Thank you for following me on Substack or here on my photography website. I discovered to my horror when I finally got out of the hospital and was starting to feel better that my website, josephhowellphotography.com had been cancelled because my credit card had been reported lost, which it was, lost under a pile of papers on my dresser. It took me almost a full day but it is back and because of some complaints from readers about Substack I am going to post here as well. Take your choice and please know that comments are welcomed!

Joe

 

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In case you missed the Substack posts on my near death experience, here it is again. The emails from Embry come first followed by follow up. I am feeling pretty well now though fearful of a fall and am headed back to Kaiser for a number of follow up visits.

Today is January 26 and I am happy to report that I am on the road to recovery. You may have already seen one or both emails from Embry; but for those who did not get these I am including them here in the way of background regarding what turned out to be a near death experience. I will follow with my own take on this ordeal which began on December 14, 2025 in the lobby of the Arena Stage in Washington :

From Embry

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(email January 11, 2026):

I am writing to let you know about a serious medical issue that has been evolving over the past month (or so) that has now led to Joe’s being in the ICU at Holy Cross Hospital. I am not sure when it started and it could have been coming on for some time, but along the way it appears that Joe has had a bad reaction to some of his many (10) prescribed medicines. I became aware that he was not thinking as clearly as usual and his balance and mobility was becoming increasingly “shaky.” The Sunday before Christmas, we were at a performance at Arena Stage and he had a drastic fall backwards hitting his head and knocking him out for a few seconds. He seemed ok (although more shaky than usual), so we went ahead with our Christmas travels up to NJ with Andrew’s family and then to the Catskills with all our kids, their spouses, and all the grandkids to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. Since he was not improving, when we returned we went to the Kaiser Urgent Care Center where they diagnosed a concussion (but, thankfully, no damage was detected to his brain from the CT scan). At the same visit they detected that his sodium was very low and should be attended to very soon. They made an appointment with our primary care doctor to follow-up the following week. Another family event had us scheduled to go right away down to NC for my older brother, DG’s, memorial service in Chapel Hill on January 3rd. We went, although in retrospect I know now that Joe was very sick at that point. I was always thinking about the brain scan being normal, and relieved at that, but apparently the real problem was the low sodium. (Although I read the Science Times cover to cover each week, I had never heard of “low sodium” as a high risk factor, but apparently it is a disaster.)

Another unfortunate circumstance was that our primary care doctor became sick himself, and Kaiser cancelled the follow-up doctor visit. They did not allow me to reschedule it until the following week and did not allow me to schedule it with another internist either. This is a point about which I plan to file a complaint to Kaiser. Ok, doctors can become sick or have other emergencies, but they should have a back-up to fill in for them. That’s basic!!! I was communicating with the doctor a bit via the Kaiser portal. They had scheduled follow-up bloodwork to test the levels of sodium and all the other measures, and I took Joe for that. It is possible to see the results on-line and I saw that it was still very low. But still I was thinking the concussion was the main culprit, not knowing how bad the low sodium actually is. I wrote to the doctor to point out the low sodium results. (Shouldn’t he be writing to me instead!)

Thursday night (January 8), after Joe had been lying on the sofa all day, I tried to get him up to walk back to bed (with a walker, since he was so unsteady). At this point he took another fall backward and hit his head AGAIN, and I could not get him up. I called security here, a nurse friend who lives nearby, and 911. The upshot was that he was taken to the Emergency Department at a hospital very nearby to Collington, which is affiliated with the University of Maryland. Of course, as anticipated, we waited around (upright due to their lack of beds) and sat in a crowded waiting room surrounded by potential flu cases, etc. Finally, they found him a bed, did another brain scan (which was clear also, testifying to the hard head of my husband), and were about to discharge him when I mentioned to the doctor that they might want to look into his blood work since he had been diagnosed with low sodium. (This was not a Kaiser-affiliated hospital, so they did not have access to his records.) There was a rather startled look on the face of the doctor, and they ordered blood work (more delays for results, by this time it was 2 am in the morning and Joe was lying down but I was sitting upright in a hard chair). When the results came back the sodium level was still very low, so they immediately put him in intensive care, since treating low sodium is apparently very tricky. I went home for a two hour nap, and came back to find him still in the ER. There was no bed available in the actual ICU, so the ICU doctors were treating him, but he was still in the ER. This went on all day, with Joe becoming increasingly confused about where he was and why.

