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The textual material on this particular page is drawn directly from my published work
The Spiritual Pilgrim © 2021, pages 215-230.
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| However,
at this point I had no idea of what it was that I was to do next. I had
poured heart and soul into the New Geneva project, and had absolutely
nothing else lined up for myself at that point. Indeed, the Pottsville
Presbyterian Church had already extended a pastoral call (actually to
someone I knew in seminary), though she would not be taking up that
call until some many months hence. Thus I still had a job, at
least until just after Christmas. So here I was again, looking for a job! The phone call to and interview with Barbara
It was at this point that one of my parishioners spoke up. She had visited a newly-opened Christian school about a half-hour to the south of where we were living, thinking of enrolling one of her sons there. It had come across her mind that I would be a real gift to the school as one of its teachers, if I was interested. Would I please call the founder and head of the new school (another Barbara!)? And so I found myself making that call, and hearing Barbara's response: "Oh yes, we are indeed in need of someone with your background, to teach history to our junior-high and high-schoolers." But then she went on to say that the salary was unfortunately very low, only $25,000 (only a little over a half of what I was making as a pastor) – with no health benefits or pension payments offered in compensation either. Furthermore, they could offer (for the first year anyway) only 5/8ths of the $25,000 salary, as I would be teaching only in the mornings, the 5 courses prior to lunch (I would not be needed for the 3 afternoon classes). Wow, how was a family of six supposed to live off that salary (my rent alone was over $500 a month)? But the "Voice" made it very clear to me that I was to accept this offer, that this would be my next move in life. And so I took up the challenge, very aware that if this were of God, He and He alone would make this work. And on that basis I found myself heading to an formerly abandoned elementary-level school house that had recently come into the hands of this small group of Christian teachers and supporters. And I arrived to see before me an old brick country school, with newly-installed modular classrooms situated to the side of the building, the small complex surrounded by corn fields! And the woman I met was a most gracious, warm individual who was excited about the possibility of me joining the team. Barbara was, many years earlier, a former Catholic nun, then for many years a non-denominational (or evangelical Protestant) teacher at another Christian school, one that had folded several years earlier. And she had recently taken up the challenge to put this new school together, under the sense that this was distinctly what God wanted her to do. It was just entering into its third year of operation, and I would be teaching in one of the adjoining modular units – ones that a local school district had just passed on to The King's Academy (TKA) for service as TKA's junior high and high school classrooms. But there was something of an important side-benefit in it: I would be able to enroll my four kids there at 1/10th of the tuition cost, and I would get to be their teacher one day. Actually, I would even be teaching Rachel that fall as she entered the 7th grade. And as for the rest, particularly in the need to meet our living expenses, God would just have to take care of that for us! And indeed He did. We found out that the local Schuylkill Haven School Board would pay us $7,000 to bus our kids. They were required to do so because TKA was just inside the 10-mile southernmost school district boundary line – requiring busing services from the school district. It was cheaper to pay us than to have their own buses take our kids to school. Thus it helped greatly to meet our most basic living expenses, at least during that first year. We would lose that privilege the next year when there were more students from our school district attending TKA and the school district thus provided its own bus. But at that point I was making the full $25,000. Tight, but doable (barely)! But that's how God took care of things for us! And we were always well aware of this. My first class days, and 9/11
Of course my interest in history is always framed by my instincts as a political scientist: to look into what history teaches us – that is, shows us – by way of real past experience – the truths of social-political and even cultural behavior. And this historical "laboratory" that I work from is not merely American history, but in fact the history of all the major civilizations of the world – ancient as well as modern. In that first week or so of classes I was explaining to my students about the various challenges America faces, not only at home but from abroad. I told them that the days of "Fortress America" – where we could safely operate from behind the huge protective walls of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans – were over. We had to be prepared, like the rest of the world, to deal with foreign challenges right here, even in America itself. As an example, I mentioned how the Muslims hated everything America stood for, and had tried to bring down the New York Twin Towers (1993), very visible symbols of American economic and cultural greatness. I was quite certain that they would try again someday. I made that point on the Friday of that first full week of classes. I repeated the same message in another class or two the following Monday. And on Tuesday, September 11th, those Twin Towers indeed came down! The students were not only deeply horrified by the terrible events of that day (as we all were), they were shocked that I had just given notice rather prophetically of just such an event to come our way. But being thusly "prophetic" brought me only pain, for