This one is a follow up to my last blogpost.

Now to be fair, it is likely that had I not had polio I still never would have been a good athlete. I can’t claim that I had athletic talent. But that did not keep me from longing to be good in some sport. While polio put an end to that, I was able to participate in sports in high school by being the student trainer for the school’s football, basketball, and track teams. This was a wonderful experience for me, which is right up there at the top when it comes to what I valued most in my high school experience. But still, it was not the same as being a good athlete or playing a competitive sport.

In my last blogpost I described my ill-fated experience with athletics at Boy’s State and at Davidson. After a few years I got over that; and by the time I had enrolled in Union Seminary in New York, I was egging to give it another try. By this time, I had been cleared to try to play most sports. Football and wrestling were clearly out but not basketball. For some reason, I thought basketball might be my sport. There was a full gym across the street from Union at Teachers’ College, which had a regulation-size basketball court and was the site for pickup games mainly by graduate students from Columbia and a few from Union. Pickup games happened all the time though Wednesdays at 2 PM was the only time that worked for me, so that was the time slot I chose to head over to the gym and give basketball a try. In a pickup game there are two captains, who choose players from those gathered at the gym until two teams of five players are assembled. If more than ten people show up, those not picked could sit in the bleachers and watch, hoping they might get picked as a substitute if someone got hurt, or they could give up and try again the next week.

As I gathered with others for the selection process, I could tell that most people already knew each other, and everyone was giving me the lookover. I could almost hear them asking, “Who is this guy? Is he any good? How much experience?” Eleven people showed up that day. I was not chosen but decided to stay and watch the game. I realized that I was lucky I was not playing. The players were good, played hard, and took the game very seriously. Nobody said a word to me after the game as the winners departed smiling and the losers frowning.

Even though I realized that I was not nearly as good as the other players, I forged ahead practicing shooting baskets when I had a chance and when the basketball courts were free. I continued to show up for pickup games, hoping to be selected. On the third try there were a total of ten guys including me, so finally I had my chance. Of course, I was chosen last, but finally I was on a team. The only problem was no one threw me the ball and I never got a rebound or a chance to shoot. Few players even said a word to me. I was not sure if anyone even knew my name and concluded that they were basically a bunch of jerks. I nevertheless persisted for several more weeks, and always was chosen last if there was a slot. After a few games I got a few chances to shoot though never made a basket and maybe got a couple of rebounds while also turning over the ball more times than I would like. Finally, a few guys began to call me by name, though by this time I was ready to quit and call the whole effort off. To be honest, I was not in their league in terms of ability and had no business trying to play with them.

Then I got a call from a guy at Davidson whose name was Bobby Lane. Bobby Lane entered Davidson the year after I had graduated so I did not know him, but I did know him by reputation. He was Lefty Dressel’s number one recruit  for that year. (Lefty was Davidson’s iconic basketball coach who got Davidson into the Elite 8 in the NCAA playoffs twice while I was at Davidson.) Bobby was a high school All American from California and considered one of the best players in the country. I had seen him play on television a couple of times. He was six-three, could slam dunk a ball with ease, jump so high it looked like he was flying, and had a great long shot (3-pointers did not start in college until the early 1980s.) He was an all-conference point guard his first year, but had had a falling out with Lefty, quit the team to focus on his studies, and was considering in his senior year going to law school or possibly seminary. Someone had suggested that he call me to see if he could spend a week at Union to see if seminary might be a good fit. I jumped at the idea.

Bingo! The great Bobby Lane–a player who would probably have been a first round draft pick in the NBA had he stayed with basketball, and one of the greatest players ever to go to Davidson. I immediately thought of the Wednesday afternoon pickup games and burst out laughing as I envisioned what would happen if Bobby Lane showed up at the court.

Bobby was a great guy; and when I told him of my grim experience in the pickup games, he said he would be glad to join me, but we had to be a two-fer. If anyone chose him, they also had to choose me, and I should not let on to anyone that at Davidson he was ranked as one of the best college players in the country.

When the two of us walked into the gym, as was customary, the guys were warming up and practicing shooting. They paused for a minute and looked Bobby over as they had looked me over several weeks before. When one guy asked me who the new guy was, I replied, “Oh, just a friend.” Bobby then joined in the practice shooting, making what would be three-pointers today one after another and then drove to the basket and did a behind-the-back slam dunk. Suddenly everyone on the court stopped in their tracks, staring at Bobby, gaping, then looked back at me in disbelief. The gym went stone silent.

I was grinning from ear to ear.

“Two-fer,” I replied. “You choose Bobby, you get me too. Non-negotiable.” We were the first chosen.

Our team won by a score of something like 70-25, but what was even better, when the opponents tried to double or triple team Bobby, that left me wide open, and Bobby would throw the ball to me, unguarded. Having never scored a basket before in the pickup games, I scored something like ten points. I do not recall any of our opponents saying a word to me after the game as they stumbled off the court in disbelief. A couple of guys from my team looked at me and smiled, giving me two thumbs up. That was my last day playing basketball at the Teachers’ College gym, and I never saw any of the guys again. It will always be my greatest day in sports.

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Note to readers: first, thank you for following my blog posts. I am deeply grateful. I have been doing this for over a decade—having written well over 500 posts– and am amazed how many of you have stuck with me. My posts have for the most part focused on politics, personal (often disastrous or humorous) experiences, travel, religion, and issues of the day. In a recent post, “A Haunting Memory” I added a new category which falls under “reminisces,” which this story fits into. I plan to add more of these in future posts. And I am grateful for and appreciate your comments.

In the summer of 1952 when I had just turned ten, I attended a YMCA camp in a state park near Nashville where I had a stomach virus for a good part of the two-week sleepover camp. My counselor, a thin guy in his twenties with a shaved head refused to allow me to miss any camp activities, calling me a wimp and a pussy. I returned home two weeks later, having lost about ten pounds, to the horror of my mother. I recovered but a week later, when my temperature reached almost 104 degrees, my father called our family doctor, who put me in the back of his car and rushed me to Vanderbilt Hospital where I had a painful spinal tap. The next day the diagnosis came in: polio.

It is hard today to exaggerate what polio meant to people in 1952 when there was no vaccine. It was the plague of the era, which I have written about in my book Civil Rights Journey. I missed two years of school but had “home bound teachers” who enabled me to not fall too far behind my classmates. It may sound odd but looking back on the experience, I have positive feelings and believe, though difficult, it was a pivotal experience in my life.

 I had friends come by to see me on a regular basis, and Allen, my best friend, came by almost every day. This made all the difference. The two of us will turn 82 in the first half of April this year and still talk by phone once or twice a month. How important it is to have long and lasting friendships!