I had been having conversations all day with the ER social worker, who seemed pretty clueless about whether and when Joe would be discharged (to the actual ICU, to another bed in the hospital, home, or where?). So I assumed that a discharge was not imminent. I went home for dinner, watched the news, and went to bed for a long 9 hour restful sleep. When I woke up, I checked my phone to find multiple messages: one from the hospital saying he was being transferred to Holy Cross Hospital, one from Holy Cross saying he was there, and several from Joe sounding very confused about where he was. I called him, and he was still not sure where he was. (He thought he might be in Arizona!) I called Andrew, who has a tracker on Joe’s phone, and he confirmed that, yes, he was at Holy Cross Hospital! I packed up and headed around the Beltway to Holy Cross. It is a good hospital, and it’s in the Kaiser network where he is being cared for by Kaiser doctors, who have access to all his records. He is in the ICU there. When I arrived at 9 am they informed me that I had to wait for an hour, because visiting hours to the ICU are strictly enforced and begin at 10 am. (WHAT!!??) So I got my Starbucks Chai latte and sat there. I called Joe, and he cheerfully reported that he now knew where he was and it was Holy Cross Hospital. I said I was also at Holy Cross Hospital!

So that’s the long saga about how Joe ended up at Holy Cross. He does not seem to be getting a lot better yet, but we are hopeful that he will slowly start to improve as they gradually get the sodium level up. They have taken him off almost all his prescribed meds, which appear to be the combined culprits. Piecing the various evidence together, it seems that one or more of the meds led to the sodium problem, which led to confusion and unsteadiness on his feet, which led to the two falls, which finally took him to the ER where, thanks to my suggestion, the doctors began to treat the real underlying problem.

I have been studying the health care system most of my adult life, but I am now studying it from a whole new point of view!

Embry Howell

Second email (a week later)

I want to thank you all for your notes, prayers, and calls expressing concern. It has meant so much to me and Joe. The support we are feeling from friends and family has kept us afloat through a difficult period, while he has battled a serious medical issue. Happily, he is much better and on the road to recovery now.

It has been hard to keep in touch with everyone individually, so pardon my using a “mass email” to get the information out. I think most/all of you know that Joe had two falls, injuring his head (but not seriously, with no “brain bleed”). It turned out, however, that he had a more serious underlying problem that may or may not have led to his falls. He had a serious medical condition that we were unaware of for quite a while. At the time of his second fall, which occurred in our apartment, I dialed 911 and they sent an ambulance. The ambulance took us to a nearby emergency room where they diagnosed his dangerously low sodium level and put him in intensive care to treat it. He was then transferred to intensive care in another hospital, Holy Cross. After several days in intensive care, where–over several days–they slowly increased the sodium level. When it was close to normal range, he was moved to the regular floor, and at last, today, he has come back to Collington where he is now in “respite care” in assisted living for a week or two, while he gets his strength back. He is so glad to be back to this wonderful community, and I am so glad to have him nearby. What a relief!

Joe asked me to bring him his computer tomorrow, so I imagine he will be happy to get an email from you. Or I will continue to forward your good wishes to him. You even may see a blog post coming your way before long!

My post on this ordeal will follow soon. Stay tuned…

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Here if my follow up:

I am writing this post on Tuesday, January 27, in the wake of a major snow and ice storm here at Collington. It has been over a month since my first collapse in the lobby of the Arena Stage Theater on December 14.

Embry’s post tells an accurate story, at least as far as I can remember. During most of this time I have been in the midst of a heavy brain fog. I remember very little, but what I do remember, often is not correct. I have told people I was in various places, including several resorts in Arizona. I do remember the first fall vividly and I think accurately but have no recollection whatsoever of going to Kaiser’s Urgent Care, of being in the University of Maryland emergency room or of the collapse that resulted in a 911 call and an ambulance ride. Zero. I do remember, however, seeing visions of all four grandchildren who were in the room with me at Andrew’s house in the middle of the night and dressed in various costumes and floating around like ghosts. I remember very little about driving with Embry and daughter Jessica–they would not let me drive–to Embry’s brother’s memorial service in Chapel Hill or who I saw there. There were numerous reports of my acting very strange.

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What I do remember is this: my first recollection about Holy Cross is that I was alone with three emergency room doctors. The three were talking about my condition and seemed not to know or care that I was listening to every word. This encounter I assumed happened after Embry had alerted them to a possible low sodium issue. Without her intervention I am pretty sure they would not have even checked the sodium. Suddenly, the youngest of the three doctors burst out with this comment: “Jesus Christ, I have been practicing medicine for over 20 years and have never seen a living patient with a sodium count of 111. It is supposed to be 135.” Another doctor said, ”You have never seen one because they don’t exist.”