there was nothing positive in being "insightful" on this matter. I mourned with the rest of the country, and much of the world. And I was saddened ever further knowing full well that there would be huge sections of the Muslim world celebrating this great victory over evil, over "Satanic" America. This was true Muslim "jihad," bringing down Satan's evil servants (Americans and other Westerners). I was made even sadder when the news reached me that two of my Dunellen parishioners, including the church treasurer that I knew quite well, went down with the towers. But that Sunday, I presented at the Pottsville church (which I would continue to pastor through the rest of the year) internet pictures on the huge sanctuary screen, showing the world in mourning with America, and that most of the world was with us in this time of great grief, indeed, that God himself was with us. Now we had to do the right thing to honor those who died. But what would the "right thing" be? I had my own ideas on the matter: hunting down and ending Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda (actually al-Qa'ida) organization, which I suspected was behind this horrible event, that, or one of its affiliate organizations, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The only "plus" side of this tragedy was that my students would henceforth take quite seriously the ideas that I would put before them. And I had lots of those! |
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Course structuring
There were, naturally, a number of courses already set out for me to teach in the "history" category, as well as a geography course. And naturally, there were textbooks ready to go to work with. But I soon found that the different courses and their textbooks just did not quite add up to the comprehensive view that interested me the most, and what it was that I wanted to get over to my students. I wanted to build in them a broad and deep Christian worldview, based on a wide investigation of the broader world out there that awaited them. And that world, to me, was both highly international, and deeply historical across the world's many cultures. In short, I wanted to teach them how as a Christian they were to appreciate and go at the larger world, in a rather sophisticated fashion. Thanks to my website, some of the material I wanted to teach was already available, easy to download and then print out on the school's copy machine. And I intended to build up that material in the days (and years) ahead of me. When I had things organized the way I wanted (actually by my second year there) I started them out with an historical survey of Western Civilization. Then I introduced them to the world's other cultures, past and present, reaching even all the way back to paleolithic and neolithic times. I also directed them in an in-depth study of America's own history. And then finally, in their senior year, I finished the series with a broad study of "social dynamics," that is, the social, economic and political dynamics in the life of any society. And as a supplement to this "history" series, I developed a 4-year French language course of study (at least two years of foreign language study was required for graduation anyway), writing my own material for the first-year startup, and then quickly switching to some rather sophisticated French reading, including a full novel the senior year. And I required a world map test, repeated each year (forcing them not to forget what they had learned), Western and American history ID tests (being able identify the century that a cited event took place, and, if occurring since the beginning of the 20th century, the exact decade that this occurred), and then an extensive written essay on a number of questions I required of them. But each of these grading events was preceded by games and other exercises to get them ready. I would even review for them the essay questions, and what it was I was looking for in their responses. I tried to make things as easy as possible, because I knew that I was asking them to demonstrate a level of knowledge that would be more likely expected in a college course. But I refused to dumb things down just because these were high schoolers (I was teaching only high school after the first two years there). I rather preferred to bring them up to the high expectations that I knew full well awaited them as they moved on in life. And I can say, the response was amazingly positive on the part of my students, for word soon got back to TKA about how all of this advantaged them greatly when they moved on to college. For instance, one young lady was so happy to be the only one in a college course that knew where Syria was, and proved herself when the teacher challenged her to go to a world map and actually point out the country. No big deal for her. And my students used to laugh when fellow college students complained about having to write a college essay of some five to ten pages. They had been doing that all the way through their high school days. In fact I finally had to put a page limit on their essays, when some of them presented essay papers 20 to 25 pages in length. Having to grade 50 to 80 essays each quarter, I found myself totally consumed for over a full week in just grading these essays. My own daughters and sons were of course in those classes. And, just as much as I wanted to give them the very best education possible before they headed onward in the world of learning, so too I was just as interested in seeing their classmates highly prepared in that same way. And we all sensed that this was what this learning process that we were engaged together on was ultimately about. These students were not just young people I was paid to teach. These were my "offspring," both biologically and by academic adoption. We were family! |
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the same time that I take up my teaching duties at TKA, I finish off the remaining
months of my pastoral service in Pottsville ... with a nice send-off