I say that I am the lucky one because if I had been born a few years earlier, I would not have made it into my twenties. Because my stomach muscles were most affected, the second year following my initial convalescence, my backbone looked like the letter “C”. It turns out that your stomach muscles are what keep your backbone straight when you are still growing. With a backbone the shape of a “C” my organs would have been out of place, and I would have been a dead duck in a few years. While a spinal fusion is commonplace now, it was not the case in 1954. It was a new procedure that had  been developed to enable a surgeon to cut open your back, straighten the bone, and fuse it with a steel rod– or in my case a shaving off my shin. I was told there was a 50-50 chance that it would work. If it failed, then he would try again. I had a young, arrogant, hotshot surgeon who had been trained in this procedure, which improved my chances. I would not know if it had worked until several months later, but, of course, it did. I still have a bias that if a surgeon is not young, arrogant, brash, cocky, and lacks the most basic people skills, I want nothing to do with the person. (I note, however, that two of my best friends were orthopedic surgeons and this observation does not apply to these kind, gentle people, but still….)

 I had to lie on my back in bed, not elevated by more than six inches for a year, and then wore a body cast for the next several years. But I made it through this ordeal and have lived a normal life. In fact, for most of my adult life I have been a fitness fanatic, for many years running 20-25 miles a week and running 10-mile races and occasionally longer ones. I finished at mile 20 of the Marine Corps Marathon (my goal) when I peaked in my mid-forties. After my knees gave out in my fifties, I became a devoted walker and still am, albeit now at a very slow pace and with the aid of a walking stick.

So, the “luck” had to do with the time I was born—ten years earlier it would have been a different story. It also had to do with the great care I received including spending six months in Warm Springs, Georgia, site of the nation’s best polio clinic, having great, loyal friends, and a supportive family. There were a few incidents, of course, though ironically these happened well after I was on my way to recovery when I was no longer in a wheelchair and would appear normal to anyone who did not know my story. My senior year in high school I attended a week-long event called Boy’s State where one boy from every white high school in Tennessee (which at the time was totally segregated) was selected to participate in a camp-like experience focusing on civics and political engagement. To my surprise it was run mainly by retired military personnel and had a paramilitary atmosphere more like a boot camp. The counselors were focused on toughening us up and their favorite tool was humiliation. Every morning at ten hundreds of white, high school seniors spread out on the ground for calisthenics on the football field in the stadium of the college where the camp was held. Calisthenics were not what you would call one of my strong points then or now. Having paralyzed stomach muscles, sit-ups were beyond my ability and still are. Toward the end of the exercise routine, over the loudspeaker all us boys were ordered to do sit-ups. The meanest and toughest of the counselors, who on numerous occasions had called us campers “sissies” and “softies” saw that I was struggling. He slowly walked over to me and with a gleam in his eye and a microphone in hand bellowed out over the loudspeaker, “Stop. Everyone stop!”  The field of boys became silent as all activity came to a halt. The guy then asked me my name and which school I was from. All eyes were on me.

“Ok,” he said in a sarcastic tone, “Now, Mr. Joe Howell from some fancy prep school in Nashville, do a sit up.”

I gave it everything I had but nothing happened.

“I said, do a sit up! That is an order!”

Except for a few snickers the football field was deathly silent.

“This will be my third and last order. Do a sit up now!”

I looked up helplessly at the guy noting his sadistic smile and wishing that there was some way that I could just disappear. He then turned his back on me and over the loudspeaker repeated my name sarcastically using me as the number one example of how in our generation there were too many pathetic weaklings. The exercises continued for another five minutes as I sat there wondering what to do next. As I was getting up when the exercises were over, a boy I did not know wandered over and pated me on the back, saying, “Don’t let the jerk get to you, he is an asshole.”

So, there were occasional moments that were not pleasant. When I thought about it, I had to agree that for a healthy high school senior not to be able to do a sit-up probably was not a good sign, and the instructor had no way of knowing that I had had polio. I moved on and overall had a good experience at Boy’s State. But that I can visualize the event so clearly now– some 65 years later—suggests it had an impact.

I had several similar experiences to my Boy’s State nightmare in physical education programs at Davidson College. The first was when I was directed to wrestle a big guy, in a required physical education class. I had doubts about being in P.E. but never mentioned to any of the coaches that I was a polio survivor. In fact, during what was the tail end of my recovery period, I did everything I could to be “normal” and not to be known as the polio kid. I looked at the huge guy, who could have been on the football team, and concluded I had no choice but to inform the wrestling coach that I had had polio and that to wrestle this guy was probably not wise. He replied, “You wimp, get out there and wrestle. The best wrestler I ever coached had had polio.” My opponent dislocated my shoulder in the first 30 seconds of the match, sending me off  to the college infirmary. Nevertheless, I persisted. I continued to keep my polio a secret as best as I could. Then came acrobatics class. Jumping up and down on the trampoline was not that much of a challenge, but when the coach yelled at me, “Now do a flip,” I hollered back while in the air, “Not a good idea!”  I gave it a try anyway, missed landing on the trampoline by about ten feet, and mercifully landed on several of my classmates softening the fall. It was at this point that I went to the college administrators asking them to allow me to skip the PE classes, which they did after receiving a letter from my doctor.

Yet, looking back on my polio experience, I see it as a hugely positive and important experience. There are two primary reasons. First, it gave me a new perspective in identifying with people who were trying to overcome obstacles. I identified with the underdog and with people who were struggling with disabilities and (later) with poverty, social class, and racial discrimination. I remain an unapologetic bleeding heart. Second, I was determined not to let the polio experience keep me down. Studies show that most polio victims of the 1940s and 1950s developed Type A, never-give-up personalities, who were determined to be just normal people. I also acknowledge that compared to other victims of polio, my case of polio was probably somewhere in the middle. Others had much tougher challenges to overcome. My three roommates at Warm Springs were far much worse off than me, confined to wheelchairs probably for their entire lives.  I sometimes wonder what happened to these three guys. After graduating from Union Seminary in 1968, I entered the Planning School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I began my serious running routine, which I was able to keep up for decades. I achieved my goal of leading a normal life. And finally, I never experienced the dreaded “post-polio syndrome” that cruelly has affected so many polio survivors.

I truly am the lucky one.

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So, when someone asks you if you are religious or if you believe in God, what do you say? It turns out that we human beings think about this a lot–all over the planet–and have been thinking about it from the very early stages of our species. Given the size and nature of our brains, we Homo sapiens cannot help asking fundamental questions like why are we alive, what is the meaning of our lives, how do we find fulfillment, how should we live our lives, and what happens when we die.

In a previous series of blog posts  (September/ August 2023) I wrote about how the concept of God evolved focusing on the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All three religions share belief in the God of Abraham as the true God and central to their faith. These three religions have been very successful and according to survey research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2020 now account for more than 55 percent of the world’s population. (Christianity is the most popular with over 30 percent of the world’s population.) However, there are many other religions in the world today—The Pew Research Center identifies 21 major faiths—most of which have a different view of God. I find it interesting that only about 15 percent of those surveyed describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. What all major religions have in common, however, is a set of beliefs, religious and ethical practices, and rituals. Which one is right and which ones are wrong, and what does this all mean?

