Let Your Light Shine
Born, son of man; but he walked where no man had before.
From another place wholly, his footprints were alien to me.
With a glad tiding, he came in peace for all mankind.
He came to plant over me that flag of victory.
Some say “fake.”
What does it take?
A letter from the moon?
Sincerely,
The Moon
July 6th, 1942. A two year game of Hide & Seek begins.
In this game, when you lose, you die.
They first escaped, fleeing to Holland.
But the sun is setting on the free world, and darkness marches on.
So Anne Frank and family are hiding for their lives.
After the war ended, they found Anne’s diary, you know.
Left where she was found. Waiting for the light.
1947 translated her into English and she went the world around.
A 13, 14, 15 year-old girl who knew things some people never know.
In this Game, when you hope, you live.
Robert disobeyed a direct order and rescued much life from waste, though a pig did die.
Lack of clarity about boundaries began the trouble.
San Juan Island squats right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean channel separating British Columbia (UK, then) and Washington (USA).
It was 1859, British and American settlers were both laying claim to the island.
The powers-that-be couldn’t agree and were playing grabby with the territory.
Agreeing to disagree, settlers attempted to share the island, farming and ranching side-by-side.
This reluctant harmony might have continued until today, if not for a hungry hog.
One afternoon in June, a Devon (large black) pig was helping himself to potatoes in a field belonging to an American farmer, Lyman Cutlar.
Tragically, his mother hadn’t taught him better manners.
Cutlar, finding his potatoes so rudely turned up, promptly shot and killed the intruding swine.
Charles Griffin, an Englishman, island resident and owner of several live pigs and now one dead, took great offense.
Lyman, the American farmer, offered $10, in good faith, as compensation for the animal.
The English rancher, Charles, squealed and stamped and demanded $100.
Lyman, a principled man, could not see his charity so far stretched, then refused to pay anything.
“I am in the right. Just defense of my property. Your pig was trespassing, and eating my potatoes.”
“It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig!” Charles huffed.
Seeing that his neighbor had fled common sense and decency, the American retreated to think no more of the matter.
Griffin, on the other side, involved his local government. The British Governorship immediately threatened to arrest Cutlar.
The American settlers responded in kind, calling for their own military support.
Hot-under-the-collar Captain George Picket and his 9th Infantry were dispatched to the island. “We’ll make a Bunker Hill of it!”
The British countered and soon three warships under the Union Jack were sailing for San Juan.
Before you could say “maybe let’s just build a fence,” both militaries were bristling the tiny island.
461 American soldiers dug in with 14 cannons.
Five British warships floated 70 guns and 2,140 Marines, just off shore.
Then came the fate full order.
“Land the Marines and turn those pompous squatters into the mud they so arrogantly maintain!”
Authority is a curious matter. Power comes in submission to higher power.
When authority steps from under the higher order, Good, it ceases to be.
The rules need breaking when they start to break The Rule.*
At least, that’s what British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes believed.
He told his superior, the Governor of Vancouver Island, to take a long walk off a short pier.
“Two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig? Ridiculous.”
So, both sides stood under orders to “defend yourselves but under no circumstances fire the first shot.”
No shots were fired. The blustering continued and the boundary stayed unsolved…
…for twelve years. And no shots were fired.
In 1871 the UK and US signed the Washington Treaty, and the matter was settled.
San Juan Island, Washington, USA.
More than a decade after the pig shooting, both nations finally withdrew forces from their respective island camps.
These camps remain open today, as a US National Park.
Worth the drive, someday.
Everyday, US Park Rangers hoist a British flag to fly over the camp site.
The flag and pole was an English gift, a sign of friendship between the two countries.
San Juan Island is the only place in the US where a foreign flag is principally and regularly hoisted over American soil.
The Pig War of 1859. Real, crazy, history.
The friendship of two great nations saved; no casualties, save one pig…
because one guy named Robert knew when to break the rules.
—
*Rulebreaking is a potent potion. Drink responsibly.
Gazelle eyed princess with a heart like Texas. Cool olives skinned, lava flow feeling just under her skin. Fierce for faith and family. Emerging from mystery, appearing so modestly; no one knows she’s a princess.
Well, almost no one.
A valiant heart. No one tells him but he sees. And he fights. And he falls. Head over heels. Only honor and virtue are his hopes. His bright sword bends evil blood to the earth and his knee bends to Creator and king, only.
