2.20.2026 – never thought Christians

never thought Christians
would lead attack on Christian
fundamentals, but …

But here we are is the way the sentence ends.

Based on the New York Times Opinion Piece, Christians Against Empathy Aren’t Who They Think They Are by David French

… put another way, our problem isn’t with too much empathy, but too little. We’re unwilling to place ourselves in other people’s shoes, to try to understand who they are and what their lives are like.

It’s hard to talk about this issue without recognizing a fundamental truth of the moment: The attack on empathy would have gained very little traction in the church if Donald Trump weren’t president. He delights in vengeance, and he owes his presidency to the evangelical church.

Given the sharp differences between Trump and every other Republican president of the modern era, in my experience evangelicals are desperate to to rationalize their support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents.

That’s exactly how empathy becomes a sin.

And because empathy is a sin, virtually any appeal to consider the suffering of Trump’s opponents becomes yet more proof that Christians are being manipulated, that their emotions are used against them.

I never thought it would be Christians who led the attack on fundamental Christian values, but here we are. The Book of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet he did not sin.”

In Christian theology, Christ engaged in the ultimate act of empathy. He didn’t imagine what it would be like to live as a man — he became one.

Our own desire for empathy, for ourselves and our friends, is almost primal. There is a deep human need to feel truly seen.

Viewed through one lens, America before Trump had its share of problems. We were fighting long wars overseas, we were still dealing with the economic overhang of the Great Recession, and we faced the kind of sharp cultural conflicts that always arise when people of different faiths and different ideologies share the same national home.

Zoom out just a bit, and you could see our abundant national blessings. In an imperfect world, the United States was a very good place to be. The American experiment was working. Our nation was free. It was secure. It enjoyed immense prosperity and power. It afforded a degree of religious toleration and economic opportunity that was the envy of most of the world.

In other words, we really did have it all, didn’t we?

The image above is of what is thought to be the first masterpiece painted by the dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn.

The New York Times, in a review of a Rembrandt show in back in 2016 stated:

Titled “Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver,” it depicts a scene that appears in only one of the four gospels, and then as a mere footnote to the Passion narrative.

At the Last Supper, Jesus announces that one of his disciples would betray him into enemy hands.

The culprit is Judas, who has already been paid by the chief priest and elders of the Jerusalem temple to lead soldiers to the doomed man and identify him by a kiss.

Once the deed is done, however, Judas is crushed by remorse.

He rushes to the temple and throws the payment money down in front of those who hired him, as if that might absolve his guilt, though he is beyond believing it will.

In the painting, we see him kneeling and wailing with grief, his clothes disheveled, his scalp bloody where he has torn out his hair.

The elders back off in shock; the chief priest holds up one hand as if to block out the sight of the man, push him away, disappear him.

Judas will leave the temple and hang himself.

Mr. French wrote, “… in my experience evangelicals are desperate to to rationalize their support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents.”

And when an accounting comes due for the support for a man who gratuitously and intentionally inflicts unnecessary suffering on his opponents?

What will absolve you?

Thank God for grace.

Which I need as much as anybody else but there are some things I can do to avoid adding to the load on my back.

Good thing, there is always enough grace.

2.19.2026 – governments live die

governments live die
by their ability to
sustain corruption

Mr. Trump is apparently profiting from these cases: The Times estimates that he has made more than $1.4 billion since he was elected to his second term, in part from supplicants seeking his clemency. But his subordinates, too, have benefited from the broader rollback of white-collar prosecutions.

His border czar, Tom Homan, for instance, accepted $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from undercover F.B.I. agents in September 2024 in exchange for promising to secure government favors if Mr. Trump returned to office. (Mr. Homan has denied taking the money.) Such a scheme would have ordinarily resulted in a scandal, and quite likely a prosecution. But the office that would have investigated Mr. Homan has been largely gutted — just five attorneys reportedly remain — and Mr. Homan himself remains in office.