I am an Episcopalian, a lifer or “cradle Episcopalian,” as we are called. If truth be told, however, I am Episcopalian mainly because my parents were pillars of the Episcopal church in Nashville where I grew up. I suspect a major factor affecting the religious affiliation of anyone is the religion that they were exposed to at an early age. In 1968 I earned a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which was at the time a nondenominational seminary and now an interfaith religious institution. Union exposed me to the beliefs, worship styles and values of other Protestant denominations. I was never ordained, however, because my bishop and I agreed that I was not called to be an Episcopal priest. If you know me, you can understand why.

What sets the Abrahamic religions apart from other faiths is that God is first and foremost a God of history, who has taken decisive action in the history of the world. The early Jews acknowledged the existence of many gods but believed their God, “YHWH,” was superior to all. Their God created the universe in six days, made humans in His own likeness, identified Israel as His chosen people, helped the Israelites destroy adversaries, gave Moses the Ten Commandments, parted the Red Sea, and caused the flood which would have wiped out all life on Earth were it not for Noah, whom God chose to save life on the planet. The history of Israel for most practicing Jews is the history of God’s actions on Earth.  Abraham is thought to have lived in the early 1,800s BCE and the Ten Commandments given to Moses around 1,300 BCE. Monotheism did not become prevalent until around 700 BCE. Two or three hundred years later–between 450 and 350 BCE–the first five books of the Bible—the Torah– were written.

Then along came Christianity about  half a millennium later. Jesus, of course, was a Jew. He is honored as a Jewish prophet by both Jews and Muslims. He preached a message of a loving and just God, and of helping the poor and the downtrodden. He performed miracles, healed the sick, and became a popular figure and a threat to the Jewish establishment and the Roman Empire, actions for which he was crucified in his early 30s. Had this been the end of the story, no one would have paid much attention to Jesus of Nazareth, and there would be no Christianity. But two things happened. The first is what I call the “resurrection experience.” Something happened that made Jesus’s disciples believe that Jesus had not died but had “risen from the dead.” This was followed some forty days later by the Ascension when Jesus is said to have ascended into heaven and then in ten more days the Pentecost when Jesus appeared again to a large following, speaking in different languages. Had this been the end of the story, it is not clear if a new religion would have been sustained. The stories about the resurrection and what followed were not written down until a over a generation after his death. (Mark, the first gospel was written in the mid 60s CE. The Gospel of John did not happen until near the turn of the first century.)

But something else happened, and that was the conversion of an erudite, Greek speaking rabbi whose name was Saul of Tarsus and who experienced the risen Christ on the road to Damascus  four or five years after the resurrection. Saul changed his name to Paul and began a journey to spread the word of the resurrection, which in Paul’s thinking proved that Jesus was the son of God. Paul became a tireless missionary making five journeys to countries at the eastern end of the Roman empire converting people—mainly gentiles who had been worshipers of Constantine and the sun god—to a new religion 50 years later called Christianity. (Jewish Christians referred to themselves as “The Way” probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, “prepare the way of the LORD”. Other Jews also called them “the Nazarenes.”) Paul was a great communicator, dictated numerous letters to early converts to the faith and developed a Christian theology which is spelled out in the most detail in his last letter, the letter to the Romans. Salvation and “justification by faith” are major themes in Paul’s writings. The rest is history. In 2024 there are estimated to be more than 2.4 billion people who call themselves Christians.

About 600 years later, another new religion emerged called Islam, which acknowledged Jesus as a great prophet but did not buy into the notion of his being God. This religion embraces a radical monotheism and a strict prayer life and strong dietary rules. There are about two billion Muslims in the world.

Then there are the non-Abrahamic religions. What about Hinduism, Buddhism, and the many ethnic and tribal religions? These religions for the most part see God not as a person but as a mystical being or force. Some like Hinduism see God as being itself. Followers of Buddhism don’t acknowledge a supreme god or deity. They instead focus on achieving enlightenment—a state of inner peace and wisdom. When followers reach this spiritual echelon, they are said to have experienced nirvana. The religion’s founder, Buddha, is considered an extraordinary being, but not a god.

So, I will repeat my question. What do you believe? If you are a Christian, the fundamentals of the faith that are often cited are these:

• That humans are made in the image of God, which would seem to imply that God in some way is like us humans.
• That God had a son whom he sacrificed for our sake to forgive humans for our sins and create a pathway to heaven.
• That to believe that Jesus was God’s only son is your ticket to eternal life in heaven. (“Justification by faith,” not good works.)
• That failing to believe the Gospel–the “good news” –has dire consequences, like being doomed to an eternal life in hell.

Now I call myself a Christian because I believe in the message of God’s love and the commandment to love your neighbor, not because of a literal interpretation of scripture or the wording of the early creeds that some insist you are supposed to believe to be a Christian. Here are some of my questions:

1. Heaven and eternal life. Given what we know now about the universe, what does eternal life mean? Where might heaven be anyway? The Christian creeds and the theology of Paul speak of resurrection of the body. Really? How does cremation fit into this picture, and can we choose which body we want—maybe a 25 year-old body rather than an 85 year-old body? Mark Twain once said he would take heaven for the climate, but hell for the company. If going to heaven means your only companions will be fundamentalists and evangelicals, does this sound appealing? If there is no heaven or eternal life, does this make a difference about how we live our lives or the meaning of life on the planet Earth? What about all the other good people who are not Christians on the planet? Having 30 percent “market penetration” is pretty good, but what about the other 70 percent? Many are profoundly spiritual people and many live lives of goodness. Will they all end up in hell just because they do not “believe”?
2. The nature of God. Some Christians believe that God is all powerful and all good. Given the sorry state of the planet, the human condition, and the suffering many experience, why hasn’t God intervened more often? How do you explain hurricanes, droughts, and all other natural disasters? The National Council of Churches was located next to Union Seminary when I was a student, where several friends worked part time, who spoke of all the lawsuits filed every year against the organization by people who had been turned down by insurance companies which had exclusions for “acts of God.” Why do bad things happen to good people? Is God really a he? It seems to me that the religions that describe God as Spirit–and a Divine Mystery which we humans are not able to fully understand–are closer to the truth.
3. The universe. Most religions see God as the creator of the universe. The founding fathers were mostly deists who visioned God as the great clockmaker, who got everything started but has taken mostly a hands off position ever since. Only in the last couple of decades have we learned that the universe is much, much larger than what we thought and could be part of a multiverse. What is that all about?
4. The information we have about God. The scriptures and creeds we rely on for information about God are very old and were written centuries before science had provided information about the nature of our world. On many issues where there are scientific explanations, science often trumps religion.

So now you know why I was not ordained and why becoming an Episcopal priest would not have been a good fit. Some have accused me of not being a Christian, to which I respond that that is God’s business, not yours. In one instance after proclaiming what I thought to be a profound understanding of the Christian faith, one person in a church discussion group angrily responded, “Well, if that is what you believe, why not just join the Democratic Party?” I still hang in there, if by a thread, and do believe in goodness, mercy and the Christian message of love and redemption even if I can’t buy into the whole program. At the same time, I acknowledge that Christianity has had profound benefits for millions and millions of people over the years, that a relationship with the Divine is possible, that spirituality is real, that prayer is important and beneficial, and that truly holy people exist on Earth. For many, many people of all faiths, God is not an idea. God is real. I agree though my answer is more nuanced.  I suspect that there are a whole bunch of people not all that different from me, many of whom are hanging on by a thread or leaving the church because they don’t find the message relevant to their faith journey. As I mentioned in my last blog, this is an issue and a challenge for Christian churches today.

