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Thomas Jefferson said, “I can’t live in a world without books.” Pursuing the life of the mind is what brought him happiness. According to the historian, David McCullough, Jefferson “… read seven languages. He was a lawyer, surveyor, ardent meteorologist, botanist, agronomist, archaeologist, paleontologist, Indian ethnologist, classicist, brilliant architect. Music, he said, was the passion of his soul, mathematics, the passion of his mind.” He was all of this in a time when education was a luxury and a privilege. As Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, including the words, “the pursuit of happiness,” Jefferson had in mind these intellectual pursuits as well as the pursuit of virtue free from government influences. Jefferson had in mind citizens of moral character who would use liberty responsibly with concern for the common good. Jefferson chose the word “pursuit” to emphasize a journey, not a destination. For me, I have never been very successful in pursuing wealth, status or fame. But I know that happiness always finds me when I am deep in the pages of a book, or actively engaged in discussion and debate, or busy helping my neighbors. Happiness finds me in the thinking, the learning, the doing, and the connecting, not in the getting. Our forefathers were willing to sacrifice their honor and their lives for the vision Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence. And they had faith in a future they imagined but could not see. They had faith in us! Let’s keep a good thing going. May happiness find you today as we celebrate and recommit to that great vision. Happy Birthday, America!
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Looking for a chance to stick it to the oligarchs? Saturday, April 25th is the 13th Annual Independent Bookstore Day. And April 13th was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson that champion of American independence and a reader who said: “I cannot live in a world without books.” I’m with him! I know that I cannot live in a world without books or a country without independence. And I know I do not want to live in a world without the spirit of community that small shops and local businesses create. Find your local independent bookstores and make a visit. And while you’re at it, maybe stop in a locally owned coffee shop or café. Greet the shop owners and thank them for the contribution they make to our lives and to our world. Chat with some of the other patrons and booklovers. Many of us are feeling frustrated if not helpless with the state of the country and the world. Here is a chance to joyfully engage, to take back some of the things that belongs to all of us—independence and community. Don’t let the wealthy oligarchs make us strangers to each other. Times are tough. If you can’t afford to buy a book or some of the other charming merchandise on display, show up anyway and look around. Your effort and your presence say that independence and community matter. Books and the arts matter. Words matter. Consumers have power if we take it. See you at the revolution. See you at the bookstore! Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. -- Rumi Lately, I have been praying continuously and fervently. The state of the world frightens me. The growing scale of problems overwhelms me. And so, like Abraham Lincoln, each day I fall to my knees because I believe that I have nowhere else to go. On a recent morning, I began the day with my usual catalog of prayers when a thought took hold of me: what if God doesn’t answer prayers? Initially, the idea stunned me but quickly grew into a confident belief. As I remained still and quiet, a story from the Book of Genesis came to me: God saw that man was lonely, and God made a companion for the forlorn man. I meditated on that and began to entertain a question. What if that was the original response to prayer? And the once-and-for-all, forever answer? Man had a need he could not name, and he received a solution he could not have conceived. It was a solution birthed from the man’s own ribs, from a part of his being. The answer was a companion, the gift of someone like himself. Has God anticipated our needs? And having anticipated our needs has God created someone to help us meet each one of them? Could I be the answer to someone’s prayers? What if each of us lived with the belief that we contain the spark of the divine, the ability to answer prayers? What if each of us was raised not with the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” But with the query: “Whose prayers will you answer today?” Might that be the response to the great existential question, “Why am I here?” And might it be the road back to paradise? I continue to convene with God each day. Like C.S. Lewis, I just can’t seem to help myself. It doesn’t change God, but I hope that it changes me. God saw that man was lonely. He made you someone’s valentine. Perhaps you have yet to meet, but someone is looking for you today. Someone needs you. Open your eyes and your heart. Answer someone’s prayers and believe that there is someone ready to answer yours. It seems that in 2025 the fizz went out the cola, the sparkle out of the water, the bubbly out of the champagne, the taste of the brew fell flat and repugnant. In a world already suffering from loneliness, the politics widened the divide and silenced good people. At least that’s how it felt to me much of the year. My joy and energy dissipated with every news