rebuild the Christian character of each person. The co-leader of our group, another ordained minister who was arrogant and opinionated, apologized to me at the end of the summer that while the group did a terrific job in breaking down my defenses, he was sorry that there was not enough time left to build me back up again as a better Christian. (I got an “F” on one of the required assignments to write an essay about death because I did not mention that Christians will all be with Jesus and everyone else will burn in hell for eternity.) I believe that it was at this point that I concluded that I had to get off the track I was on. If this was what Christianity was all about, it was not for me.

What happened next will be the subject of my next blog post.

 

 

 

 

As has been our custom, Embry and I are celebrating Christmas with our two children, their spouses and our four grandchildren. We are at our son Andrew’s house in Maplewood NJ just  outside New York City. Jessica and Peter drove down yesterday from Portland, Maine, with Josie, now a senior in high school. Her brother, Jasper, arrived at Newark International Airport from Vancouver, Canada, where he is a sophomore at the University of British Columbia. Andrew and Karen’s daughter, Sadie, is now a junior in high school. Her brother, Parker, is a sophomore. Everyone arrived about the same time, around six in the evening, with lots of hugs and laughter. I could not help thinking how blessed we are. Everyone is healthy. Everyone is happy about where they are in their own lives. And the love they have for each other—and for us– is palpable. This afternoon we will visit our niece’s family in Princeton where there will be more hugs and more laughter. I know that this is not always the case for every family.

Thank you for following my blog. Writing it is therapy for me, and knowing that there are folks who read it means a great deal. So, here is wishing you a happy holiday season. Enjoy the moment. Next year could be a roller coaster.

 

(Note to readers: Time for a break from Trump and doom and gloom. In this essay and the several that follow I am writing a short autobiography focusing on the highlights and lowlights of my spiritual journey through life.)

From a young age, I had the feeling that I was called to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. My father was the senior warden of Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Nashville and my mother headed up the Women of Christ Church.  My junior year in high school she was elected president of the Women of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. I attended Sunday school every Sunday most of my childhood and during my teenage years was very active both in the youth group at Christ Church and in the diocesan youth organization, “Episcopal Young Churchmen of Tennessee.” Even more important, the clergy at Christ Church visited me often when I was convalescing from polio when I was ten and then again when I was twelve and was recovering from a spinal fusion and confined to my bed. I was comforted and inspired by the clergy and wanted to be like them. During the summer of 1960 following my high school graduation I joined a dozen other high school Episcopalians from across Tennessee   to work in the highlands of a remote area in Mexico advancing the cause of the Episcopal Church in Mexico. The two young clergy who led the adventure were inspiring and charismatic, and I wanted to be like them too. This life changing experience was followed the summer of my sophomore year at Davidson College when I worked in an Episcopal “experimental” farming community at the base of Mt Yatsu, Japan’s second tallest mountain. Six or seven American college students, including my best friend from Nashville (and college roommate), were paired with an equal number of Japanese students to help build a road in an Episcopal missionary community called KEEP (“Kiyosato Episcopal Experimental Project”). Then the summer after my junior year in college I worked in the Lower East Side of New York City in a mission church of Trinity Church, Wall Street, teaching in vacation Bible school. My assistant was a Puerto Rican guy slightly younger than me, who was “vice president” of an infamous street gang, the Bopping Ballerinas. These experiences while not without some personal challenges were all character building, extraordinary adventures. Joining the Americans that summer were a group of college students from the UK, one of whom went on to become a very successful Anglican priest in the Liverpool area and has remained a best friend even to this day.

At Davidson, I attended the tiny Episcopal Church adjacent to the campus almost every Sunday and my senior year was elected president of the Davidson College YMCA, oddly at that time a position voted on by the entire student body and which carried with it dubious prestige. In part due to my position at the Y and my church involvement I was inspired to organize a civil rights march the spring of  my senior year (“The  March in Charlotte for Civil Rights”), which for the 500 plus people who participated (about 50 from Davidson College and others from HBCUs in the area and  many members of a Unitarian Universalist church in downtown Charlotte), was something most participants probably still remember. It certainly was such an experience for me though it caused quite a stir back home when a front page article appeared in Nashville’s conservative newspaper, The Nashville Banner, with the headline, “Bank President’s Son Leads Rights March in North Carolina.” To their credit my parents responded to condolences expressed by astonished friends at Nashville cocktail parties that they actually supported their son.