 

 

Religion	Adherents	Percentage
Christianity	2.382 billion	31.0%
Islam	1.907 billion	24.9%
Secular[a]/Nonreligious[b]/Agnostic/Atheist	1.193 billion	15.58%
Hinduism	1.161 billion	15.2%
Buddhism	506 million	6.6%
Chinese traditional religion[c]	394 million	5.6%
Ethnic religions	300 million	3.0%
African traditional religions	100 million[7]	1.2%
Sikhism	26 million	0.30%
Spiritism	15 million	0.19%
Judaism	14.7 million[8]	0.2%
Baháʼí	5.0 million[9]	0.07%
Jainism	4.2 million	0.05%
Shinto	4.0 million	0.05%
Cao Dai	4.0 million	0.05%
Zoroastrianism	2.6 million	0.03%
Tenrikyo	2.0 million	0.02%
Animism	1.9 million	0.02%
Neo-Paganism	1.0 million	0.01%
Unitarian Universalism	0.8 million	0.01%
Rastafari	0.6 million	0.007%
Total	7.79 billion	100%

 

From the Pew Research Center

 

 

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Strange times, these times. Many conventional Christian churches have been losing members for decades while mega churches are expanding, and many evangelical churches have gone all out for Trump and are part of the Maga movement. Some believe that Donald Trump is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. While some in my generation have tended to drift away from conventional Christianity, many have stuck with it although we and most of our friends have children who do not attend church regularly or, for that matter, do not have grandchildren who have even been baptized. When asked by surveys why former church members of mainline Protestant churches have thrown in the towel, often the reason cited is something like “no longer meaningful,” or “not relevant,” or “too busy.”

Embry and I have been attending a small, neighborhood Episcopal Church since the mid 1980s though our church has had it s up and downs over the years as have others. Being part of a small but welcoming and diverse religious community which is more than a social club is important to us, and that is certainly one reason we  have stuck with it. Embry has sung in the choir for more than thirty years, and we have both had held leadership positions in the church. Embry is currently senior warden, the top lay position in the church. Maybe another reason is just inertia. We have been doing this for so many years it is just part of our routine.

However, the decline of traditional religion and religious practice is a concern. Why is this happening? Where are we headed when so much spiritual energy is centered on a neofascist who could take the country into authoritarianism? There are lots of reasons for this, most more sociological than spiritual. The divide in our country along class and educational lines has gotten deeper, and many  traditional mainline churches are viewed by Trump supporters as elitists and examples of the establishment. Many right wing, populist revolutionaries see us “mainliners”—especially Episcopalians—as too snobbish and too woke and believe we look down on them.

That explains part of the challenges to mainline churches but does not fully explain why many former church members say conventional religion is no longer relevant in their lives. Part of the reason for this, I believe, boils down to religious practice and particularly religious language. There is a conflict for many between what we know to be true from science and experience and the religious language used in many churches—especially in the Episcopal Church.

For example, in the Episcopal Church what we say we believe does not sync with what we know to be true based on our education and experience. These are laid out in the two main creeds we Episcopalians say every Sunday, either the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed: that humans are created in the image of God, that Jesus was God’s only son, that He died for our sins, rose from the dead on the third day (after spending three days in hell, according to the Apostle’s Creed) and that all (and for some, “only”) those who believe in Jesus as their savior will have everlasting life. Given what we know about the scientific understanding of the world, it is hard for many people to sincerely answer, “Yes, I believe all of these things.”

Afterall, scientists mostly agree that the Big Bang happened over 13.7 billion years ago, that our planet is 4.5 billion years old, and that there have been five mass extinctions wiping out over 85% all animals and plants on the planet each time. We humans are newbies since modern humans–and most world religions–have been around only a few thousand years. We also know the world will perish in about a billion years when our sun starts to become a red giant. We know that natural selection is how we evolved from apes.  We now know that the universe is millions of times greater than what we thought only a few decades ago.

The writers of ancient scripture lived before Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein. They did not have modern tools like the Hubble and Web telescopes, space stations, computers, and now artificial intelligence.  

Knowing what we know now, can we really say we believe that we humans are made in the image of God? Does God have two arms and legs and is a “he”? Really? No, we have it backwards: Humans have made God in our own image. Did Jesus really “descend into hell”? Did he really rise again and now “sits at the right hand of God”? Certainly, there was a resurrection experience, but do we know what really happened? And does this really make a difference in our faith?  

To insist or even imply that we should take the creeds and ancient scripture like the Bible literally makes no sense to some people of faith. It certainly makes no sense to me.

While we should take scripture seriously for what these ancient wise men were telling us about the meaning of life in their age and their time and their experience, we do not have to take their stories literally. If the stories are viewed as myths—sacred stories which convey profound meaning– then yes, there is truth in these scriptures and creeds, which have meaning for our lives today. For the contemporary, mainline church to stop the outflow of people who can’t say yes, I believe every word in the creeds and in the Bible, the message from the pulpit should embrace what the meaning is today of those ancient creeds, stories, and myths. And churches should focus on putting into practice what those stories tell us: “Love your neighbor.” “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”

To be fair, many mainline churches are already doing this, and I would suspect that there is a high correlation between these “progressive” churches and robust church attendance.

 Of course, it is a completely different story among evangelical and fundamentalist churches, some of whom see Trump as their savior. Religion and religious practice have always been influenced by culture and politics. Our country has never been so divided since the Civil War, and there are no indications that it is going to get  better any time soon. The culture and political wars we are in now also includes a war of religions, or perhaps more accurately, a war of religious beliefs. How we end up is anyone’s guess. As both evangelicals and progressive church people would say, “Pray for us.”

 

Next installment: “God”

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On Saturday, February 17, 2024, an article in the New York Times online edition by David Sanger and Julian Barnes reported that the United States has evidence that a new satellite designed by the Russians when launched may contain a nuclear weapon. Their assessment was based on top secret information now being shared with high-level Chinese and Indian officials, who have closer ties to Putin and the Russian government, presumably to convince the Russians to stop the launch. The primary purpose of the weapon would be to destroy the satellites of its adversaries, primarily the United States. Should this happen, virtually all communications we routinely rely on would be destroyed such as cell phones, the internet, radio, and television, and many other things which rely on satellites. While this act would be a violation of international law and the nuclear arms agreement we have with Russia, there is little question that Russia has the technology to do this as does the United States and many other advanced countries. If Russia goes through with this, how long will it be before we launch our own nuclear-armed satellite or that China or North Korea or India will follow? Welcome to Star Wars!

Does this situation remind you of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Here we go again. One more horrible thing to think about. Don’t we have enough on our plate already with climate change and global warming, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the massive migrations to our southern border by persons seeking a better life, the rise of authoritarianism,  all the threats that A.I. is likely to bring, and the thought of another Trump Presidency?