“Excuse me,” I replied. “Do I look like a corpse?”

The oldest of the three doctors looked stunned, then regained his composure and told me, “ Mr. Howell, you have a very serious medical situation, but it is not too late. We can bring you back but it is going to take time, three to five days and we have to treat the low sodium by giving you salt tablets. Using an IV would kill you.”

Three or four days later when the sodium count cleared 130 and was continuing to rise, the three departed. The senior of the three smiled and commented when telling me goodbye, “You dodged a bullet. You are going to be fine.”

The next chapter of my ordeal began after the three doctors left and I was moved from high level emergency care on floor one to floor four where I was placed in a tiny room in Holy Cross Hospital with one small window and a very large, wide screen (low definition) TV, which produced a blue picture. Let me tell you, if you were not already depressed when you entered my tiny, dark room, a few hours of watching blue television would get you there very quickly. During this three or four day period I remained in solitary confinement except for visits by Embry. I do not recall seeing many doctors but had a pleasant Kaiser physician occasionally stop by and a bunch of different aides pop in and out to take my blood pressure and sodium count, which was still rising at 312, close enough to get me discharged in three days. I did not count the number of aides but did take note that all of them had African names and strong accents. This same demographic applied to the aides I had in the “respite care” wing of assisted living at Collington where I stayed for a week to give Embry some rest and more time for my body and mind to heal. I asked some folks at Collington if they checked immigration status and got a fuzzy answer. If Trump wanted to bring hospitals and assisted living communities to their knees all he would have to do would be to unleash his thugs to beat and arrest all the support staff in every long term care facility and hospital in the country. In fact, since there has not been a lot for me to do but “rest and try to recuperate,” I have watched a lot of MS NOW and CNN and am stunned at the brutality happening in Minnesota. This can’t be happening, I keep telling myself. This is not Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, this is the United States of America. Yet not only is it happening here, but it is also getting worse by the day. The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” has allocated more than a billion dollars to expand the masked goon squad into the thousands, beating people until they are unconscious, leaving small children alone and crying, and asking questions later, then putting the survivors into vast concentration camps now under construction, to be owned and managed by private prison companies, and never seen again. This can’t be happening here.

I also actually watched Trump’s speech in Davos, live. I kept thinking that this had to be a skit on Saturday Night Live, but no, it was happening in real time. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this guy is not playing with a full deck. He is out of his mind. But will any Republicans step forward and say enough is enough? Forgive me, I know I am not telling you anything you do not already know. The question for us is what we are going to do about it. We all will be judged by history.

Well, the good news is that I am finally back in our cottage at Collington with Embry. I am so glad to be back and to have dodged a bullet. Frankly, I had no idea how close I was to death. For that matter, I knew I had experienced a couple of concussions due to passing out and falling over backwards but had no idea what caused the blackouts and no idea that it was anything so serious. Some people have asked me what it felt like to be told I had come so close to death. First, I felt that if I had died I would have been cheated because I am not ready to call it quits. Second, it would not have been fair to those I love. There would have been no chance to say goodbye to family and loved ones, no time to settle up with the Divine. Just “poof” and it would be over, a lifetime of 83 years and 11 months–albeit it a few years longer than my life expectancy of around 67 when I was born. Plus, no one–friends, family and loved ones– would have been prepared for the loss. Well, thankfully that did not happen. But it surely stops me in my tracks to ponder how close I came and what might have been. So I am rejoicing that I have been granted a reprieve and have some more time left to squeeze a few more drops out of this old lemon. Expect to receive more blog posts.