All this self-dealing is a threat to our democracy. Illiberal governments tend to live or die by their ability to sustain corruption. That’s because they rely for support on a network of oligarchs, who in turn are tied to the administration’s success. It happened in Hungary, in Turkey, in Russia and increasingly, it is happening here.

We don’t have to end up that way. As other countries’ experience shows, when bribery is risky, rich criminals are less likely to try it, and less likely to feel bound to a regime’s success. When corruption is revealed, voters often realize that the strongman they elected cares more for a small group of rich cronies than he does about them. That’s why it’s often the corruption that is key to toppling autocratic leaders, like Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine and Otto Pérez Molina in Guatemala.

In a world where the Department of Justice and the president are either indifferent to or actively support rich criminals, what can be done?

Adapted from the opinion piece, One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back By Brendan Ballou, a former federal prosecutor and the founder of the Public Integrity Project.

In this high powered world of corruption at the highest levels of government, something to remember is the words of Silvio Dante when he said, “You’re only as good as your last envelope.“

One day, that bill is going to come due.

2.16.2026 – most enviable

most enviable
of titles, the character
of an honest man

In a letter to Alexander Hamilton dated 28 August 1788, George Washington wrote:

Still I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am …

The character of an honest man.

The headline comes to mind, “Channel 4 to mark Trump’s UK visit with ‘longest uninterrupted reel of untruths’”.

The occassion for the show was the current man in office and his visit tot he UK in Ocotber of 2025.

Another columnist for the Guardian wrote: “Channel 4 will be marking Donald Trump’s visit to the UK with what it describes as “the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths, falsehoods and distortions ever broadcast on television”. It will play more than 100 of Trump’s lies or misleading statements in a segment called Trump v The Truth. All his greatest hits, from false claims about the price of eggs to disgusting lies about the US spending millions on condoms for Hamas, packaged together.

Obviously we’ve got to be fair and balanced here, though, haven’t we? Gotta show both sides. So I think it’s only right that Channel 4 also broadcast a 10-second segment covering all of the truthful and astute things the president has said”

(It’s not all lies, lies, lies with Trump – sometimes he’s unnervingly honest by Arwa Mahdawi. How was that feller unnervingly honest your ask? Like when he said, “Smart people don’t like me, you know?”)

What was it that the General wrote?

The character of an honest man.

Washington’s letter came at the time when the new country was discussing the adoption the new Constitution that had been pulled together in 1787.

It was during the discussion about the Executive and its powers that Dr. Ben Franklin said:

“The first man put at the helm will be a good one.

No body knows what sort may come afterwards.“*

Just some thoughts for Presidents Day, 2026.

*Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention, Monday June 4, 1787 – The Question was resumed on motion of Mr. PINKNEY 2ded. by WILSON, “shall the blank for the number of the Executive be filled with a single person?”

2.15.2026 – worst of times, age of

worst of times, age of
foolishness, the epoch of
incredulity

La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom,

it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief,

it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light,

it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope,

it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us,

we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven,

we were all going direct the other way –

in short, the period was so far like the present period,

that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil,

in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The opening to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Mr. Dickens was trying to portray life in the era of the French Revolution.

Something the Brits must have viewed with a bit of relief.

See the French had a law about leaving France to go to the new world.

You had support the government, had to support the King and you had to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church.

The Brits took the line of ‘if you don’t like it here, you can go to America and complain there.’

So those PROTESTing PROTESTants did and when the time came for a British revolution, it was far from home.

In France, they kept all the rabble rousers home and when they had their revolution it was in the front yard.

Mr. Dickens was writing a little more than 50 years after the events of revolution in France.

Here is almost 225 years later.