At what point does all of this become too much for our small planet to handle? The match that ignites the haystack may not even be intentional. Some mistake by a technician somewhere punching the wrong button which signals a message of Armageddon to his country’s adversaries, which must respond in kind. Or maybe the villain is A.I. Remember Hal in “2001 Space Odyssey”?

I can hear some readers objecting, “Will you stop all this negative, doomsday thinking and relax? There is nothing we can do about it, so why bother? Just enjoy the life you have now and the beautiful planet you live on. There is so much to be thankful for. And surely at your advanced age it will not affect you.”

Well, you have a point. But I can’t help thinking that at some point, the weight the planet is bearing will simply be too much. Something very bad will happen. Not in my lifetime and hopefully not in the lifetime of my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, but sometime. Unless we humans can change our nature, conflict will continue to be part of our existence, and so far just about every weapon we humans have created has been used.

In previous posts I have been obsessed with how old our planet is and how short the time we humans have been on center stage. Our sun and solar system are over four billion years old. We human-like creatures have been around only a few million years and we Homo sapiens only a few hundred thousand. Modern humans only a few thousand. Afterall, written language was developed only about 7,000 years ago, and the size of the human population remained steady in the low millions for many thousands of years until a few centuries ago. The human population explosion began in the Industrial Revolution and has now reached over eight billion.

While I do not want to be a doomsday fanatic, I can’t see the path we are on continuing for a whole lot longer without serious calamity. Afterall, if you have been reading my blog you know that our planet has already had five mass extensions where over 80% of all planet and animal was wiped out. These have occurred on average every 130 to 150 million years. It has been about 130 million years since the last mass extension, and scientists say that we are now entering the Sixth Mass Extension due to loss of animal habitats—due mainly to us humans.  What are the chances that we Homo sapiens will we be part of the Sixth Mass Extension?

Unsettling questions to be sure but as they say in Washington, “above our pay grade” to answer. Better just to forget about the possible disasters and get on with our lives.

But there are people who do keep track of such things. Have you heard of the “Doomsday Clock”? A group of nuclear scientists came up with the idea in 1947 as a warning to the world as to the dangers of nuclear war. The group publishes “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,” which has updated the time left before “midnight” every January since its inception when the atomic scientists voted to set the clock at seven minutes to midnight. When the minute and second hand hit midnight, it essentially signals the end of the world—at least the end of the world as we have known it. In the early years, the major fear was nuclear catastrophe, but the threats have been expanded to include climate change and, recently, artificial intelligence. Note that the clock has fluctuated over the years  with the most optimistic estimate of 17 minutes before midnight in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. It was updated in 2023 to show 90 seconds, with no change in 2024, the closest to doomsday that it has ever been. Of course, this is only a metaphor of where the world stands regarding existential threats, and the scientists do not say exactly how long a “second” is—a year, a decade, a century?

But still. Is there any doubt that the fragile planet we inhabit is in danger? It is one thing to cry “the sky is falling” like Chicken Little without doing anything to avert the looming catastrophe and another to take decisive action now to move the hands on the clock back. This is the existential challenge of our era. The stakes have never been higher.

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Suddenly after lurking just under the surface, Joe Biden’s age has surfaced to become a major issue in the campaign for the President of the United States in 2024. This is thanks to the damning-with-faint-praise report by the Special Counsel, Robert Hur, which let Biden off the hook from being indicted for mishandling classified documents primarily because of Biden’s age. Hur (who not coincidently, happens to be a Republican) implies Biden is too old, too frail, and too confused to stand trial before a jury. Many Democrats are starting to panic. The talk is all about Biden, however, not his presumed opponent, Donald Trump, who is only four years younger. Both are old codgers. When Biden was a senior in college, Trump was a freshman. Should we be concerned about the age of these two old men?

Yes we should!

But first full disclosure. I have been a loyal Democrat all my adult life. I like Joe Biden. I will vote for him in 2024 despite what I write in this essay, since there are no better alternatives. In my view Joe Biden has not only been a good president, he has been a great president, given the hand he was dealt. There is no medical diagnosis that he has dementia, and he has always been subject to gaffes. The Hur report was a hit job, unfair, and a punch below the belt. Shame on him!

But still.

I am nine months older than Joe Biden. I and most of the people I know who are my age have health issues. The “organ recitals” (hips, knees, joints, livers, hearts, lungs, and, sadly, brains) are a common subject of conversation. Health issues for people in their 80s are just a fact of life. We slog through our remaining years  knowing  that slowing down is better than the alternative. We all know we can’t do what we could do years earlier. 

But it is not all gloom and doom.  If we don’t currently have a life threatening disease, we 80-something men have a life expectancy of about eight years–even longer for women. Hey, you can argue, Biden will serve for only four more years, so what is the problem? Well,  another way to look at the eight year life expectancy is that in 2032 half of us in our cohort will be dead by then and half still alive. Glass half full, glass half empty.

The problem is that the chance of having a disability increases significantly with every passing year, including suffering from dementia. For having a disability of some sort, the chances increase from 46 percent of people over age 75 to almost 85 percent for people over age 80, for one chronic condition, 60 percent for two chronic conditions at age 80 and older. Only just five percent of people age 70-79 have dementia. For people over 80, it is 24 percent, almost one in four. Biden appears to be fit for his age even though he occasionally shuffles his feet and slurs his speech. Should we be worried? 

Come on, people! First, the age issue should not be only about Joe Biden.  It is about  Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They are both old. It is basically about everyone over age 75. And one could argue that Trump is much worse off than Biden regarding mental acuity. Confusing Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, saying he beat Obama in 2016, accusing Biden of starting World War II, constantly confusing the names of world leaders? Please. This dude is not playing with a full deck.

Compare this to the private sector, where except for Warren Buffett, heads of Fortune 500 Companies–and most publicly traded companies, prestigious law firms, and high powered consulting companies–are well below age 75. The median age is around 56; and while mandatory retirement is no longer legal, most companies have figured out ways to nudge their CEO out at age 65 or 70. There is a reason for this. The demands on these people are enormous. These jobs require people to be at the top of their game mentally and have energy, vigor, and staying power. And it is not just CEOs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 5.3 percent of all  people in the U.S. age 80 or above have full time jobs or are actively seeking work. What does this tell you?

I was hardly the CEO of a big company, but for almost 20 years I was the CEO of Howell Associates, a consulting company which had between 15-25 employees. In my mid fifties I realized that I did not have the energy or fire in the belly to keep it going. By a miracle–which I often describe as defacto proof of a benign deity–I was able to sell the company when I was 57. I kept an oar in the water in the retirement housing consulting world, but not as CEO of a small company. It would have been too hard.

Now compare these private sector jobs with the job of President of the United States. Good heavens! There is no comparison. The President of the United States is arguably the most difficult and demanding job on the Planet Earth. And the stakes in 2024 have never been higher as the war in Gaza continues to rage on, Ukraine appears to be faltering, Iran is on the cusp of creating a nuclear weapon, our country is more divided than at any time since the Civil War, and authoritarianism is increasing all around the world.