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How did religion evolve from primitive beliefs in natural spirits to the major religions in the world today? Some scholars attribute the rise of religion as part of the evolution of the human species. Most of the great religions were formed during the “Axial Age,” a term coined by the German philosopher, Karl Jaspers in 1949. The Axial Age (roughly 800–200 BCE), was a pivotal period where major philosophical and religious traditions emerged across the globe, marking a shift in human consciousness toward abstract thought, self-reflection, and universal ethics, led by figures like Buddha, Confucius, Laozi, Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato), and Hebrew prophets (Isaiah). This “Great Transformation” saw the rise of foundational ideas for modern civilizations, including concepts like the Golden Rule, individual conscience, and new understandings of justice, challenging older myth-based explanations. Christianity, and Islam followed several centuries later and are part of what some scholars refer to as the “Second Axial Age.”
Yet since these early beliefs were formed, science has provided evidence that the ancient stories in scripture often do not sync with reality. The creation story describes a process where the world was created in six days, was at the center of the universe, and that we humans are formed “in the likeness of God.” The Book of Genesis was written over a period of several centuries, with most scholars agreeing the scriptures reached their final form during or after the Babylonian Exile (6th-5th centuries BCE)—2,500 years ago–compiled from older oral and written traditions. Almost two thousand years later a Polish scientist and astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543 CE), placed the Sun, not Earth, at the center of the universe, described Earth’s rotation and its orbit around the Sun, marking the beginning of modern astronomy. Three centuries after that, in 1859 Darwin published the Origen of the Species, showing how animal life evolved over millions or years and that we humans were late arrivals. Then Einstein in 1905 published his theory of relativity, followed by extraordinary inventions and discoveries like black holes, the atomic bomb, subatomic particles and advances in technology with satellites, space stations, the Hubble and Web telescopes, the discovery of countless galaxies, and now AI.
Yet despite evidence to the contrary, beliefs in the creation story still prevail for many who are “religious people.” The ancient creeds that are still recited in many Christian churches were written in the Fifth Century CE, over a thousand years before Darwin. Yet following the Axial Ages religious beliefs and practices, the idea of religion in general and Christianity in particular have not changed very much. Knowing what we now know, does it make sense that God has a gender, that the we humans “look like God,” that the planet Earth is at the center of the Universe, and is the only place in the Universe where living creatures exist, that one branch of religion is “more true” than another, or that our destiny after we die is to spend eternity with God–or if we don’t measure up or “believe” the right things–to spend it in hell, wherever that might be?
As I have written about in earlier posts, the main reason for religion on the Planet Earth is that we humans can’t dismiss the idea of a Divine Being. We are spiritual creatures. We have no choice but to ask questions regarding the meaning of life and of our own lives. And there is evidence that we Homo sapiens are able to experience something we call “the Divine.” The prime example for Christians, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth who because of his faith, the way he lived his life, and the “human experience” of His resurrection, Christians believe He was God incarnate. Theologians have spent much of their lives trying to make sense of this. Of course, believing does not make it true. And for us humans the nature of the Divine ultimately remains a mystery.
And then there are questions about the existence of evil, why bad things happen to good people, and how it is hard to see how God can be all powerful and all good. And if there is a heaven, it seems there certainly must be a hell where all the evil people end up. My point is we just don’t know. Above our pay grade, as they say.
As more people become skeptics, drop out of church, and state they are “spiritual but not religious,” some theologians have dreamed of a “Third Axial Age,” which does a better job in reconciling science with religion and human experience. Despite my own skepticism about theological certainty, Embry and I have attended our small, neighborhood Episcopal church in DC for decades. We have hung in there for a variety of reasons. Embry loves singing in the choir, it is rewarding to hear an occasional really good sermon , and we are used to the liturgy. It is also important to us to be part of a warm, welcoming and diverse community. And while I remain skeptical regarding certain parts of the ancient creeds, I fully embrace what I think the central message of Christianity is: love your neighbor and do what you can to help make the world a kinder, more just and a gentler place.
Decades ago we took a close friend, who is a secular Jew and grew up without any exposure to Judaism or Christianity and who told us that she was curious as to what Christianity was all about. I selected an Episcopal church we had never been to but had the reputation of being the most avant guard and progressive church in the Diocese of Washington and which had a dynamic rector. I was disappointed to learn when we entered the church that the rector was on leave and a supply priest would be conducting the service and giving the sermon. It was a cold early spring morning and several pains in the stained glass windows were missing allowing the cold air in, and no more than three of four dozen people were present. In the middle of his sermon, the preacher proclaimed that it was time to split up into discussion groups to discuss the meaning of the phrase, “Man can’t live by bread alone but only by the very word of God.” I was both puzzled and flabbergasted. Nothing like this is supposed to happen in Episcopal churches. My friend and I joined a group of eight or nine people, with my Jewish friend thinking that this was normal. Someone asked her to start off the discussion with what she thought the phrase meant, which she cheerfully did saying something like “you should try to be nice to the people you work with.” The other people reacted with frowns and raised eyebrows and one a man stopped her in mid-sentence, saying in a gruff voice, “You have got to be kidding! This is ridiculous and an insult.” I immediately jumped in to defend her. With a recent degree from Union Theology Seminary in New York City, at the time the center of intellectual Protestantism, I reached deep into my understanding of theology and God that I had learned from my renowned professors. Satisfied that I had nailed it, I leaned back with a smile.
There was a moment of silence, then someone else said, “Is that it? Is that what you believe?”
I nodded with confidence. Someone else in the group in a gruff voice proclaimed, “Well, if that is it, why don’t you just join the Democratic Party?” Someone else muttered,
“You are just the kind of person we have been trying to drum out of here.”
After the service was over and we were walking out, I apologized for what had happened assuring her that this was not normal.
“Oh that,” she said, “That did not bother me, but did you hear what else they said in the service, “Eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus Christ? These people are cannibals!” I do not believe she has ventured again into another church or a synagogue of any type.
So with this post I conclude my Advent Series. I will return to bashing Trump, trying to understand the difficult and trying times we are in, weighing in on the major issues of the day as I understand them, and telling some of my favorite stories. In the meantime, Christmas is coming up in less than a week. Though Christmas is a Christian holy day, the secular world has embraced it as a time for families and good friends being together, enjoying giving presents, and having a good meal. Whether you are Christian or not or even “religious,” there is something special–and, yes, even spiritual–about families and good friends getting together to enjoy each other’s company.
Merry Christmas!