So, when it came time for me to graduate from Davidson, how could a bleeding heart like me not go to seminary? I was primed and ready. There was only one small problem. I was not sure that my Christian faith was what it should be or that I believed what Episcopal priests were supposed to believe. So instead of applying to an Episcopal Seminary, I decided to apply for a Rockefeller Fellowship, which at the time paid all expenses for college graduates, selected on a competitive basis, who were not sure what they wanted to do with their lives to give them one year to get a taste of what seminary was like. The idea I suppose was that some promising graduates might be enticed away from law school, business or med school to become Christian ministers. I was one of something like 25 or 30 people who got the award that year, the majority of whom ended up like me attending non-denominational Union Theological Seminary in New York City. At that time Union was the preeminent seminary not only in the United Stages but in the world. Unlike Davidson College and all Episcopal seminaries at the time, where students were all male, almost half the students at Union were women. A couple of years before I got the fellowship, Union had on its faculty the most famous Protestant theologians of the Twentieth Century, Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. It was also the seminary that the famous theologian Deitric Bonhoeffer attended before he returned to Nazi Germany to oppose Hitler (and was martyred). I remember the first few weeks at Union I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Even though Tillich and Niebuhr had retired, the professors who were there had all written books, were brilliant, and were well known in their fields. Finally, I thought, I have made it into the Big Leagues! I was back in the Big Apple, which I loved, and with fellow students who were, well, pretty much like me. They had done well in college where they were student leaders and were looking for a pathway to try to make the world a better place. They were also, like me, somewhat lost souls.

A few weeks before I left Nashville for New York City, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee was visiting Christ Church. He was a good friend of my parents and a feisty, Old School kind of guy from the Deep South, who was a committed evangelical with a twinkle in his eye and a hardy laugh. At coffee hour following the service, he came up to me and asked what my plans were now that I had graduated from college. When I told him I was headed off to Union Theological Seminary, his jaw dropped and without missing a beat, he knelt and crossed himself saying “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost!” The following week he sent me papers to fill out, which I did, and that is how I became a “postulant”–or candidate for the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

The four years I spent at Union Seminary were the best of times and the worst of times, which will be the subject of Part Two of “Confessions of an Episcopal Universalist.”

 

 

 

Yes, it is true. After a little over nine years at the Kennedy-Warren, the iconic apartment house next to the entrance to the National Zoo, we have decided to move to Collington, a continuing care retirement community of more than 300 apartments, villas and cottages in Prince Georges County about two miles from where the Washington Commanders play football on Sunday afternoons. While we have had nine great years here at the K-W, have made many new friends, and have loved living here, it is time to move on. We will be moving to a cottage a little smaller than our apartment here but still plenty big enough for us– with a living room, den, full kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sunroom and outdoor patio.

So why move now? Well, we are both getting up there in years. I will turn 83 in three months and next year Embry will join the 80s club. The whole purpose of a CCRC like Collington (also called a “Life Plan Community”) is to provide the infrastructure to promote healthy aging and to provide access to additional help and support when and if needed. Collington includes a long term care component for those who are not able to continue to live independently. It also includes a fitness center and lap pool, pickle ball courts, two dining venues, numerous meeting rooms and activity areas and is situated on a 125 acre parcel surrounded by forests with several miles of paved walking trails and a small lake. Fortunately, we both are in good health for our age, but the longer we live the more vulnerable people our age are to the challenges associated with aging. Consider moving to a CCRC as a way of trying to squeeze the last drops out of the lemon.