The solution? For this election, there does not appear to an obvious solution. Hold your breath and pray that The Donald does not get elected. This would be the end of democracy as we have known it in our country. Work like hell for Biden, vote for him, and pray that Biden’s health, stamina, and mental acuity does not falter. Yes, Biden is too old, but that is the situation we are in, and there is no obvious alternative at this point. We should have never allowed ourselves to get into this mess in the first place.

The lesson going forward, however, is to amend the Constitution setting a maximum age limit regarding at what age a presidential candidate cannot run for office or seek re-election. We already have a minimum age of 35. Why not a maximum? The maximum age should not exceed 75, maybe even 70. No brainer, people! After Roosevelt we passed an amendment limiting the presidency to two terms and for good reason. The Battle of the Codgers in 2024 is a good enough reason that we should never, never, allow this to happen again.

 

 

 

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I am happy to report that this week my Afghan friend and I both received emails from the apartment house he had applied to. He has been approved as renter and I as guarantor. The family will move into a much better building only a few blocks away—hopefully mouse free. Humans one, AI zero.  Happy ending!

I talked to three different leasing agents, wrote numerous, desperate emails, and finally wrote one of my outrage memos to management, with a few tongue-in-cheek sentences thrown in to get a chuckle or two. This strategy often works if you are talking to a human rather than a machine.

This happy ending raises the question: Are we humans basically good or basically bad? Another example of goodness is that this week someone dropped off my driver’s license at the front desk of the Kennedy-Warren, the apartment house where Embry and I live. We had attended a concert the previous evening at the Austrian Embassy where I had to show identification to get in and must have dropped it. Good heavens, how often does this happen?

The answer is probably a lot. I think about the almost 82 years I have been on this planet and conclude that the experience for me has been that good people far outnumber the bad, and that goodness prevails over evil much of the time.

Embry and I have traveled a lot over the years, visiting over 70 countries, and we have both spent several months living in a foreign country—France and Tanzania for Embry, Japan and Mexico for me. While our extensive travel and living abroad has had its challenges, at the end of each trip I have found myself coming down on the optimistic side: In every country you will find good people.

Not so fast, you might say. You and Embry are the lucky ones. You were born into loving families. Your parents were financially secure. You had opportunities to attend great schools, have great friends, and have lived in nice homes in nice neighborhoods. You were able to get good jobs and establish careers and never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from. You have a great family and enjoy good health. Face up to it: You got dealt a strong hand. Not that you deserved it, but that is not the case for a lot of people.

And you would be right. Lots of people get dealt weak hands. Poverty and inequality persist. Some families are dysfunctional. Suffering is also a fact of life for many. Racism is still with us. Poor health, depression, and conflicts with others affect many.

Plus, this fragile planet is in bad shape. We live in a time when it feels like the entire world may be up for grabs and could go up in flames. Nuclear weapons are now abundant and in the wrong hands. One mistake or miscalculation could set off a catastrophe beyond description. We are trashing the planet and paying the price for it as temperatures rise. Wildfires, floods, and rising sea levels are increasing every year. Scientists tell us we have only a decade or so to make necessary, difficult choices to avoid the worst outcomes of global warming. And think of the wars happening now—Russia versus Ukraine, Israel versus Gaza–where there is no end in sight. Authoritarianism is on the rise around the world and could even happen here.

The truth is we humans are both good and bad. And this is not only true for our species but for each of us as individuals. No one is perfect. We all have good days and bad. We all do foolish things and make mistakes. Most at one time or another face major personal challenges and disappointments. This is the human condition. Welcome to Planet Earth.

But still. The small victory for our Afghan friend is worth a shout, along with the return of my driver’s license, small victories, I suppose, compared to the many blessings I have received over the years. For this I give thanks to the mysterious force in the universe that we humans on Earth call “God.”

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In 1965 I was a first year, graduate student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Part of my training as a seminary student was  fieldwork which required being assigned to a church. My assignment was an historic Episcopal church, Saint Mark’s in the Bowery, in New York’s Lower East Side.   I taught Sunday School and was an assistant to the coach of the church’s basketball team.

I was also assigned to a family who attended the church—the Martinez family (not their real name). Hector, who coached the team, and Mary Martinez lived in one of the massive public housing projects in New York’s Lower East Side. They represented a kind of fairy tale for me. In her mid 30s, Mary was the white daughter of a banker and was a college graduate. She had grown up in a middle class neighborhood in a New Jersey suburb. Hector was born in Puerto Rico, came to the city as a child, was part of a street gang as a teenager, and was a high school dropout.  The two met when she was  a social worker in the Lower East Side. They fell in love, married, and were raising their four stairstep kids ranging from age four to twelve. I had dinner with them in their apartment once a week and became an adopted member of their family. They represented for me the hope that our country could bridge the race, cultural, and class barriers that seem so difficult to overcome. The family seemed happy, optimistic, and upbeat, and I thoroughly enjoyed the weekly conversations over delicious dinners prepared by Mary.

Mary was a stay at home mom, and Hector worked in the garment district as a “runner,” someone who pushed large carts of clothing from one building to another. I shadowed him on several occasions and could not believe how hard he worked and, I assumed, for very low pay. But they were managing and surviving thanks in part to affordable housing, at a time when public housing in New York City was clean, safe, and well managed. And, I surmised, thanks to being part of a loving congregation at St. Mark’s Church. This was the reason, I told myself, that I wanted to become an Episcopal priest—to work with people at the margins and to make a positive difference in their lives.  

The experience for me had its challenges. The rector of the church was young, arrogant, ambitious, and a self-described radical, who because of my Southern accent disliked me from day one, accusing me of adolescent enthusiasm and being immature and naïve. I recall one of his sermons he preached after he had marched in Selma in the spring of 1965, when he said that he hated all white Southerners— paused for a moment, looked directly at me, sitting in pew in the first row, and finished his remark with “no exceptions.” So, life was not perfect. I had uncomfortable weekly meetings with him as he tried to make me aware of how difficult the priesthood was, how hard it was for churches to succeed, and how great a job he was doing. I endured, however, relishing my time with Hector and Mary and their kids. They were for me Exhibit A that his grim assessment of the world—and his high assessment of himself—were misguided. Miracles can and do happen.

As the year went on, my naivety was put to the test. The team Hector coached consisted of six or seven tall, Black teenagers, who came from the projects, were members of the same gang, and were very good basketball players. Most of them could easily do slam dunks. I do not know how Hector recruited them; but as far as I could tell, they did not have anything to do with St. Mark’s Church. They all seemed fond and respectful of Hector but very wary of a young, white guy with a Southern accent. And it is true I did no real coaching. I just sat beside Hector at the Saturday morning games as his “assistant,” providing moral support.