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There are several factors that have made Christianity the most popular religion in the world. While the era of Colonialism by European Christian countries over African and Asian countries certainly contributed to this, my focus in this post is on the message of Christianity, the early church, and the historical context. Here is a summary of the basic “facts” as I understand them:

About 2,500 years ago, a Jewish man named Jesus who lived in Galilee, which was then part of northern Judea, a Jewish Colony in the Roman Empire, began a ministry of healing and proclaiming that the kingdom of God was happening on Earth. The main points of His message were these:

• God’s reign is breaking into the world.
• To participate in God’s kingdom, you must repent (“Come back to God.”).
• You should love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
• You should practice humility, mercy, justice, and peacemaking.
• Your faith in God is expressed by obedience and changed behavior, not just words.

In other words, in essence, Jesus’ message was an urgent invitation to acknowledge and be part of God’s reign, align one’s life with His will, and become a part of God’s Kingdom, both in the present age and in its future fullness. That remains the central message of Christianity today and has had an impact not only on people who call themselves Christians and try to follow this message but also for Western secular culture and values.

The ministry of Jesus resonated with the people he met, mostly Jews. In addition to His charismatic preaching, he healed the sick, raised the dead and performed many miracles. He illustrated his message by telling stories or parables. His ministry was short, lasting only about three years (by some accounts only one year) and according to most historians at the time of his death He probably had at most only a few hundred followers. Because of his perceived threat to the establishment, however, both Romans and Jews, He was crucified and died a painful death.

Outside of the Bible there was not much written about Him. The only two non-Biblical, secular sources which mention Jesus briefly are accounts by two Jewish historians: Josephus (c. 37–100 CE), who only mentions Jesus once, as the brother of James. and Tacitus (c 56-120CE) , who wrote “Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius”. All the other information about Jesus is from the New Testament of the Bible. The first Gospel (Mark) was not written, however, until the mid 60s, a generation after Jesus’s death, though the Apostle Paul wrote extensively beginning in the mid 30s, only about seven years after the crucifixion. In other words: no breaking news, no TV coverage, photos or “proof” from eyewitnesses.

One question that comes to mind is what was unique about Jesus and his teachings. Jesus actually shared key traits with earlier Jewish prophets like Moses, Elijah, and Elisha. They were all divine messengers appearing in times of bondage. And they all performed miracles, called people to repentance, interceded for Israel, faced rejection and persecution by authorities, and were seen as fulfilling prophecies. Jesus also was like the prophet Moses (Deuteronomy 18), who led God’s people to a new freedom, though Jesus’s fulfillment focused on spiritual liberation from sin rather than political liberation. He has also been compared to Buddha. In other words, His message and His ministry were not that different from that of many who came before Him. And Jesus is considered a prophet and holy man by the religion that followed, Islam.

What happened? How and why did Jesus of Nazareth become Jesus the Christ and the cornerstone of the most popular religion on the Earth?

Answer: The Resurrection. Were there no Resurrection, there would be no Christian church.
But that is not a wholly sufficient answer either because Jesus was not the only holy person who we read about that was resurrected from the dead. People resurrected in religious texts include biblical figures like Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter, the Shunammite’s son, and Eutychus, raised by prophets. Myths also mention figures like the Hindu Hanuman, Ashwathama or Greek heroes such as Heracles, who attained immortality rather than a return to normal life. These accounts are found in scripture and mythology across all cultures.