Besides I am a believer. If you know me, you know that my company, Howell Associates, for more than 20 years provided market research, financial analysis and marketing services to the senior living industry. Our primary clients were not-for-profit CCRCs. And when I started the company in 1981, the community to be called Collington was my first client. The Episcopal Diocese of Washington had been offered as a gift a 125-acre parcel by a shopping center developer and hired me (I did not have any employees yet) to determine if building a retirement community on the site was feasible. In those days because there were few CCRCs in the Washington metro area, I travelled to the Philadelphia area where the Quakers had built the first two CCRCs on the East Coast, Foulkeways and Kendal. I was very impressed and recommended that the diocese form a not-for-profit company to develop a new CCRC modeled after Kendal. I helped the diocese put together a development team, secure zoning and market the units. The 360-unit property opened in 1985. In the early 2000s Collington got into some financial difficulties and hired my firm to identify the reasons and recommend solutions. One of my recommendations was to merge or affiliate with another CCRC with a solid reputation. While I had nothing to do with the board’s decision, they chose Kendal, which now includes about a dozen affiliates and is considered by many to be the blue ribbon CCRC provider in the country. Collington honored me by asking me to serve as a volunteer board member, which I did for six years serving as treasurer. So, when the time came for Embry and me to consider the next steps, there was really no choice. It had to be Collington.

The actual move will not happen until late March, so we have three months to downsize and prepare for the move. The decision to make the move feels right though it is a major one, and most of our friends are opting for aging in place in their homes. I can understand their decision. There is no silver bullet to guarantee that people our age will make the most of the years we have left. The decision depends on many factors, many of which we do not control, the most important being our health. And it turns out that in our case it was actually Embry who was the primary motivator behind the decision to move now, not me, though I know it is the right decision and am enthusiastic about the move.

 In future posts I will let you know how it goes. Stay tuned.

 

 

The Trump Team of lackies and sycophants are busy at work so that when Trump is sworn in and addresses the nation on January 20, he will likely announce that his actions are already being carried out “as he speaks.” No fooling around here: Let the Trump MAGA revolution begin! Well, we won’t be able to say we were not forewarned. All these actions are spelled out in the Project 2025 playbook.

And what might those actions be? Trump has already told us. Tariffs on Mexican, Canadian and Chinese imports will be first on the list. Many more tariffs will follow for other countries. The military and National Guard will be ordered to begin deporting more than 11 million undocumented residents, many who have lived here for decades, raised their families and have important jobs. Contracts will be signed with major, private prison companies to begin constructing several massive detention camps imprisoning over a half million people each.  War will be declared on “Sanctuary Cities,” withdrawing all federal aid to cities and jurisdictions which resist deportation. Uncooperating mayors and local officials could be arrested and jailed.  I would not be surprised to hear Trump announce that pink slips will be handed out to some 50, 000 career civil servants starting the following day, and that the Justice Department will now report directly to him. Deep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and other social safety net programs will be ordered and Trump will pledge to finally put a dagger in (the now popular) Obamacare. He will cut funding for climate change initiatives, along with many other federal programs, which he says in total will cut over three trillion dollars from government operations. He will say he is further “boosting the economy” by generously reducing taxes for major corporations and billionaires. He will end the war in Ukraine in one day–presumably the next day. Finally, Trump will conclude by proudly announcing that this is just the beginning.

No way, you say. This is just his way of making a splash, pleasing the MAGA faithfuls, and unnerving Democrats and others who hate him.

Okay, I admit to describing a scenario which is designed to get your attention. All these pledges may not happen during Trump’s speech, but there is not an item that I have listed that Trump has not promised or alluded to do at one time or another. We should not be caught off guard.

And your skepticism is also well founded. The good news is that he will not be able to do all or even most of what he pronounces and that many of the policies that he does implement will be economically disastrous and widely unpopular. If he sticks to this ill-conceived agenda, his will be a failed presidency. His tariffs and his deportation initiatives will not only fail, but they will also be disasters. Still, we must brace ourselves for a bumpy sleigh ride that could take us down a slippery slope towards the abyss. Much damage could–and probably will– be done. Here is a brief look at what in my view are the major items.

The Tariffs.

In a word, these are insanity. I am not aware of a single, reputable economist in the country who thinks tariffs are a good idea. The result will increase prices for ordinary people, when China, Mexico and Canada retaliate with their own tariffs, spurring more inflation. The irony is that what got Trump elected this time was due mainly to the unpopular increases in prices that happened because of economic and supply line problems associated with covid. The Trump tariffs will also increase unemployment because when the price of U.S. exports go up, people in those countries will buy fewer U.S. goods and services. Plus, there is only so much Trump can do with tariffs anyway. The Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose a tariff up to 15% for only 150 days– but only if there is determined “to be an adverse impact on national security from imports.” After 150 days the tariffs expire unless extended by an action of both Houses of Congress. How likely is that to happen–especially if inflation returns and the world economy is headed for a recession? The tariffs will fail.