At some point during the Saturday morning games, the feel good moment of being with the family changed when I noticed the smell of alcohol on Hector’s breath. Maybe their lives were not so fairytale after all. One morning Hector showed up so drunk he could hardly walk, departed before the game was over, and asked me to take over. When Hector stumbled out of the gym, we were ahead by 10 points. We lost by five. Not a single player would speak to me. Before the game ended, it had become painfully obvious that I had no idea what I was doing.

As was the custom, after each Saturday morning game, Hector would take the players out to a corner grocery and pay for cokes and junk food—win or lose. So that day with Hector gone, this was my job. I realized that I had barely enough money in my pocket to take a subway back to the seminary and had to tell the team that they were on their own for buying snacks. I watched in horror as the team members roamed through the small store stuffing candy and donuts into their mouths and their pockets, guzzling cokes, and angrily knocking items on the floor. A balding, older white guy behind the checkout counter shared my look of horror and consoled me, “It will be ok. Let them have what they want. It will be ok. I don’t want trouble.” It is funny how the mind works. I can still remember what the old guy looked like and where I was standing as I watched the team rip the candy off the shelves and trash his store without paying a dime.

As the year went on, I continued my weekly Friday evening dinners, but Hector was often not present. When I asked Mary where he was, she answered unconvincingly “at a meeting” or “helping someone” and eventually “not sure.” In the late spring when my first year at Union was nearing an end, I showed up for what was supposed to be my last dinner with them. I arrived early, around 4 PM, and noticed that Mary was not working on dinner as she usually was when I arrived, and no kids were present. She had her back turned to me when she opened the door, and then when she turned to face me, I was stunned. She had black eyes, swollen lips, what looked like a broken jaw, scars on her face, and bruises on her arms. Flabbergasted, I asked what had happened.

“Oh, I am fine,” she said, “I just slipped in the shower a couple of days ago. I’ll be fine.”

She apologized for how she looked and tearfully said there would be no dinner that evening. We chatted for a few minutes and then I headed back to the seminary. I knew something had gone terribly wrong but was at loss as to what to do.

The next week when I had my session with the rector, I mentioned that I was concerned about the family. He replied that Mary had disappeared with all the children, even the oldest, who was Hector’s child by a previous marriage, and that no one knew where she had gone. He looked at me with a self-satisfied grin, “Not exactly the fairytale story you thought it was, is it? Welcome to the real world!”

I never heard where Mary took the kids or what happened to Hector or if there was ever an attempt at reconciliation. My field work assignment at the church was mercifully coming to an end, and I was not offered a position there for the next year. When visiting New York many years later I did return to visit the church and was surprised to see that it had been repurposed as a theater and performing arts center.

But I am still haunted by the story and can remember the faces of all the Martinez family members even now, some 59 years later. I wonder what happened to them and what their lives have been like. Are the children still alive? Did any go to college? Have careers? Marry and have their own kids? How did Mary manage and what about Hector?

Approaching age 82 in a few weeks, I have failed to rid myself completely of adolescent enthusiasm though I have accumulated battle scars of my own as all of us humans do over the years. But as for the kind of suffering the Martinez family must have experienced and the obstacles that they faced, my life has been easy sledding. Their story is sadly not that unusual. I suppose that suffering is part of the human condition. The haunting images of the Martinez family –and especially of Mary on my last visit–will be etched into my brain for as long as I live and is a reminder to me of how tough life can be for far too many.

 

 

 

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If you think that artificial intelligence is a threat you will have to face in the future, think again. It is already here, and it is a nightmare.

Under the category of “No good deed goes unpunished,” a couple of weeks ago I volunteered to guarantee the lease of an Afghan refugee family whom our church has been supporting for over a year. The father is hard working but only earns $16/hour as a security guard. Our group of three Episcopal churches helped them find housing, guaranteed the rent, and secured a housing grant from the local jurisdiction to make the rent more affordable. Now they are moving to another apartment due to rodent infestation where they live.

Most landlords require a minimum income of three times the rent to qualify for an apartment. There are five in the family, and most landlords also require a family of this size to rent a 3-bedroom unit. His annual income amounts to $32,500, which means he must find an apartment renting for no more than $812 including utilities. How many apartments are there in the Washington metro area where you can rent a 3-bedroom unit for that amount and that are in safe neighborhoods? Zero. Ditto for 2-bedroom units. Washington is one of the highest cost areas in the country–especially for housing. We were able to get them started only because our church guaranteed the rent and because we were able to secure for them a housing grant.

After an exhaustive search for a better apartment, they finally found a landlord who would rent them a 2-bedroom apartment in the same neighborhood, allowing the family’s two oldest children to remain in the same school. The problem: The cheapest 2-bedroom apartment was $2,200/month, compared to the rent of around $2,000 they were currently paying. Because the housing grant reduced the effective rent to around $1,300/month, they were able to get by, but it was still above of the $812 maximum “affordable rent” based on standard underwriting policies. The only way the family could rent the new apartment was to have a financially qualified guarantor, who would cosign the lease. Our church had guaranteed the rent for their first apartment, but the church funds had been exhausted. Someone had to step forward.

Hey, no problem. This was not my first experience providing financial support for immigrant families; and of the several families I had helped, not once had I been disappointed or been taken advantage of. I considered it a risk worth taking.

I was directed to go online to the website of the apartment complex, which was owned and managed by one of Washington’s largest real estate companies. The rental application required a prospective guarantor to submit the last three pay stubs by scanning or “dragging” them into the company’s website. I haven’t worked for 20 years and have no pay stubs. The management reported back that those were the rules: no pay stubs, no guarantor. When I adamantly protested and argued that using my federal income tax returns should suffice, they reluctantly agreed. I took a photo of a recent tax return and emailed it to them.

Rejected again. First, the material had to be submitted through their website, not by email, and second, the company’s website did not accept photos. I hopped in the car and drove to the complex. A pleasant leasing attendant helped me fill out the proper forms on their website, converted the photo of my tax return to a PDF, and entered that for me on their website. Done.

At last, a solution!

Nope. Rejected again. Just because the information was on my federal tax return did not mean that it was true. They had to have absolute proof from the financial institutions where Embry and I kept our money. Company policy required independent verification by some outside company, which would be allowed to enter the financial institution’s website where our investments were and copy and verify the information from our accounts. For this to happen all I would have to do was provide my social security number, username, account number, birthday, and password.

What? I was required to allow a company, which I know nothing about, to view and have access to all the funds in all our accounts?  They had to be kidding.  I recently posted a blog about how hackers got into my bank account at PNC Bank and came within a hair’s breadth or stealing every penny I had.

No, they argued, this was completely legit and is now a common practice. I reluctantly provided them full access—password, username, account number, birthday, and social security number—but only for one company, Fidelity Investments, and gritted my teeth. Only an idiot would agree to such a requirement. But at least the Afghan family would not be out in the street.

Two days passed. Rejected again. Fidelity refused to give them the information. I say, “Fidelity refused,” but what I now understand is that the Fidelity’s computer refused. In any event, good for Fidelity.

During this ordeal, which is now well into its third week, I have not been allowed to talk to a single human being who has the authority to review the material and make an independent, informed judgement. It is now all done by computers. All information must be scanned or “dragged” into a special website. The answer from the computer is the only answer that counts. Email is not allowed nor is any communication with any human being who could review the material and make an informed decision.