His a tribal people, customs are king.
And customs command marrying.
And so the story begins.
Will it be tribe and tradition, his heart be dammed? Or will the spring steel of true love bear the weight of time and recoil to set all things right, in time?
If you hear a distant popping, that’s the universe making popcorn.
All of this is for a true story, after all.
—
P.S. I’m writing about a Netflix show, here. Based on a true story.
Today is my birthday.
Spring in North Dakota in 1908 was dragging her feet and taking her time getting ready to dance in the rain.
On mornings like that one when the frost is snapping at her heels you think she might just hike up her skirts and leave us to wrestle with Winter for another while.
So I was born and so I grew up.
My head full of words wrestled from the ground and washed in the water that comes from the sky.
Chapped all day in the burning sun then gently oiled around the fire each night.
My family farmed. And ranched. And read books.
I’ve filled books with my stories, you know that, so we won’t do that here.
We’ll just skip a rock across the peaks of the waves that swelled my years.
High school dropped out of me in the tenth grade.
I punched cows for some years which is a term unfairly used, the cattle did most of the punching.
Baled lots a hay in New Mexico. It’s not all desert and most folks don’t know that.
Tasted dust in Nevada mines, Arizona saw mills and Utah lumber yards.
Did some actual punching on the pro boxing circuit. Won some too.
Hopped more freight trains than you probably should, they were going somewhere and I wanted to.
Hobo villages are somewhere and I lived in a few.
Bummed on the beach in southern California for a few months.
The ocean was bigger from the freighters I rode around the world, working as a merchant sailor.
And I wrote it all down as I went.
Guess I read a fair amount too. Usually around 150 books a year.
1945 found me fighting in France and Germany.
They made me a company commander before it was done.
Went back home, I just wrote.
Sold a story every week in those years.
All the kids always ask how it’s done.
Just write.
Kathy married me in 1956.
Stories came easier in the 60’s and 70’s.
And folks bought ‘em.
Somewhere along the way we passed up old Steinbeck, more than 41,000,000 copies sold.
A few years later it was 100 million.
The awards flooded in.
Golden Saddleman Award, Teddy Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, then it was a Congressional National Gold Medal and a Medal of Freedom.
All for a few good stories.
It was all for learning, really. I just wanted to learn.
“Ask and you will receive” they said. I believed it.
I learned the roughest hands can have the softest hearts.
I learned that saying nothing can be thunderous speech.
I learned the woman will always mystify, bewilder and bewitch a man.
She is both a part of him missing and something wholly other.
I learned to be friendly to a man who smiles at death.
He makes a good friend and a terrifying enemy.
I tried to fill my stories with these men and their hopes and fears and the mysterious woman.
“A dying breed.” they say. Maybe.
Somebody’s buying all these books. I’d like to think they’re finding themselves in that saddle.
I hope the words that spilled out of me over the years are filling their hearts with a bit of wonder and a reminder of how all good stories end.
The good guys win. The gentleman marries the lady. They live happily ever after on a ranch in Texas.
If a story doesn’t end that way, it must not be over yet.
All stories are good stories, in the end, you know.
Just keep reading.
A man always smiles at death, who knows how the story ends.
And I did smile.
—
Louis L’Amour loved life and learning, all of it.
And he put all of it in stories so we could too.
God bless Louis L’Amour.
Grateful to my Papa, for introducing us.
He stared at the German anti-aircraft gun, his mind filled with flames, remembering.
The starboard wing had snapped off just before he jumped.
Then swimming in ink.
His parachute inhaling the night.
The muddy lights of occupied Paris pulling him down, through the exploding sky.
The boy at his side was pointing and saying something.
His thoughts were pulled into the present.
Today was Sunday, and Paris was sunbathing.
August 13th, 1944. A holiday, Assumption Day.
The City of Light was pretending especially well today.
Pretending they had enough to eat.
Pretending they didn’t mind the Crooked Cross streaming blood-red from every monument top.
Pretending they weren’t hiding an American pilot.
They had drawn him in as a breath.
Quietly holding their secret as Nazis paraded in the street.
His defiant host, Louis Berty, was a local pork butcher.
For 10 weeks he’d kept the gangly American pilot folded away.
Today was different. All of Paris was breathing today.
The German jackboot wasn’t pressing her throat, at least.
A good day to walk the wrinkles out.
“You can’t visit Paris with you not see the sights! Today we tour, Wehrmacht scum or no!”