by the church in late November (I was still pastoring in Pottsville at
the same time I started up teaching at The King's
Academy). Here too, the congregation gave us a nice send-off.      The woman on the right is the one who had the idea of me
contacting Mrs. Wilcox about a job at TKA! Meanwhile I have started up the long journey of developing my history, social studies and French courses.  My teaching style was quite informal ... to say the least!  Life
around the circle remains the same
… even with a French party or a dress-down day     |
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Dan takes leadership of the school
In 2005 TKA got itself a new director or "Headmaster," one that I would grow quite close to. Dan and I would often linger a bit after school to discuss matters impacting our world, that is, our larger American world. That was particularly the case when he set up a last-period contemporary affairs seminar with the seniors, located in my classroom, with me sometimes brought into the conversation, a conversation that would continue onward after school was over. We had the same goal in mind: to prepare our students to be ready to take on that world as well-informed Christians, dedicated to the task of making the world a bit of a better place, regardless of what particular talents our students brought to such a task, or what particular place they found themselves in in the process. … and connects us to the Heritage Foundation
Because of his own earlier affiliation with the organization, he was the one able to bring our students to the Heritage Foundation in DC each spring, and have them attend seminars set up just for them by this or that particular research expert, mornings and early afternoons (the rest of the afternoons to visit the city a bit). One year we even had an additional visit and a full day of seminars offered to us in the fall. The Heritage Foundation was very impressed with our students. And he was one of the adults accompanying Kathleen and me (and Paul and Elizabeth) on our 2011 Paris-London trip. He was always great company! In the fall of 2014, he moved on to a new position in Virginia, and very sadly, the dynamic I enjoyed so much went with him. In fact, when we went on our own a year or two later to the Heritage Foundation, instead of the serious seminars with their experts, we were treated by one of their interns to some kind of brief and bland high-school-level "Welcome to the Heritage Foundation" presentation. We never went back. |
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I soon challenged my students to go abroad with me, just for a week
(ultimately ten-days) over spring break, to discover the simple path
that leads to the larger world. Beginning in 2005, and every-other year
after that, I took them to Paris (soon adding London on the return) to
show them how to get around easily in a world that was totally new to
them. We did some touring together in the mornings – not by any tour bus but rather by having to get around using the subway system – and then I turned them loose in the afternoons to explore the city on their own (actually at least in small groups, because solo-touring was a big no-no), with the instructions to meet at such-and-such metro stop if they wanted to have dinner at a restaurant we had reserved. They always showed up on time! Then they were free to explore the city on their own in the evenings (again, in small groups), with the warning that the metro system shut down at 11:00 at night. And unless they wanted a long walk back to the hotel, they had better find themselves on the metro by that time. And I had no "lights-out" night-time limit, only the warning that if they did not want to be zombies dragging around the next morning, they would want to get themselves to bed at a decent hour. And they were to remember to keep things quiet in their hotel-room gatherings, as there were others on their same floors. And they proved to be quite respectful of these "boundaries." We had a great time, visiting the Louvre museum, shopping at book stores and resting at cafes in the Latin Quarter, exploring the Champs Elysees, etc. We would also head out to the castle at Fontainebleau (about an hour outside of Paris), similar to the Versailles Palace, though a bit smaller in size… and with usually few other visitors there. We had the beautiful place virtually to ourselves! And as it was over the Easter Season, we would find ourselves in the Notre Dame Cathedral (usually Palm Sunday) for Sunday morning worship. Actually, it used to grieve me deeply over how easy it was to find ourselves there, when it seemed that the French should have been crowding this great place to the very limits on such an important Sunday. I soon added a few days in London to the itinerary (at first we merely changed planes there), to, again, set them loose after a morning together in this great city. By the time we got to London (by train through the "Chunnel") they considered themselves "experts" at getting around a new city. And that was ultimately what this was all about! At first the parents were a bit nervous about how I put so much responsibility on the kids themselves in getting around in these foreign cities. But they soon came to appreciate greatly what this meant as a learning experience for their kids. And we always had a great time! I always had another adult helping me on the trip, at first my friend Bob (who had been part of the New Geneva team, and who had actually done some study in Paris himself during his college days), then a couple of teachers from school (for them also a new learning experience), then the head of the school himself, Dan, with Kathleen also joining the team on several of our trips. And on my last two trips, helping out as additional chaperones, were also son Paul and then daughter Elizabeth, each now in college and each having previously taken this same trip twice (as had also their older sister Rachel in the first years of this enterprise and then also as their younger brother John during the last two of our visits.) At first we started off with about a dozen TKA students making the trip. But as time went by, the number increased to twenty or so students, including even some of our foreign students attending TKA (we were getting a lot of international students at the school by that time). |