 I volunteered to bring to their office hard copies of all the investment and bank account information that they required. I would permit them to make copies and scan them into their website.  Not allowed. Only electronic copies from now on.

So here we are in 2024 entering the world of AI where in this instance no human being is allowed to make  a decision or judgement based on the facts. The determination will now be made by computers. Their decision will be final. No exceptions even if it means that a struggling Afghan family will become homeless and out on the street.

Anything wrong with this picture?

So welcome to the world of artificial intelligence. And it is just the beginning. How long will it be before  everywhere no humans will be involved in making decisions, just computers?

Nightmare.

More to follow about what finally happened to the Afghan family…

 

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We have lived in our apartment (which we love) overlooking the National Zoo for almost nine years in a bug free environment. Then a few months ago when I took out my sweaters to brace for colder fall weather, five out of six sweaters were riddled with what looked like bullet holes. Good heavens! Where did all the holes come from? It looked like the sweaters had been worn by a Mafia informant who got snuffed out by the mob. So what, I concluded, I love those sweaters and I am going to keep wearing them anyway, even if I look to others like an aging panhandler. Besides they are a good conversation starter or maybe even a new fashion setter. You know how rich kids wear jeans with holes in the knees? This could be a new fashion statement for old folks.

 Embry immediately looked at her sweaters and, like mine, most were ruined. Her favorite wool pullover hat had a gaping hole, but like me and my sweaters, she is still wearing it. We make a stunning couple who someone who did not know us might conclude we came from a homeless shelter.

We assumed the culprits were moths but had not seen any flying around. What to do? The damage had been done.  I immediately bought something like 50 moth traps and put them everywhere I could.

Then the following week we happened to notice a strange, black patch of particles on the oriental rug in our living room after we had moved an easy chair, which was covering up a portion of the rug. We immediately looked under the rug and to our horror saw tiny worms crawling all over the place. Baby worms turn into moths at some point. Why hadn’t we noticed? The large living room rug was partially destroyed and the slightly smaller dining room rug not far behind. We called the apartment management who sent up an exterminator, who upon seeing the damage on the rug, shook his head and shrugged.

We were under attack!

We ended up taking both rugs to an oriental rug specialist, who washed and repaired them by cutting out the damaged parts and reducing their size (for an exorbitant price), and the rugs are resting back in place, bug free for now. In the meantime, I regularly check the moth traps I had hung in every closet and at other places moths might hide. That was several weeks ago. So far, I have found only one moth captured in the traps. What? We know they are here. Where are they? Stealth creatures. How smart could these moths be  to avoid the multiple traps I had set out in every closet and nook and cranny?  After several more days passed moth free,  I concluded that miraculously we somehow had solved the moth problem. Then a couple of days ago one flew out when I put on my favorite wool hat.

Help!

But moths are not the main problem anymore. Having never seen a crawling insect in our apartment for the entire time we have lived here, our apartment is now also infested with tiny ants. They are mainly in the utility closet next to the kitchen, which contains a washer/dryer and is where we feed out beloved feline, Oreo. Embry discovered the ants by chance, thinking she was sweeping up tiny dirt particles until the particles started to wiggle and move around. These creatures are infinitesimally small; and without a magnifying glass you can’t even be sure what the kind of insect they are, but with a close look using a microscope, they are ants alright. I glanced at Oreo’s water dish. Two of the hideous tiny invaders were swimming laps, gracefully I might add.

I recall the story in the Book of Genesis about God sending ten plagues to convince the Egyptians to free the Israelites. Could this be a sign?

Thus began our heroic campaign to kill the ants. Of course, the obvious thing to do would be to call the exterminator back, but I had little confidence in him, and besides, the ant problem took on the aura of a Fight to the Finish. Humans versus insects. Man versus nature. Who is the superior, we humans or a tiny creature with a brain that could not be larger than a grain of salt? We would show them!

This all started over two weeks ago. We have now gone through one large spray can of “Raid Roach and Ant Killer.” The protocol for us has been unrelenting diligence and determination—spraying with Raid the infested area and sweeping up the creatures several times a day followed by a body count. We would show them who’s boss. The first week the body count for each of the three or four daily sweeping routines was something like 60-70 ants, most still crawling though probably in agony. We would dump them into the sink, turn on the water and flush them down the drain. Four or five hours later, we would sweep again, followed by a body count, then another sweep before we went to bed. The body count did not change much during the first week though an increasing number of ants were dead, outnumbering those who were still trying to crawl. We moved our cat’s food and water dish into the guest bathroom so that the poison would not kill him, a noble action which resulted in the spread of the tiny beasts into that area of the apartment as well.

At the end of the first week—with a total body count of several hundred ants—we noticed something even more sinister. Along with the ants, there were even tinier, slim, white creatures that looked like worms. Worms? Where did they come from?  They must be the ant offspring and were evidence that the ant army was producing reinforcements at a rate that would surely overcome us. The stakes had suddenly gotten higher. We were killing them, but not fast enough since they kept producing new recruits.

Where were they coming from? We checked the floor behind a large utility shelf in the closet where Embry thought she could detect a small crack in the baseboard. That is where they must be coming from—at least that is what we thought. Humans outsmarted by ants? No way! We immediately covered the tiny crack with an epoxy sealer. That would show them. The army would be trapped in the wall and perish. Humans 1, ants 0.

Except today, almost three weeks after we had sealed off their clandestine opening for reinforcements, the awesome creatures are still managing to creep out from someplace. But from where? Not as many ants before. But the war continues.

Does any of this ring a bell? Ukraine and Russia? Israel and Gaza? Vietnam?

Embry and I continue to remain hopeful that we can prove that we are smarter than these tiny ants. But it also raises questions as to how smart our species really   is and how good our survival skills are. According to Wikipedia “modern ants” have been around on the planet Earth for 168 million years. Moths and butterflies have been around for over 200 million years. Human-like creatures? Only a few million at most, and Homo sapiens only about 200,000 years. We “modern humans”? Only a few thousand.

Despite the evidence concerning our failure so far, I still argue that the ants are not anywhere near as smart as we are. So what, if they have been around for hundreds of millions of years? Look at what we Homo sapiens have accomplished compared to these little guys in a very short period. High definition, giant screen TV. Electric cars. Smart phones. They don’t have any of this stuff.

However, I can imagine one of the ants responding, “Yeah, you are right, we do not have this stuff, but you humans also have huge arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, which could and probably will blow all of you up some day. Plus, you have trashed our beautiful planet and are responsible for climate warming, and that is even affecting us ants. And now you have AI to deal with. And unlike our species where except for our queen, we are all equal, you humans are anything but.  There are some of you that have a lot of money but many more with very little. Odds are that another 100 million years from now we will still be going strong. You humans will have long since disappeared.”

I had to admit that had he been able to talk the  ant would have made a point. What are the chances that we humans will outlast the ants?

I would not bet on it.

 

 

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