But some would argue that Jesus was also the son of the Virgin Mary, and that wisemen had come to witness his birth. Plus a star pointed people in the direction of the stable where he was born. That must account for something, right? Sorry, belief in virgin births in those days was not that unusual either, and the birth stories about Jesus did not develop until well after the resurrection. People born of a virgin, often through divine conception or parthenogenesis, appear in many myths–Krishna in Hinduism, Buddha in Buddhism, Horas in Egypt Romulus and Remus in Rome.
So, the riddle is still not solved. Besides his message, Jesus was not all that different from some Jewish prophets, from others in Greek and Indian culture who are said to have risen from the dead, and others who were said to be born from a virgin.

There are in my thinking three major factors that account for the rise of Christianity. The first is the Apostle Paul. The second is the timing in history and the culture of Roman Empire. The third is the conversion of Constantine, the Emperor of the Roman Empire. Were it not for the Apostle Paul, for the Roman Empire, and for Constantine it is unlikely that the fledging Christian religion would have taken hold.

Paul’s conversion occurred on the road to Damascus in the mid-30s AD, roughly 4–7 years after Jesus’s crucifixion in 30/33 CE. He was on his way to arrest Christians when he had a vision of the resurrected Jesus, which led to his conversion to Christianity. Most scholars place the event between 33 and 36 CE. A blinding light from heaven surrounded Paul, and he heard the voice of Jesus asking why he was persecuting him. Paul was blinded for three days and was then led to Damascus. After this, he was baptized and began his new life as a follower of Christ.

Paul was a brilliant, intellectual rabbi who spoke Aramaic and could read and write Greek and who had inexhaustible energy and realized where the low hanging fruit was—not in Judea where the Jews lived but throughout the Roman Empire where philosophy had run its course and people were thirsting for something more spiritual and authentic. By that time there were so many gods in the Roman Empire you could not count them all. He took the show on the road for the next 30 years before his death in Rome in 65 CE, about the same time that the Gospel of Mark, the first of the four gospels, was written. The Apostle Paul took three major missionary journeys recorded in the Book of Acts (Acts 13-21), focusing on spreading Christianity in Asia Minor and Greece, with a notable long stay in Ephesus during the third. Some scholars propose a fourth journey, potentially to Spain and including his later release and travels to Rome as a prisoner, though these are less clearly defined in Acts than the first three. His message resonated with people confused by the plethora of deities and exhausted by Neoplatonism.
Paul is the first–or at least one of the first –to make the connection between the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the nature of God. His conclusion was that Jesus was God because of the resurrection. This became the central message of Christianity along with the idea that because Jesus was God’s Son and died on the cross, this sacrifice meant that those people who repent are forgiven of their sins. This was the main message that Paul preached and remains a central tenet of Christianity.
While Paul was successful in spreading the news about Jesus, it was quite a challenge. No one knows the exact number, but when Paul died in 67 CE Christians were still a small, scattered movement, likely numbering in the tens of thousands globally, a tiny fraction less than one percent of the Roman Empire’s population.

A question is why did so many buy into the idea that Jesus was the “Son of God.” It seems like it would involve a big step (“leap of faith”) and it did. The religion grew much faster in Asia Minor than it did in Palestine. And in those days in Greek and Roman religions it was not unusual for human-like creatures also to be divine. In ancient Greece and Rome, humans became divine as demigods (offspring of gods and mortals like Hercules), through a process called apotheosis (elevation to godhood after death for heroes or emperors like Romulus and Augustus), or by gods temporarily taking human form to interact with mortals, creating figures like Ino (who became the sea goddess), blurring the line between human and deity in a spectrum of divine potential.

In other words Greek and Roman religions profoundly influenced Christianity’s development, providing its language (Greek New Testament), administrative structures (dioceses, basilica design), theological concepts (“Logos,” soul immortality from Plato, and mystery cult rituals like baptism), and even the framework for Jesus’s divine status, blending Hellenistic philosophy and Roman imperial ideas with its Jewish roots to create a universal faith.

And in those early days there was no guarantee that a stable Christian church would survive. For that you can thank the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was himself considered by many to be “the Son of God” (The Sun God). He had a Christian vision (the Chi-Rho symbol) before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD), required his troops to put the symbol on their shields, and against great odds won the battle against his brother, which led to his conversion. He legalized the fledging religion, funded the Church, and called key councils (in Nicaea) charged with coming up with creeds which stipulated what Christians were supposed to believe and which to this day are recited in some Christian services including my own church, All Souls Episcopal in Washington. Here are the figures from AI:

• 33 CE: The Christian movement is generally believed to have started with a very small group, probably no more than around 100 followers.
• 40 CE: approximately 1,000 Christians.
• 60 CE: an estimated 1,000–6,000 Christians.
• 100 CE: Between 7,000 and 25,000 believers, or roughly 0.01% to 0.02% of the Roman Empire’s population.
• 150 CE: 40,000 Christians.
• 200 CE: 200,000–218,000 Christians, making up approximately 0.36% of the population.
• 250 CE: 1.1 million–2 million (about 2% of the population).
• 300 CE: Approximately 6 million, or about 10% of the total population.
• 350 CE: The Edict of Milan in 313 CE proclaimed by Constantine ended major persecutions. The number of Christians grew dramatically, reaching as many as 34 million (over 50% of the Roman population).