So Berty the butcher, his seven-year-old boy and the leggy American sought the sights.
The pilot stretched his full frame to six feet and three inches.
The sun and the Seine filled his eyes.
Dressed as a local stone mason, Lieutenant Bob Woodrum almost didn’t fit in.
Gawking at the anti-aircraft gun crews wasn’t helping.
The would-be incognito sightseers sought a less supervised scene.
Near the place du Trucadéro, the French Naval Museum yawned a casual welcome.
Inside, Lieutenant Woodrum shrugged off the gun crew and his blistered memories.
Waves of timeless talent washed the walls here, a good place to loosen your mind.
Then an officer stomped in.
His Iron Crosses glinted angrily in the timid light.
Faces and furniture twisted in reflection.
The German officer took special interest in the American sculpture wrapped as a Parisian mason.
His interrogating eyes prodded the pilot, measuring the blond hair, blue eyes, towering form…
A painting there by Claude Joseph Vernet became frighteningly, critically interesting, to Bob.
Woodrum stared straight, trying the melt the colors with his gaze.
He wanted to wriggle through the oil and join the smiling subjects in the painting.
Then he could stand on the rock and wave, happy as they.
Together they would watch the liquid tricolor follow her ship to sea.
The sun would drop through the sky and all would be well.
The boy at his side brought him back.
Louis Berty’s seven-year-old son was staring at the canvas too, and silently slipped his small hand into the large American one.
Lieutenant Woodrum held the boy’s hand and poured his face into the painting.
The brown uniform barked a sparkling question in German. Then French.
The American stared ahead and breathed with those souls in the image, not at all.
The boy twisted around to look into the German face.
“My father is deaf and dumb.” He said.
—
On August 25th, French and American forces wrested from Nazi control, the City of Love.
On August 26th, Lieutenant Bob Woodrum greeted the champagne sunrise wearing his American uniform and carrying on his shoulders Louis Berty’s seven-year-old boy.
Intrigue for this story provided by a friend.
The king’s daughter needed rescue.
One problem: It was a suicide mission.
The Scots remember everything in this brooding ballad.
I offer my translation.
Note: Reading this will feel like washing the dishes.
You’ll have a warm, fuzzy feeling when the work is done.
And softer hands, guaranteed.
Sir Patrick Spens: A Ballad
The king sits in Dumferlin town
Drinking the blood-red wine:
Oh where will I get a good sailor
To sail this ship of mine?
Translation: Alcoholic king in a church says “I need a brave heart, is there any who loves me with all of his?”
Up and spake an eldern knight,
Sat at the king’s right knee:
Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That sails upon the sea.
Translation: A wise guy says “I know of one, and worthy is the man.”
The king has written a broad letter
And signed it with his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the sand.
Translation: The king’s word goes through all the earth, and does not return empty.
To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o’er the foam,
The king’s daughter to Norway,
’Tis thou maun to bring her home.
Translation: “My beloved is lost, only in you may she be found.”
The first line that Sir Patrick read
A loud laugh laughed he;
The next line that Sir Patrick read,
A tear blinded his eye.
Translation: For the joy set before him, her savior would suffer.
Make haste, make haste, my merry men all,
Our good ship sails the morn.
Oh say not so, my master dear,
For I fear a deadly storm.
Translation: His followers said “Master, do you not care that we will perish?”
Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon
With the old moon in her arm,
And I fear, I fear, my master dear,
That we will come to harm.
Translation: They guessed “we will be killed all day long.”
They hadna sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When the air grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And growly grew the sea.
Translation: They guessed right.
Oh who is this has done this deed,
This ill deed done to me,
To send me out this time of the year,
To sail upon the sea?
Translation: “My king, why have you forsaken me?”
Oh our Scots nobles were right loth
To wet their cork-heeled shoon,
But long ere all the play were played
Their hats they swam aboon.
Translation: Hats float. Humans don’t.
Half o’er, half o’er to Aberdour
It’s fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies good Sir Patrick Spens
With the Scots lords at his feet.
Translation: And darkness was over the face of the deep.
Some say, fifty fathoms is the end of the story.
Others say, it’s only half o’er.
What do you say?
11 Union Jacks snapped to the attentive wind.
Captain Arthur Phillip glassed the beach.
772 men in zebra uniforms packed the 10 decks behind him.
300 bloody red Royal Marines dotted the herd of convicts.
Arthur refitted his tired tri-corner cap.