headline. People became quiet and more distant even more so than during the height of the COVID pandemic. Many days were complete radio silence. Early in the political year I wrote to my elected representatives and reminded them of the words of Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Absurdity certainly describes 2025 every bit as much as the word of the year: SLOP. We cringe and squint at the atrocities that have already occurred, atrocities sanctioned by our elected representatives with their eyes wide open. It is easy to feel hopeless. Perhaps there are people in power who put their hope in our hopelessness. Today, 80 mile per hour winds are howling through the trees and rattling my windows. I try to picture the absurdities and atrocities of 2025 being blown away, the strong wind a cleansing breath from God. And today I pray that the year 2026 will spark some collective effervescence. We will sparkle again with life, laughter, togetherness, and actions that better serve ourselves, our neighbors, and the greater good. As J. K. Rowling once wrote of her 200 rejections of the Harry Potter series, “rock bottom can be a solid foundation.” With that thought in my mind, I’d like to offer a suggestion for next year’s word of the year. How about YET? Another writer, Paulette Perhach wrote: “I’d like to submit YET as your new favorite word. YET tells you that just because you don’t have something now doesn’t mean you won’t have it in the future if you work for it.” We can “pull ourselves from the ruin of our choices.” Let’s make YET our working vocabulary for the year 2026. Let’s put down our phones and limit our social media. Let’s be mindful of our use of resources and who and what we are supporting every time we pick up our phones, shop, read, listen, or participate in some way. Let’s stay aware that social media works by driving up outrage through clickbait and “likes” that sell advertising. Let’s tell the social media giants whose guiding philosophy is “move fast and break things,” that we are not careless people. We build things; we don’t break things. Let us pride ourselves not on our excess but on ensuring that each person has enough. Let’s demand a government that aligns with the well-being of its citizens and not just the wealthiest few. Let’s demand that government do more to prepare for the changes AI is bringing as well as the impending loss of government revenue previously collected from human workers through income tax. Let’s tax the robots. You can’t give tax breaks to the wealthiest citizens and then allow them to discard the human work force and the tax revenue that hardworking Americans create to pay the federal and state bills and support the programs that serve us all. We’ve already experienced how the poor planning for and regulation of social media has turned it into a hate machine, destroyed science and expertise with disinformation, and dismantled democracy here and around the world. We haven’t stopped it…YET. Let’s bring an end to profits over people, a policy that has led to our rising discontent. Executive reimbursement has been tied to short-term profits and has risen over 900%. CEOs and corporate America grow wealthy while making products that destroy us, our jobs, and the environment. Find out where your retirement funds are invested, where you are a shareholder. Vote, ask questions. Think before shopping. Democracy must be something we deliberately practice and that includes civility, kindness, tolerance, and expressions of gratitude for what and who are working. Call people by name. Support local businesses. Local shops serve the public good by keeping our neighborhoods lively and safe, by giving us places to gather and people to meet. They need our support. And support our community spaces like parks and rec centers and libraries while standing up to the new “aggressive architecture” that makes it unpleasant to gather in these common areas. We will share the fate of what happens next. So let it be a shared love and concern for ourselves, our neighbors, their families and ours, and the safety and health of our communities. Let’s walk together, pray together, cook together. Let’s make things beautiful together. Times are hard for so many, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enrich the times and places in which we live. We will write the story of our times. We will write the story of democracy’s future. Let’s toast to the New Year. Let’s toast to collective effervescence, to the new you, the new me, the new we, and to the power of YET. …and the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves… - William Shakespeare Chapter One “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem…He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born…She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:4-7 Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. - William J. Kirkpatrick “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:1-2 Then the traveler in the dark Thanks you for your tiny spark; He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! - Jane Taylor "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Matthew 25:35 This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine… Everywhere I go, I’m going to let it shine… Jesus gave it to me, I’m going to let it shine. - Attributed to Henry Dixon Loes Chapter Two “When I am back in the White House, we will use every tool, lever, and authority to get the homeless off our streets.” – Donald J. Trump, Former President “They’re eating the dogs!” - Donald J. Trump, Candidate for President, During Televised Debate “We’re going the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage.” - Donald J. Trump, President O stars, and dreams, and gentle night; O night and stars, return! And hide me from the hostile light That does not warm, but burns; That drains the blood of suffering men; Drinks tears, instead of dew; Let me sleep through this blinding reign, And only wake with you! - Emily Bronte An Epilogue “I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car… “This is what I say to the young Jewish boy wondering what I have done with his years…We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them... “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” - Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor, 1986 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have this wish I wish tonight. - Anonymous Advent calendars and counting down days,
angels on tree-tops and where Jesus lays, Bubble lights, boxes, and bright-colored bows, baking for weeks with freshly made doughs, Carolers, candy canes, and ribbon that curls, Christmas cloaks worn over grandmother’s pearls, Department store windows, decorating the house, desperate for sleep—even the mouse, Evergreen boughs and the scent of fresh pine, extra guests at the table all ready to dine, Fudge that is chewy and chocolates and sweets, friends from afar sending holiday tweets, Gingerbread houses and glitter that sparkles, gifts for the postman who delivers the parcels, Holly in wreathes with its sharp little leaves, hiding the presents under dark eaves, Ivory candles that light up church altars, Incense reminds that God never falters, Joy in our hearts and joy in our feet, jingle bell rockin’ all down the street, Kettles of red and hand bells that ring, keeping the secret of what Santa will bring, Letters to Santa and long distance calls, logs on the fire and trips to the malls, Mangers and magi and Mary and child, mistletoe kisses and magic grown wild, Naughty and nice and neighbors who carol, nutcrackers dressed in soldier apparel, Ohs and ahs on this special occasion, opening presents takes no persuasion, Prickly pine needles that stick to our socks, parade floats with singers who know where to dock, Quick little elves known for work and not prattle, quarters in stockings that hang from the mantel, Rudolph, red noses and radio tunes, rejoicing at midnight, napping by noon, Shepherds and stockings, and last minute shopping, snow drifts and shovels to get everyone hopping, Tissue paper and travel and toasting and trees, tinsel and toys and down on our knees, Unwrapping presents and unselfish deeds, uncles who love us and help with our needs, Visions of candy canes that dance in our heads, velvety blankets that cover our beds, Watching holiday movies with tears in our eyes, wishing and waiting and hoping time flies, X-raying packages at busy airports, Xeroxing wish lists so we don’t come up short, Yams in the oven alongside the ham, yeast rolls with butter and auntie’s best jam, Zipping along with zest and with zeal, zero days left to make an appeal. Santa is coming; I hear that’s quite true, May all that you’ve wished for be delivered to you. Merry Christmas! A homeless man made his way into my apartment building where he hid beneath a stairwell. I suspected the man’s presence because of the body odor that drifted up the stairs and met me outside my door as I left to run an errand. I set about my business tormented by the moral dilemma of the man’s presence. Management had instructed all residents to call the police when these situations occur. After completing my errand, I purchased a sandwich at the local convenience store and ran home to add fruit, cookies and a drink to the bag even though I did not know if the man would still be hiding there by the time I returned and made my way down the stairs again. As I descended the steps, the man heard me coming and began to hastily layer on the clothes he had placed across the radiator to dry. Also on the radiator were four squares of pepperoni pizza that I had seen earlier frozen to the ground next to our overflowing dumpster. The man looked up. “I am supposed to call the police, but I am giving you some food and asking you to leave,” I said. “I understand. I just came in to get dry. I was so cold and wet.” “I understand too,” I said. I wish I could do more.” “Thank you,” the man said as he held out a purse that he had rescued from the trash—a purse still in good condition. “Take this, he said.” “Save it in case you need it later,” I said. I returned to my apartment and I cried. Already on edge from the hideous state of our politics, the unraveling of the world order, and the heartless but understandable public reaction to the recent execution of an insurance executive on a street in New York City, I asked myself, “What to do? What to do to live through such a desperate situation?” How do I protect my soul in times as troubled as these when there are far too many with way too little and a notable few with far too much? History has shown that it is an untenable situation. It is a recipe for revolution. “Who will save us?” I asked myself as I looked into the twinkling Christmas lights. And the voice of a revolutionary answered: “Today I was hungry and you gave me to eat. Come to me now all who are weary, and I will give you rest.” |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
August 2026
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