 

So what are we to make of all this? How should this affect our own individual faith or spiritual journey? Well, it should be a wakeup call for the fundamentalists, evangelicals, MAGAs and others who think they have everything figured out and that anyone who disagrees is doomed to hell, which of course would include me. Sorry guys, your idea is not the way that this happened.

But where does this leave the rest of us? A lot of my friends have nothing to do with church anymore. Some have given up on Christianity, especially in our children’s generation, and declare that they are “spiritual but not religious,” having nothing to do with formal church. I can understand that and do not condemn it. Churches do not have a glorious track record themselves, and many are ghastly. So, can you really be legitimately spiritual but not religious? Of course you can. To put this in perspective I return to my first post in this series—the universe. We humans get so caught up in trivial matters that we often miss the Big Picture.

The Big Picture is that our universe is 13.8 billion years old, our solar system two billion years old and that we live on a planet that is in the Goldilocks Zone of a solar system that is part of a run-of-the-mill galaxy and that now scientists believe there are several trillion galaxies. We Homo sapiens on our small planet are newbies and merely a grain of sand on an infinite beach. We do not have and never will have all the answers. To suggest otherwise is preposterous. It is above our pay grade. So we grasp at straws to try to make sense out of the world. Religion is one of those straws and one that at least 75 percent of the eight billion people on the planet tell the Pew Foundation that they turn to. More than 25 percent of the world population identify as Christians. Many say that they have experienced and do experience the Divine. I also believe this. I have had these experiences myself though rare. Religious experiences are legitimate and provide clues that yes, there is more to our existence than what science tells us.

Also keep in mind that there are enormous differences in theology, ritual and practice within the Christian Church. Roman Catholics, Russian, Greek and Eastern Orthodox church members, and Protestants are all different. And within the Protestant sector, you also have denominations that differ in theology, belief, and practice. Some are fundamentalists, who believe every word of the Bible is written by God, some who “speak in tongues,” some who say the ancient creeds (and many who don’t), and some who think that Donald J Trump is the new Jesus Christ. My beliefs are far more in sync those of with my Buddhist son-in-law than with MAGAs and many of the evangelicals. A visitor from another planet would probably conclude that Christianity is actually not one religion but many.

So that brings us up to the current time. Where are we headed next as people of faith or as people who say they are spiritual but not religious or as skeptics who question the validity of all religions but are curious as to where we are headed? That will be the topic of the next and final post of “Advent Reflections 2025.”

 

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Just posted my second in a four-part Advent  series on Substack. You should have the link and hopefully have made the transition.

 

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In case you missed it, go to the link to my Substack. This is the first of  four posts on the subject of religion and the meaning of life.

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Click the link above to get to Substack. This post is entitled “Thanksgiving 2025” but is really about the world we find ourselves in as the Trump era unfolds. If you are having any trouble getting to the Substack post, please let me know. joehowell476@gmail.com.

 

 

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Now available on Substack. 

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Here is one of my favorites from my childhood.  Click on the Substack link to read “Rocket Ship.”

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Since this one is personal, I am including it here and also in Substack, so no need to go there. It is closing out the New York City stories.

You may be thinking that given my job experiences in New York City, a poor soul would give up, throw in the towel, crawl into a hole and announce early retirement. You could also conclude my New York experience was dismal and hopeless, and the best bet would be to head south where people are friendly, at least on the surface.

But no. The years of 1967 -1968 could very well rank right up there at the top. Embry and I loved New York. In fact we loved just about everything about the city—the friends we made, our tiny apartment, the excitement, diversity, energy, grime, dirt, and the in-your-face-nobody-is-important attitude. It was and still is a microcosm of the planet Earth with all the good and the bad that the world has to offer.