For eight stormy months, he had carried the dross of England’s society.
Wretched men, unwanted. Men wasted by law breaking.
The Crown commanded him to forge a colony in the vicious Outback.
He decided to grow a garden of humanity instead.
“In this new country there will be no slavery, no slaves.”
1786 Britain thought he was nuts.
The perfect guy to take 10 boat-fulls of bad guys to the edge of the world.
Captain Governor Phillip was crazy enough to believe the convicts were capable of becoming a community.
And they were crazy enough to believe him.
Arthur sailed from Sydney Cove in 1792.
Every position of leadership was filled by a formerly fallen man.
The heart of New South Wales was full of farms, families and the dawning future.
If you’ve read this far, I’m pretty sure you are crazy.
Crazy enough to believe in a few law-breakers.
Crazy enough to believe in your Captain.
I like crazy.
Nikolina Vucetic always made it home on time but today she wouldn’t make it home on time.
Today a bloody attack would break every heart in Pancevo.
—
“If heaven exists, it’s probably a giant park.” Leo thought.
“Leo, all you do is watch. Why do you love the park so much?” Biljana said.
Leo avoided people, mostly. He loved his family. He didn’t need anyone else.
Something was different at the park. People played at the park. Little children laughed. Grown ups traded grins. And he loved taking it all in. A part of him was part of all of it.
So he watched.
—
“When you’re nine you can be scared but when you’re ten years old you’re not scared anymore.”
That’s what one of the boys at school had said. He was ten years old in the nine-year-old class so he knew more things.
Nikolina was trying to be brave. She looked over her shoulder again.
She walked faster. That large dog was still getting closer.
She ran.
He charged.
—
Her scream liquefied Leo’s heart.
Her anxious blond hair flagged for help as the beast razed her footing.
Leo drank in the scene.
“That thing is going to kill her.” he thought.
—
Witnesses at the park that day say they “heard a scream and then saw a brown missile streak across the park.”
“Leo saved the little girl?”
“Yeah, that little dog that always watches from the hill, he just jumped in, and, and… man, there was a lot of blood.“
—
When Leo rocketed into him, the bull mastiff let Nikolina free.
15 pounds of sacrificial love versus 150 pounds of malevolent muscle.
The dogs tumbled and snapped and snarled.
Nikolina held her bloody arm and ran.
—
A little girl’s smile broke every face in Pancevo.
A little dog died and broke every heart in Pancevo.
They built a statue for Leo the Fearless.
They planted flowers and watered them with their tears.
“To all small heroes with big hearts.”
An English Earl knocked on the front door with a battering ram, but Patrick Dunbar wasn’t home.
The enemy Earl believed this castle kept by women would be easily swept from their keep.
He learned hard that a Scotswoman doesn’t sweep easy.
Earl arrived at Dunbar Castle early in 1338, February.
Marching up from Edinburgh, his army encircled the entire fortress.
They petitioned the mistress of the manor, Mrs. Dunbar…
“Surrender, or be sieged!” they said.
The lady of the lair rendered the following response…
“Of Scotland’s King I haud my house,
I pay him meat and fee,
And I will keep my gude auld house,
while my house will keep me.”
Did you know Scots invented the “rap battle?”
The English were much better at old, less fashionable forms of battle.
So they began battering the walls with mud-caked boulders.
When the trebuchet slings hung still, even the proud top parts had not cracked.
The damage was so nil, Madam Dunbar marched her damsels across the walls.
Dressed in their Sunday best, they faked fear and laughed and feigned tears.
They made a show of dusting the ramparts with their handkerchiefs.
Blustering, Salisbury staked his final assault.
“Get ‘The Sow’ to the wall!!” he ordered.
The Sow was a two-story siege machine, soldiers up top, miners down under.
Why was it named like a mother of pigs? We have no idea.
“To the wall! That’s it!” he said.
Mother Dunbar and her maids promptly dropped a wardrobe-sized rock on the porcine machine.
Their gravity powered pile driver had been delivered air mail, courtesy of the Royal Catapults.
That soggy stone squished the squealing structure completely.
The Earl of Salisbury “sallied forth” shortly thereafter.
That’s fancy English for “he gave up and went home.”
Agnes Dunbar held her own.
Some have said this story is too wild to be true.
If you’ve known a woman who carries the spirit of Scotland in her heart…
…you know this sounds about right.