Massive Arrests and Deportations of Undocumented Workers.

This is also insanity. I have already addressed this in a recent post. Much needless pain and suffering are going to be caused by this cruel and unnecessary action. Trump is calling for the deportation of 11-12 million people. Nothing on this scale has happened in human history. For reasons noted below, it won’t happen this time either as he envisions, but families will be separated, and lives will be destroyed.

Trump is supposed to start with convicted prisoners.  Many Sanctuary Cities have agreed to cooperate in handing over these people if that is the end of it. When others are rounded up, however, there will be pushback and resistance.

The first outcry will be from the immigrants who are directly affected and others that care about them. Most Americans come in contact with undocumented workers on a regular basis –the person who cuts your grass, checks you out at the grocery store, fixes a broken appliance, provides care to an aging parent, washes the dishes in restaurants you go to, delivers your Amazon purchases, drives  Uber cabs….

Please. We all have met them, and we all depend on them. The thought of what is in store for them is heart breaking.

The second outcry will come from the industries that rely heavily on undocumented workers. According to the New American Economy and the American Immigration Council, many industries depend on these people. Over 36% of the agriculture workforce, 26% of people doing grounds maintenance, 25% involved in food preparation, 23% in the apparel industry, 23% of all cooks, 20% of construction workers and 19% who work in building maintenance are undocumented. If all or most are deported, many hotels and restaurants would close, and much needed housing construction would plummet. Produce would rot in the fields. They also make up a large share of the long term care sector. Assisted living communities, nursing homes and senior living communities would be desperate for workers. So would hospitals. The list is long.

There are other reasons that massive deportation is not feasible. The two most important are costs and timing. A CBS News’ analysis of immigration system in October of 2024 data found the following:

• Apprehending and deporting just one million people could cost taxpayers at least $20 billion for just the first year of a multi-year effort.
• Deporting 11 million people over four years would cost over $220 billion not adjusting for inflation. Also, the deportation effort would require new funding that would have to be approved by a majority of both chambers of Congress, an unlikely event since the Senate Democrats would filibuster such a law.
• The massive deportation camps are likely to take time to secure sites. NIMBYs typically come out of the woodwork to protest when a nonprofit housing group wants to build a homeless shelter in their neighborhood for only a few people. Can you imagine the outrage when plans are announced for a makeshift prison holding over 100,000 people?
• Trump’s first administration, despite promising to deport millions in 2016 deported only 325,660 people during the entire four years he was president. And it wasn’t because they did not try.
• Timing is also not realistic. A mass deportation, depending on its scale, could not possibly be completed in four years. Immigration courts in the U.S. currently face a backlog of 3.7 million cases. It would take the immigration court system eight more years and 700 additional judges — almost double its existing workforce — just to eliminate the existing backlog entirely, according to the Congressional Research Service. And those actions need to happen before the massive arrests and deportations can even begin.

In summary, there is no way that the kind of massive deportation Trump envisions will be feasible. However, some will be rounded up and many will be terrified. It will be a mess.

Cracking Down on Sanctuary Cities.

Sanctuary Cities are jurisdictions that have passed laws preventing local law enforcement from cooperating in the deportation effort. Trump tried to force cities to participate in deportations during his first term in 2016. He was vigorously opposed by the ACLU, which won rulings that there were no grounds for withholding funds already approved by Congress for Sanctuary Cities. However, some courts have ruled differently on this issue. It appears likely that since there is unsettled law in this area, it will be at the center of the first major battle in the deportation initiative and could play a decisive role in determining the outcome, likely to be decided (unfortunately) by the Robert’s Supreme Court. The ACLU is gearing up for a major legal battle. The legal effort could take some time before a Supreme Court decision is made. If the Court rules against the Sanctuary Cities, massive deportations could proceed in earnest, opening the way for a worst case scenario though cost and logistical challenges will remain and substantially limit the number of deportations that will happen.

Politicizing the Civil Service and Weaponizing the Department of Justice.