And it is the worst of times …

The age of foolishness …

The epoch of incredulity …

The season of Darkness …

The winter of despair …

Nothing before us …

We were all going direct not to Heaven, but the other way …

Still …

Remember, the barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

PS: By chance I put this haiku together from the book and was thinking about a picture to use and I checked my Thurber database to see that this drawing with the caption, See you at the barricades, Mr. Whitsonby! was first published in the New Yorker Magazine on February 15, 1936. 90 years ago today! And as we all remember, to the barricades is the motto of the French Revolution or as history has it, La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie! or The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

2.12.2026 – way is plain, peaceful

way is plain, peaceful,
generous, just – if followed
God forever bless

According to Wikipedia, The 1862 State of the Union Address was written by the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and delivered to the 37th United States Congress, on Monday, December 1, 1862, amid the ongoing American Civil War.

This address was Lincoln’s longest State of the Union Address, consisting of 8,385 words.

In the closing paragraphs of this address, Lincoln penned words which have been remembered and quoted frequently by presidents and other American political figures. Lincoln’s concluding remarks were as follows:

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.

As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history.

We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

We say we are for the Union.

The world will not forget that we say this.

We know how to save the Union.

The world knows we do know how to save it.

We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.

In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.

Other means may succeed; this could not fail.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.

Can’t pass by Mr. Lincoln on his birthday.

It used to be a big day.

Probably still should be.

More so not that other people have elevated the office of President of the United States.

But that other people have demonstrated the depths to which the office can sink.

I think of what Alistair Cooke wrote about Mr. Lincoln in his book, America:

“It is difficult, and in some quarters thought to be almost tasteless, to talk sense about Lincoln.

But we must try.

For the holy image and the living man were very far apart, and keeping them so does no service either to Lincoln or to the art of government.

Like all strong characters, he was well hated, and like most frontiersmen who have come to high office—like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson—he was ridiculed for his directness and country manners.

The London Times called him “the Baboon.”

Lincoln had a gangling gait, a disturbing fondness for rough stories, and a maddening habit of being, in a kind of tooth-sucking way, wiser and sharper than you. (To make it worse, most of the time he was.)”

On the 100th anniversary of Mr. Lincoln’s birth, biographer Ida Tarbell spoke at the University of Michigan on the topic, “Abraham Lincoln : an address the Centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.”

Ms. Tarbell’s address was part of 1908-1909 schedule of speakers arranged by the Students’ Lecture Association of the University of Michigan.

I was fascinated to see the Hon. W. Bourke Cockran also on the list.

He is the Bourke Cockran in this oft told story of Mr. Churchill … “Adlai Stevenson, himself a notable speaker, often reminisced about his last meeting with Churchill. I asked him on whom or what he had based his oratorical style. Churchill replied, “It was an American statesman who inspired me and taught me how to use every note of the human voice like an organ.” Winston then to my amazement started to quote long excerpts from Bourke Cockran’s speeches of 60 years before. “He was my model,” Churchill said. “I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall.”

It must have been an interesting lecture to attend.

Ms. Tarbell spoke in University Hall, a hall that held 2500 people in a building that stood where Angell Hall now stands on the UofM campus.

She was introduced by the President of the University, James Angell and gave a lecture that, as stated in The Michigan Daily account, was made by the “probably the best informed person living in regard to Lincoln.”

Her final words on the subject?

It is doubtful if this country, if any country, has produced a man so worthy of our study and our following as is Abraham Lincoln.

Who indeed is there so fit to guide us in that highest of tasks – the giving of service?

Whoever saturated himself so with his subject?

Whoever trusted more utterly to the integrity of his logic, and to the appeal for the sense of human justice?

Whoever put aside with more contempt all the tricks of his trade – appeals to emotion simply to stir emotion, wit simply to arouse a laugh, subterfuges and evasion to escape valid objection?

Whoever handled with more honesty and respect his tasks?

Whoever struggled harder to understand not only with his head but with his heart and understanding, wrestled more to make others understand?

Whoever looked more deeply, more gently, into the hearts of men, and having looked, put into more moving words what he had seen?

He has no parallel.

He stands in a towering lonely figure – a man who, by the persistent and reverential following of his own highest instincts, unaided, raised himself from the soil to place of the First American.

Now, 217 years after Mr. Lincoln’s birth … well, its beyond belief isn’t it.