Easy going hard knowing looks safe cracking smiles easily strong castle keeping Sunday best dressed down river heart over head out of town squared shoulders brushing boulders off… flint face on, smiling, knowing, holding her own.
She lives and loves on her own two feet.
No sweepy sweepers need apply.
—
P.S. Two ancient words suggest that this special spirit lived in the first lady.
My friend wrote about it. Some think he’s crazy. He’s definitely not sweepy.
Only click if you like ideas that surprise. =)
“Not one stone was left upon another.”
Hehe. That’s a polite way of saying it.
They named his building “Washburn’s Folly” in 1866.
It was “too big.” No one would buy that much flour.
Then the flour market exploded.
Just 10 years later his mill was “justly, the pride of Minneapolis.”
Central Minnesota wore a necklace of boxcars
streaming for Chicago, Omaha and New York.
Two million pounds of flour every day
were streaking the pounded rails.
Minneapolis was “Mill City.”
Minneapolis was on the map.
Then the flour mill exploded.
It was 1878. May. The 2nd.
The sun was honey-dipped
and sticking gold on the windows.
The day shifters would be home by now
finding their chairs heaving a dusty sigh.
The mill inhaled welcoming the night crew
breathing flour and sweat.
The millstone ran dry,
sparking tongues forked
into the hanging flour fog.
The building breathed fire and brass
licking the sun and lighting the sky.
The first floor traded places with the seventh floor.
“Smoke in dense volumes leaped
hundreds of feet heavenward.
The word went from lip to lip
almost with the rapidity of lightning.
The Washburn mill had exploded and was destroyed.
It was a night of horror in Minneapolis.”
— St. Paul Globe, May 4, 1878
14 millers working for Washburn-Crosby
that night died without flinching.
The flames burned out
five neighboring mills.
One third of America’s flour milling capacity
disappeared in whispering smoke overnight.
Cadwallader Washburn arrived as the sun reclimbed the sky.
The hot and hellish pile poured into his steaming eyes.
He planted his heart there
and spoke three promises.
1. He would honor the men who died here.
2. He would rebuild. And bigger.
3. He would make sure this never happened again. Even if it meant reinventing the milling industry.
As you might expect, a man with a name like Cadwallader keeps his promises.
3. He did reinvent the milling industry.
And he openly shared his advancements with all his competitors.
2. He did rebuild. And bigger.
Washburn-Crosby became General Mills.
1. He did honor the men who died there.
He personally cared for their families,
established the Washburn Center for Children,
and commanded plaques and markers bearing their names.
A marble memorial still watches over the entrance
of the rebuilt Washburn mill.
It reads…
The Washburn Mill “A” was totally destroyed
on the second day of May 1878
by fire and a terrific explosion
occasioned by the rapid combustion of flour dust.
Not one stone was left upon another,
and every person engaged in the mill instantly lost his life.
The following are the names of the faithful
and well tried employees who fell victims of that awful calamity.
E.W. Burbank
Cyrus W. Ewing
E.H. Grundman
Henry Hicks
Chas. Henning
Patrick Judd
Chas. Kimball
Wm. Leslie
Fred A. Merrill
Edwd. E. Merrill
Walter Savage
Ole Shie
August Smith
Clark Wilbur
“Labor wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.”
The end.
Did you enjoy the story?
You don’t need to keep reading.
You might not want to…
I found a few questions hiding under flour sacks
in the bashful basement of Washburn’s mill.
These questions are not bashful.
One of them punched me in the eye.
Caution: Shadowy Questions Beyond This Point
Here’s the door. Your call.
What do you think?
Will sparks come for you?
Will your first floor ever touch the sky?
Will your insides be burned out and blackened?
When your heart is planted there,
in that fatal tomb, that fertile womb,
when not one stone is left upon another,
what promise will you speak?
Whose promise will you seek?
—
Bonus Bit: because apparently you know how to take a punch.
Finishing that letter written in marble is a quote from Thomas Carlyle.
“Labor wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.”
He said several curious things about work
circa 1841 in his book Past and Present: The Modern Worker.
Read page 115, where the above quote was originally penned.
also…
“…sweat of the brow, and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart… up to that “Agony of Bloody Sweat,” which all men have called divine!”
“To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind. Heaven is kind – as a noble mother, as that Spartan mother, saying, as she gave her son his shield “With it my son, or upon it!””
I told you he was curious…
and he was a Scot.