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Our first trip to Paris (2005)
with my friend Rob as chaperone and Rachel as part of the student group     Then again in 2007
with Paul as well as Rachel part of the group
(with some of their friends making this their second visit as well)     For more pictures of the 2007 trip
And again another trip to Paris (2009) ... except that the trip has been expanded to include several days in London as well. Kathleen is a chaperone, Paul and Elizabeth are part of the group ... and John meets us in Paris, traveling with our friends Rob and Sue (and Jacob)        London 2009 (Piccadilly and the Beatles' crosswalk) For more pictures of the 2009 trip And then again two years later (2011) ... Kathleen is again a chaperone ... as well as Dan, TKA's headmaster, and Elizabeth is part of the group        For more pictures of the 2011 trip Then two years after that (Paris and London – 2013) ... A very cold trip! Paul and Kathleen are chaperones ... John is part of the group      And a snowy London - 2013     For more pictures of the 2013 trip Then two years after that ... my last TKA trip (2015) John – as well as his friend Jacob – is part of the group with Elizabeth, our friend Sue, and fellow teacher (and close friend) Jim as chaperones          Fontainebleau Castle ... an hour southeast of Paris  Buckingham Palace – London - 2015 For more pictures of the 2015 trip |
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Foreign students living with us
Indeed, one of the goals of both the Hodges family and ultimately TKA was to connect ourselves with the larger world, by bringing that world to us right there in Pennsylvania. Our first such event happened when TKA brought in for about two weeks during the spring of 2006 a group of about a dozen French students, traveling under a special exchange program. One of the girls, Justine, stayed with us, and in doing so also connected us with some of her group's other doings at the same time. It was fun. So we signed ourselves up to do some more hosting, again, French students, coming to America through the Nacel exchange program to stay with American families for about a month during the summers. Thus it was that we had another French girl, Céline, stay with us during the summer of 2007. Then we hosted for the entire 2007-2008 school year John, not a foreign student but instead the son of my Mobile friend, Bill – whose Mobile home I had made my own during my Princeton days. John and my son Paul were the same age, and spent the year hanging out together, both at school and obviously also at home. John in fact became a goalie for the recently assembled school varsity soccer team (Paul being one of its organizers). This merely brought our two families even closer together. That summer (2008) we were joined again by another French girl, Julie (good friends ever since!). Then that fall a girl from Ukraine, Irishka (or just Ira) joined us for the 2008-2009 school year, also a dear friend ever since! Then in the summer of 2010 another French girl, Eléanore, joined us, and likewise in 2012, a French boy, Bastien. That fall, a Norwegian boy, Håkon, joined us for the 2012-2013 school year. He was about half-way in age between Paul and John, and became close to both, though Paul was already off in college at that point. And he too joined (along with John) the TKA soccer team. He also joined us in our Paris-London trip that spring. There would be a bit of a break in scheduling at that point, and it would not be until the 2017-2018 school year that we found ourselves serving again as international hosts, this time a Vietnamese student, Dat, a very quiet young man that seemed more like a shadow than an active participant in our family life, part of the reason being that all of our own kids had moved on from home by that point. |
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Hosting French students:
Justine – Spring of 2006
  Céline summer of 2007
      Julie
summer of 2008
      And
we host students studying at TKA for the whole school year.
John … The son of my Mobile friend Bill, 2007-2008       Ira
… Russian-speaking Ukrainian 2008-2009
      Eléanore (French) ... Summer of
2010
      Bastien (French) ... summer of
2012
      And
for the whole school year we host Haakon (or Håkon – Norwegian) 2012-2013
    (below) Håkon in Paris a visit to Schuylkill Haven by his family   And finally, also for the 2017-2018 School year Dat
(Vietnamese)
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Foreign students at TKA
The school's director, Barbara, was very involved in the international exchange idea (personally connected in such exchange with China), especially after she stepped down from the school's leadership to focus specifically on that part of the school's academic dynamics. On they came, from Brazil, Bolivia, Korea, China, India, Armenia, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain, Tanzania, etc. In fact the international component in the high school became quite high, making my task of bringing the larger world to the cornfields of eastern Pennsylvania all the easier! And it certainly did not hurt our soccer teams any (we had a very active girls soccer team as well)! In fact, we did quite well, with this high international makeup of our soccer teams. |
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And
as our kids grow up, music … and not just
academics … becomes a major interest of Rachel, Paul, Elizabeth and John! They all learned how to play the piano ... and develop another musical area as well     Music ... and more
music
   They have a lot of fun with it all! Their
musical interests could also be quite serious.