Trump may  want to fire or demote  thousands of career civil servants and appoint lackies already vetted by the Heritage Foundation, but he will face robust legal opposition spearheaded by the ACLU and supported by the labor union for government workers. This will also take time and money, and there is no guarantee that he will get away with this. Congressional approval is likely to be required, which is not likely to happen.

Shredding the Social and Health Care Safety Net.

Leon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have their eyes focused on cutting funds from programs providing help to poor people. Reductions in these programs will cause great suffering for those who need help the most and will likely be opposed by many people, not just the poor. Trump also has tried to kill the ACA many times and it is now more popular than ever. Many who voted for him depend on it. Pushback and outrage from the American public  is likely to happen when the social safety net is shredded.

Cutting Taxes (again) for the Ultra Rich.

This will be another big push that will be hugely unpopular. How do you justify more tax savings for the ultra-rich while cutting the social safety net and promoting a balanced budget?

Fighting for Fossil Fuels and Curltailing Climate Initiatives.

Trump did little in  his first term on climate change except for getting out of the Paris Accords. While he is likely to repeat his climate change denials, he is not likely to get very far on initiatives which will require Congressional  approval. However, there is a good chance that he will pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accords as he did during his first term.

Trying to Kill Obamacare (Again).

 Really? Give me a break. The program is very popular.

Ending the War in Ukraine in One Day.

 Along with the deportations this could be the most important issue, which could transform NATO and make World War III more likely. How will Trump do this?  Which countries will be next on Russia’s takeover list? Will the U.S. become a Russian ally? And what about Palestine? What will happen to the post World War II American European alliance? It could turn out that Trump will do more damage in foreign policy than domestic policy.

Trusting in Government and the future of Democracy.

Chaos will reign as Trump and his lackies fight to overturn the way the American government has worked in the past. He will ultimately lose but not before he has caused chaos.  He will likely try to make the case for an authoritarian, strongman government. This could turn out to be the biggest fight of all and the biggest threat to our democracy.

 

In summary fasten your seat belts. On January 20, the Trump II drama will begin. Will there be a resistance movement? Will the guard rails hold preventing the worst case scenarios? Will Sanctuary Cities survive? Will democracy itself be able to survive in the U.S.? Will we find ourselves closer to a World War III scenario, which if it happened would mean the end of the Planet Earth as we know it?

 Scary, though interesting, times. My predictions are that Trump will fail for a second time. The inflation (caused by tariffs), the likely mobilization by a Resistance Movement to oppose the massive deportations, the legal guardrails, and the support by ordinary people against his worst and meanest policies will move the country back toward a center left government. Sanctuary Cities will prevail. The massive deportation camps will not get built. Tariffs will fail. And there is the question as to whether he will even survive another four years. He certainly seems to be failing mentally. But still. Serious damage will be done, and the country could find itself weakened and divided.  

 Wishful thinking that the worst scenarios will be avoided? Perhaps, but there is always room for hope.  The most important thing is for those who oppose Trump to organize and resist his actions.  I believe–I pray–our country will muddle through. The movie starts January 20, and no one knows how it will end.

 Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Friends, it appears that we are on the cusp of both an immigration reign of terror and a transformation of the way government works in the United States.  I do not believe Trump was elected to turn American democracy into a dictatorship. He was elected primarily because of the post-covid unhappiness and worry of many Americans caused by the inflation which happened during the last two years of the Biden presidency. We Democrats also lost many in the working class—which historically has been our base– because of their unhappiness with the status quo, particularly the economy, and their distrust of “political correctness” by many Democrats, not because they wanted Trump to deport 11 million undocumented workers, fire the generals and career civil servants, end climate initiatives, shred the social safety net, champion more tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and curtail vaccines and public health initiatives. They voted for him,  hoping for an economy that is fairer and where they do not have to struggle from paycheck to paycheck. Why they chose Trump remains a mystery, but it will gradually become obvious to them that they picked the wrong horse when high tariffs and fewer immigrant workers cause more inflation and government social safety net programs are decimated. But that will take time. And what are we to do in the meantime—especially regarding the draconian deportation of undocumented immigrants?