A redundancy. You don’t mind, do you?
Her shiny gold balloon jumped to greet a patient blue sky.
She let the green nylon ribbon slide through her hand.
If you find this balloon, please write to:
Laura Buxton at 18 Fourth Ave, Stoke-on-Trent, UK ST2 8NF
“Papa, are you sure someone will find it?”
“If we’re lucky, kiddo. Sometimes special things happen.”
Her brown pigtails bounced back to the orange stuccoed farmhouse.
10 days later…
A white card tumbled through the tired bronze mail slot.
Red crayon writing says…
To: Laura Buxton at 18 Fourth Ave, Stoke-on-Trent…
Blue crayon writing says…
From: Laura Buxton at 63 Havering Ln, Pewsey…
Dear Laura Buxton,
My name is Laura Buxton too. I found your balloon.
I live in Pewsey. I am 10 years old.
My mum says if you are real you can ring our house.
+44 1672 596148
LB
Laura’s balloon flew more than 140 miles,
and found another girl with the same name.
Laura Buxton phones Laura Buxton.
“Do you like animals?”
“I have a dog, a rabbit, and a guinea pig.” Laura said.
“I have a dog, a rabbit, and a guinea pig too!” Laura said.
Then things get weird.
Both Lauras have blue eyes.
They are both 4′ 7″ tall.
They both wear their brown hair in pig tails.
They are both in Year 5 of primary school.
They both have a grey rabbit.
They both have a three-year-old black Labrador.
They both have a white guinea pig with orange spots.
Their parents decide to all meet in person.
They meet at Caffè Nero in Birmingham, UK.
Both Lauras walk in wearing a pink sweater and blue jeans.
Some folks use the cold hand of Coincidence to grasp mysteries.
Laura Buxton2 uses the hand of Synchronicity…
“…there must be some reason…”
What is the difference between Coincidence and Synchronicity?
How do you grasp Life’s mysteries?
P.S. watch this clip from Pi if you want to nerd out about synchronicity…
“Dagnab you Cruzatte, you have shot me!”
Moments earlier, Meriwether Lewis had been kneeling in the black mud, watching tawny elk weave through a stand of willows.
Sunlight splashed off the nearby Marias River, blue and sparkling.
A breeze rippled the green leaves as the elk halted.
BLAM! The impact knocked Meriwhether flat.
The .54 caliber lead slug had struck him in the behind on the left side, exited on the right side and lodged in his buckskin breeches.
“Dadburnit, you flinchy, one-eyed son-of-a-gun! You shot me!” Lewis said.
On August 11th, 1806, Meriwether Lewis learned that Pierre Cruzatte, an excellent fiddle player, made a very poor hunting partner.
Pierre, blind in one eye and nearsighted in the other, had mistaken Meriwether’s backside for an elk.
Lewis survived the ordeal, traveling face down in his canoe while the wound healed.
Cruzatte forever denied that he was the one who shot Lewis, even though the slug matched his rifle exactly.
Moral of the story: Hunting with a one-eyed, nearsighted guy can be dangerous. Make sure to wear your orange safety vest.
Want to read Lewis’ personal account of the escapade from his journal?
You would probably be a British citizen today, except for one letter written on July 24th 1775…
A few weeks earlier, the Continental Congress had dispatched a petition to the King.
Dripping with patronage and reassurances of loyalty, the petition asked for reconciliation, for peace.
“…our breasts retain too tender a regard for the kingdom from which we derive our origin to request such a reconciliation as might in any manner be inconsistent with her dignity or her welfare.”
The letter basically said, “Hey, we’ll drop the whole ‘independence’ thing if y’all will just negotiate fairly on taxes and trade. We can be a big happy British family!”
The diplomacy of this Olive Branch Petition was good. Maybe even good enough to harmonize the two continents.
Until John Adams scratched a private letter to his friend General Warren on July 24th.
In the personal letter he revealed his disgust with the Petition and remarked on preparations for war.
British forces intercepted his letter. It was immediately published in every British newspaper.
In August, when Lord Dartmouth tried to bring the Olive Branch Petition before King George, he was rejected.
There would be no reconciliation.
Formally rebuffed by the King, the heart of the colonies began to turn.
Abigail Adams spoke for the people on November 12th 1775 when she wrote in a letter:
“Let us separate, they are unworthy to be our Brethren. Let us renounce them and instead of supplications as formerly for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels and bring to nought all their devices.”
