WELL, THIS IS WHAT A HANDBASKET LOOKS LIKE !!!

My Grandpa Jack, when things looked bad, would always say: “It’s all going to hell in a handbasket.” The economy is plummeting; we are in a war we should not be in; and Trumpy has no idea what’s going on. Moreover, Chief Justice John Roberts, who once stood for sanity and fairness on the Supreme Court, has finally revealed his true, even illegal, point of view. 

Our fake President “Mr. Trumpy” takes contradictory positions on nearly every issue, and he still is too chicken shit to admit that he has always been in Putin’s pocket. I still think it has something to do with his Russian wife. In addition, he is deteriorating very quickly, belittling others regularly, and seems to be suffering from “old age.” His speeches and emails are almost totally incoherent. He wanders off-topic and spends most of his time picking on minor figures about their dislike of him, and vice versa. 

  Perhaps the most abominable thing is that, despite the above being more than clear, the Trumpy Republicans will not admit any of it and continue to cower around Trumpy, refusing to acknowledge that he (and they) have perhaps done irreparable damage to our international friends and to our own finances and political stability, leading to a political implosion. In fact, of course, Trumpy is very sick, both physically and psychologically, and will soon be gone. And then what? Our only hope lies in winning the Fall elections big time and in Trumpy’s death or “certification” as insane. 

Having watched our national political scene for almost a hundred years, it seems possible that the ship will eventually “right itself,” but I am no longer as confident as I used to be. I tell my wife, Mari, that I am ready to move to her mother country, Finland, or to Greece, any time she is, but so far she refuses. We watched a four-hour documentary last week about the making of America through the beliefs and behavior of so many who simply believed in the idea, and it filled both our hearts with pride and hope for the character of this great nation of ours. Hopefully, Trumpy et al. have not already destroyed it.       

“The Use of Books is Endless, and Much Study is Wearisome” (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

Traditionally, these are the words of King Solomon, the wisest of Hebrew kings, but even if he did not say them, they remain relevant today. The books of ancient times were numerous, but they were nothing compared to those of our time. I confess to having contributed a few to this “endless” list of published books, so I thought a word or two of explanation (read “apology”?) might be in order. 

Not having been the best of students in high school or college, I began my writing career as soon as I began teaching, assuming I should try to be a “scholar” of some sort. Over the years, I wrote and submitted numerous essays to scholarly theological journals, but only a couple were published. I finally found a publisher (Wm. B. Eerdmans) for my first book, “The Possibility of Religious Knowledge” (1968), which received a kind editorial note from Martin Marty, the editor of The Christian Century. Over the next few years, I managed to write a couple more volumes and several articles for scholarly journals. 

Then I “hit it big” when the Macmillan Company agreed to publish a series of philosophical essays I had selected and edited: “Philosophy Today Numbers 1, 2, and 3.” These became a big hit, and my writing “career” was off and running. About ten years later, Wadsworth Publishers produced my updated version of my former professor Melvin Rader’s introductory text, “The Enduring Questions,” which then went through three more editions. Together, these two publication adventures were the only ones from which I ever made any money. In the meantime, I continued to write articles for scholarly journals with various publishers for many years. 

As most of you know, all of this was in addition to my teaching career, which was the heart and soul of my years as an academician. The classroom is where I thrived, and my many friendships with my students over the years were what drove me to improve as a teacher. Recently, Cambridge Scholars Publishing Company in England has published my latest and final volume, “Understanding Wittgenstein’s Authorship.” Having spent many years studying Wittgenstein’s writings, I have some hope that this book might be of use to other students of Wittgenstein. 

      I must admit I am still surprised by all the foregoing activities and results. Not until I completed graduate school did any of my teachers expect me to become something of a scholar. Even though I have come to love scholarly writing, I now find it increasingly difficult to write clearly on the typewriter. I am continuing a weekly online class with several of my former students, reading and discussing various volumes of my own and others. These times are very special to me, partly because they keep me intellectually alive, but mostly because I love my former student friends very much. They have helped make my life what it is. None of the above has been “wearisome,” only “wonderful.”