And for Embry and me it was a year of freedom. I finally had a year off from Union Seminary with all its angst, introspection, and self inflicted pain for carrying the world’s troubles on its back. I did make enough money in my various, mostly ill-fated jobs to allow us to go out to eat occasionally and even attend a few plays and concerts, most of which were freebies made available to Union students by its wealthy, bleeding heart supporters. Embry was enjoying her senior year at Barnard, and we explored Central Park and Riverside Park where you could spend a lifetime of walking and people watching and never get bored. It was a year we really got to know each other and enjoyed being together and being married. In fact if I had one year to live over, it could very well be those years when we were young and in love and the whole world seemed to sparkle.

And there was Shelly’s All Stars. After the various false starts in employment that year, I saw a classified ad in the New York Times for a “counselor driver,” which turned out to be with a fledging, after school, childcare program called Shelly’s All Stars. In fact it was just Shelly and me. Shelly, a thirty-something, outgoing, ambitious New Yorker with a passion for kids drove one huge station wagon and I drove another; and between the two of us every weekday we picked up between 15 and 20  kids, all boys, ranging from first grade through sixth grade in the various fancy private schools they attended, mainly in Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side. I had the little ones, mostly second and third graders.  A typical day would involve picking up everyone at their various schools and driving to Central Park, and in my case hunting for the dinosaur or dragon that had escaped from the Bronx Zoo. I would usually start off with the question to my six or seven young charges, “Anyone read the Times headlines today?”

Some budding seven year old would burst out, “Yeah, Joe, it’s happened again. Loose, and this time a big one. Last seen in Central Park!”

And off we went, across bridges, through meadows, over rocks, sometimes stumbling over couples embracing. “Err, pardon me,” I would say, “have you seen a very large green creature, with scales and horns and breathing fire?”

“A what?”

Then after a moment’s pause and a wink, “Oh yeah, I did see that creature and he went that way.”

And off we charged, looking for footprints.

This was the time I came up with my Freddie M Freenball stories, which I told each afternoon on the way to drop off the kids, being careful to end each chapter just before a drop off and then to start another. The Freddie M Freenball stories continued with our own two children, and later with our four grandchildren, when they were the same age as those wonderful, spunky New York kids from the Village and the Upper West Side. Shelly offered me a full time job and a new career track though I decided to stick it out and finish Union. He grew the company and a few years later took ownership of a very successful summer camp in upstate New York.

The worst thing that happened that year was that someone broke into our  apartment and cleaned us out. Actually, this was something of a badge of courage in New York because practically everyone we knew had been robbed or mugged at least once. We were now part of the club. I called the insurance company to report the tragedy, exclaiming that everything of value we had was gone and that we had been totally wiped out and destroyed. There was a short pause followed by a remark with a  grim, here-it-comes tone, “Ok, so how much do you think the claim will be? I will arrange to have an adjuster come over tomorrow.”

“Five hundred dollars!”

Another short pause. “Five hundred dollars? Forget the adjuster. I am writing out a check right now and putting it in the mail today.”

One of the best parts of the MUST program  (“Metropolitan Urban Service Training”) that I participated in that year was the Episcopal priest who was the rector of a small church on the edge of Harlem and who moderated discussions among us five or six seminary participants every Wednesday evening. He was around forty, a kind and gentle person, very bright, with a twinkle in his eye, and a great sense of humor often accompanied by a belly laugh. His brand of Christianity focused on what I would call “Christian humanism,” soft on the creeds, “belief,” and theology and heavy on trying to make the world a kinder and gentler place. He had a major influence on me in my own religious journey. He was also street smart and helped us seminarians manage living in the Big Apple. One of my favorite stories is when he asked our group, “If you have a problem or complaint with the New York City government, do you know how to get it fixed, guaranteed? When the first person you talk to can’t help you, just ask for his or her employee number, and the name and telephone number of the person’s supervisor. You will be immediately transferred and when that person can’t help you, go through the same routine. Eventually, if no one can help you, you will end up talking to the Top Dog, maybe even the mayor.”

 I tried it once and succeeded with supervisor number three, not having to go all the way to the top.

After the MUST year, I returned to finish Union and Embry graduated from Barnard. But I was already headed in a different direction. I took city planning courses at Columbia and worked as a student intern for my fieldwork at the New York City Department of City Planning. For my senior thesis I wrote a paper about how imaginative playgrounds were improving life for public housing residents in the city. I still can’t believe Union let me get away with that. But it was also a tough year. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the fall and Martin Luther King in the spring and before my final semester was over Columbia, Barnard and Union had been shut down by student protests. Those times were unsettled similar in some ways to the times we are in today though with more optimism than we have now and a belief that goodness would prevail.

 

 

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