Some have cautioned not to take Trump’s pledge to imprison and deport 11 million undocumented residents seriously. There is no way he could pull this off, they argue. He will surely move to the center. Some of these are the same people that said that before passing judgement on Trump’s pledge to unravel what he calls the deep state we should look at whom he appoints as cabinet members and advisors. During his first term, they were mostly moderates and capable people,  Well, not this time.The evidence is now in. Trump’s nominations include crackpots, sex offenders, and nutcases.  No one he has nominated has the experience required to run a government department and all are sycophants.

What can we do? The starting point is the American Civil Liberties Union. For months the ACLU has been anticipating what Trump will do if reelected.

The ACLU maintains that Trump will not be able to accomplish his objectives on immigration without violating federal laws and the U.S. Constitution. They sued the government during Trump’s first term numerous times and won lawsuits that stopped the separation of families at the border, the arbitrary termination of asylum, stripping away the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. They believe that many of Trump’s likely deportation actions starting in 2025 will run afoul of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, including arrests and detentions without individualized suspicions. They also cite the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which guarantee equal protection of the laws by law enforcement and point out that there is no exception for immigrants. They also contend that there is no inherent rule in the Constitution or anywhere else that distinguishes  legal protections for  U.S. citizens that exclude undocumented people–“not language, not place of birth, not even the manner of their entry into the United States.” Specifically, the Fifth Amendment due process clause and the Constitution Suspension Clause also safeguard the writ of habeaus corpus, which protects individuals against unlawful imprisonment. The ACLU also believes that diverting funds to build the detention camps violates federal funding statues and that federalizing the National Guard and deploying the military to carry out deportation is illegal. The ACLU has won many cases involving these unconstitutional and illegal government actions in the past and is geared up to take these on again. They provide a set of legal guardrails that could stop the worst from happening. But then again,  who knows what will happen with the Robert’s Supreme Court?

Another potential guard rail is provided by sanctuary cities. Many cities, counties and states have passed laws that limit cooperation with the federal government regarding immigration by declaring themselves “sanctuary cities.” The term refers to a city (or a county, or a state) that limits its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents to protect low-priority immigrants from deportation, while  turning over those who have committed serious crimes.  In mid 2024 there were approximately 600 sanctuary jurisdictions of differing sizes across the country.

In January 2017, Trump signed an executive order requiring sanctuary cities to comply with federal immigration laws or else have federal funding pulled. But in April of that year, a San Francisco judge blocked the order saying that the president had overstepped his powers by trying to tie billions in federal funding to immigration enforcement.  Only Congress could place such conditions on spending.

There are also “welcoming cities,” which are pro-immigration but not specifically opposed to federal action which affects immigrants. While sanctuary policies focus on not cooperating with immigration authorities, welcoming cities are more generally focused around creating a welcoming and supportive environment for immigrants, though this does not preclude opposing federal deportations. There are currently 24 certified “welcoming jurisdictions” in the U.S. Many of those that do not prohibit cooperation are considering adding that to their charter.

The good news is that some guard rails are in place to slow down the deportation process and that there will be opposition to Trump’s mass deportation of immigrants. The bad news is that we are not sure that the guard rails will hold or that they will significantly impair Trump’s deportation promises.

While the situation is terrifying to those who are not documented and to those who love them, I am hopeful that the worst will be averted. Some of the guardrails will hold, and there will be pushback from many others who will be horrified when they realize what is happening. While we are flawed, we are not an evil country. Good and decent people are in the majority. People will not sit idly by and watch the pain and suffering happen without taking action.

There will be a Resistance Movement. But what will the Resistance Movement look like? I think that the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and the Anti War Movement in the 1970s provide some clues. Embry and I were both involved in the Civil Rights Movement when we worked with SNCC in Southwest Georgia in 1966. We also participated in protests against the Vietnam War. I believe that when the arrests and deportations start, we will see mass demonstrations, protests, marches, and peaceful civil disobedience like what happened more than fifty years ago. The main question I have is who is going to lead this effort. Is there a Martin Luther King Jr out there somewhere (who is an immigrant) or others who will inspire and rally people to the cause? What will our institutions do, especially the churches? This seems like a perfect opportunity for churches to provide asylum and protection and to take a stand against Trump’s deportation actions and for church leaders to step up to the plate. This will be a time when people will have to make decisions–to join the Resistance or not. Sitting this one out is a tacit endorsement of the Trump agenda.

Let the Resistance Movement begin now!