Exactly one year after the colony leaders signed the Olive Branch Petition, they signed the Declaration of Independence.
A lot can change in a year…
An instrument pregnant with the fate of the world…
That’s how Jefferson described the Declaration of Independence.
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword spills the blood that flows from the pen.
Mr. Jefferson always kept his pen sharp and his inkwell filled with blood.
In 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson graduated from life school.
10 days earlier, on June 26th, he penned the last letter of his life.
His body failing, he declined an invitation to attend the Independence Day celebration, and gave these words…
“After half a century of experience and prosperity, our fellow citizens continue to approve the choice we made.
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. …For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
You have been given the blessing and security of self-government.
Everyday you wield the pen of choice to scribe your lifestory into the scroll of time.
Remember, the freedom that fills your pen was purchased at death’s door.
What will the letter of your life say?
The sun had been wrestling with the horizon for an hour.
Now gracefully rising, beams shot across the Rappahannock River.
The steady stream of light caught axe heads twirling through the air.
Each razor edge was glinting, hungry for the tree.
Cleaved at each bite and spit into the sky, snowy white wood chips blanketed the ground.
Orange, yellow and brown, leaves tumbled to rest, adding a fiery carpet.
It was 1781, the millstone of war had been grinding the land and her men for six years.
And now, burning for a moment, hope of victory and peace – Lord Cornwallis made a mistake.
The Continental Army was ready. The march began.
A bridge was needed and Corporal Edward Wallace and his men were charged with dropping the trees.
There were more trees than men, and the trees fell slowly.
Wallace, shouting and urging his men, surveyed the field from atop a large stump.
A rider galloped into the expanding clearing and hailed the officer.
Edward puzzled over the man’s uniform first, it was sharp but plain.
Then he noticed his face, gentle and full of weariness.
“You haven’t enough men for the job, have you?” the older man said.
“No sir. Reinforcements have been called, but no answer given.”
“Why don’t you lend a hand yourself?”
“Me? Why, I am a corporal…” he said, straightening his uniform.
“Ah, yes you are…” the rider was on the ground with a bounce, suddenly looking much younger.
Gripping an axe, the older man joined in razing the trees.
After the last stand was tumbled, the visitor returned the tool, wiped his hands and head, and mounted his animal.
“Corporal, the next time you have a job to put through and too few men to do it, you had better send for the Commander-in-Chief, and I will come again.”
He heeled his horse, and was gone.
Corporal Wallace was statued on his stump, staring to the woods where the hooves had disappeared.
Finally, containing his shock, he climbed down.
General Washington humbled a number of trees that day with an axe.
But he humbled a man when he humbled himself.
Flames from a soldier’s torch rolled across the porch and lapped at the pineboard siding.
Another house nearby was already swallowed in a blaze of heat and light.
April 26, 1777. The British were coming.
Leaping astride the family horse, one brave patriot galloped into the night.
There was no moon that night, torrents spilled from the sky and the roads turned to rivers.
Soaking in the saddle, flying from farm to farm, pounding from door to door and shouting in the streets, one rider raised the alarm.
“The British are coming!”
Before morning sunbeams began to stab at the sky, Sybil Ludington had loped over 40 miles and roused over 400 militiamen.
She was 16 years old.
Later, the two armies tangled at the Battle of Ridgefield.
The Redcoats retreated and we rankled them all the way to the sea.
Cool, right?
“But why hasn’t Sybil’s story been more regaled?” you ask?
Great question. Also, you sound very sophisticated, using a word like “regaled.”
One historian’s theory suggests Sybil’s story isn’t especially Revered because maybe it never happened.
That’s right. Maybe 16 year-old Sybil never rode all night in a rainstorm.
Huh. Do you suddenly feel a bit sad? I did too…
Why do we really want this heroic tale to be true?
This is a little embarrassing and you’ll probably think I’m crazy, but…
I’ve decided to believe Sybil really did save the day by riding that night.
I know, I know. I can’t prove it. I can’t prove that she did. But I still believe.
You see, when I think about what she did, I stand a bit straighter.
My problems seem lighter and the day gets brighter.
If she did something that courageous, maybe you and I can too.
That’s what a story can do.
Do you know any other stories that are too good not to be true?
Rivets were popping like firecrackers, exploding from their holds.
The skin thick as your fist screamed and twisted, now gashed wide open.
Then silence.
Except for the horrible sound of water. Water where it shouldn’t be.
Named “Unsinkable,” but no one told the iceberg.
Certain survivors did tell of other, warmer sounds... “Many brave things were done that night, but none were more brave than those done by men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly, lower and lower in the sea. The music they played served alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recalled on the scrolls of undying fame.”
Theodore Brailey, Roger Bricoux, John Clarke, Wallace Hartley, John Hume, Georges Krins, Percy Taylor, John Woodward…
Eight bright souls played until the lights went out.
When everything is still, if you listen gently,
you can hear the song
that was in their hearts.
All ships sink, eventually.
What song will be in your heart, when the lights go out?
—
Pondering this musical mystery, Gavin Bryars composed The Sinking of the Titanic circa 1970.
Here it is, an arrangement performed by the Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
Careful, this song can tear you up.
Buckle your seat belt for the first two minutes…
You might need a lifeboat, for the last two minutes.
The large enemy force (over 20,000) continued to march across rural Australia.
Striking at the local economy, they decimated acres of crops and farmland.
The locals demanded a national military response.
In early November, 1932, the Royal Australian Army launched a counter-attack.
Deploying artillery and machine gun units to the area, the RAA prepared troops to drive out the rebel faction.
During one early skirmish, an enemy force of 1,000 marched into an ambush of Australian machine guns.
But the guns jammed and only 12 enemy combatants were killed, the rest escaping on foot.
After consecutive battles proved just as disappointing, ornithologist Dominic Serventy provided this commentary…
“The enemy command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen Australian field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.”
Major Meredith, commander of the RAA 7th Heavy Battery, had this to say during his retreat…
“If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world… They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks.”
The Royal Australian Army had lost The Great Emu War.
That’s right. This formidable enemy force? FLIGHTLESS BIRDS.
Whenever I’m having a bad day, it helps to remember that Australia lost a war with some emus.
“On the 13th day of the 12th month, kill them all.”
“Young and old, women and children; you are to destroy the Set-Apart People.”
Orchestrating the first recorded genocide attempt, Haman drafts an edict ordering the annihilation of the Chosen.
Written in the name of the King and sealed with the King’s signet ring, the order is hurried to every province in the land.
We know what happens next. The courageous queen bets her life, going before the King and interceding for her people.
The whole scheme is thrust into the light and the Evil One, seeking death for others, finds it for himself.
The perpetrator of this wickedness is overthrown – the people are saved! Right?
Not quite. We still have a problem.
In this Kingdom, any decree written in the name of the King can never be revoked.
“…kill them all.” The Law is on the books. The people must die.
Heaven and earth will pass away but the death order will never pass away.
Then, the newly appointed second-to-the-King presents a solution.
With the King’s approval, a new order is drawn.
“By the King’s authority, each of God’s Elect is hereby granted the right to assemble and to defend their lives, to destroy, to kill and to annihilate the entire army of any people or province which might attack them.”
Written in the name of the King and sealed with the King’s signet ring, this final injunction overcomes the grave and delivers salvation for Israel.
Death is not revoked. Death is overcome.
There is a feast and a holiday. Many people throughout the Kingdom are adopted by Faith.
A day intended for Evil is ultimately used for Good.
An act of selfless love, the Intercessor willing to lose her life for her people, purchases the power and authority over death for her people.
“…there was light and gladness and joy and honor.”
I do love a happy ending…
“He is a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
Today, exactly 217 years ago, Thomas Jefferson was elected 4th President of The United States. His victory marked the end of a campaign that would become famous for its vicious volleys of rhetoric…
The above quote was written about then President, John Adams – who once considered Jefferson a close friend. Now the air was thick with racial slurs and character attacks.
While The House was deliberating over the tied election (yes, Jefferson tied for 1st with his VP/running-mate… 19th century America was a little kooky) Alexander Hamilton, who disliked Jefferson but perfectly despised Burr, supplied this glorious burn while cajoling The House to win Jefferson:
“I would much rather have someone with wrong principles than someone devoid of any.”
Jefferson was chosen. In the smoke and rubble, our country found a great triumph – a “peaceful” (bloodless) transfer of power from one political party to another, besides our differences.
For the first time, we proved that open and free discourse (however heated) could produce an ultimately unified people and governance.
11 years later, Jefferson and Adams rekindled their friendship and continued as pen-pals until they died.
Like the truth, friendship always shines through the years.
Think about rekindling something today.
See? The future is brighter already.