  Here are Paul (cello) and Rachel (flute) in December of 2005 getting ready to perform for the Schuylkill Youth Symphony    Elizabeth (violin) soon joins Paul on the
Symphony
  … and John develops his own area of musical interest
   Soccer is also a major (very major!) interest of Paul’s. In fact, he is one of the organizers of TKA's first soccer team (which does very, very well!).     And Elizabeth and John take up the sport as well
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A deep housing makeover
In accepting the position at TKA, it quickly became apparent that we needed to look beyond the small miner's home we were renting and find some place more permanent, able to better accommodate a family of six. John and Paul were sharing a room, and Rachel and Elizabeth had a room together in what was merely the attic, having to sleep on air mattresses placed on the living-room floor in the summers when the attic became as hot as a furnace. So, with a realtor in tow, we began the search, far and wide, in the area (the fall of 2003). Of course our finances were such – as the realtor well knew – that what she continued to show us was hardly any better than the place we were renting. It was very discouraging, as we went from one unpleasant possibility to another. Finally I undertook to do some searching online myself, and found (January 2004) an old two-story farmhouse whose huge dairy farm had been subdivided as a large neighborhood with some quite nice new homes, probably built in the 1970s and 1980s. So the farmhouse, built in 1890, stood out quite boldly in the neighborhood. I showed the listing to the realtor, and off we went. Thanks to a large amount of money passed on to Gina and me by our mom – because of the sale of our Collinsville home, money that we had put into savings for just such an event – we could offer a huge down-payment and take on a 15-year mortgage, with monthly payments less than what we had been paying for our rental home. So it was that we quickly closed the deal. But the farmhouse was in bad shape. It had been cut up into some four apartments, which were in need of a deep makeover. It also had a separate 2-story garage, rented by a builder who kept a lot of his tools and material there. When I brought my friend Bob and then Kathleen's brother John to look over our new purchase, they both agreed that I had lost my mind. But I saw not what it was, but instead what it might become. It had a beautiful bay window on the front facing the main street, a large porch facing the side street, and the apartment attached to the back part of the home being newer and needing only some paint, new floor covering, and some work in the kitchen and bathroom to get it ready to continue to serve as a rental home, helping to cover the costs of the deep upgrade that would be needed elsewhere in our new home. And as far as that was concerned, I knew I could do nearly all that work myself. But what a surprise when we turned our attention that summer to the main house, and began our work on it. When we went to strip the walls of layers of wall-paper, we were abruptly presented with the problem that the plaster beneath quickly turned to powder when brought to the light of day. So all of that had to go, including the lathe strips beneath, so that we found ourselves back to the wall studs everywhere. We could thus stand at one end of the house and see through all the rooms to the back of the house. But this stripping of the walls actually allowed me to rebuild entirely the electrical system and plumbing needed to bring the home up to standard. We took out the several kitchens and baths, took out a central staircase that had been put in place when the home was subdivided into three internal apartments, and relocated walls here and there, both upstairs and down. And I installed a central fireplace with glass surround that opened to both our new living room and dining room. And we built a very large and quite modern kitchen and breakfast area, as well as a number of new bathrooms. And the whole family pitched in to do the work. Paul was a big help in installing the drywall to both our walls and high ceilings, as well as some of the electrical work. Kathleen and the girls were wood-trim strippers (we kept as much of the quite elegant antique wood-trim as possible), wall painters, etc. John, however, was only seven at the time, and mostly just observed quietly the work being done on his new home. Finally, a year later, with Paul helping me sand and varnish the old wood floors, we were ready to move in, helped by numerous friends to fill the place with our furnishings. We had a home of our own now. There was still work to be done. The floors of the five bedrooms on the second floor needed to be sanded and varnished (the summer of 2007). One of the rooms off the living-room had been set aside to eventually (the summer of 2008) become a huge library, to hold my extensive book collection, and a massive desk (we called it "superdesk") which I built, with two computers and numerous file drawers. And the kitchen still needed cabinet doors, which I took on as a special project (the summer of 2009), working from oak boards, cut, glued and molded into beautiful cabinet doors, a job I enjoyed greatly! And the outside of the totally white house needed final painting, and the addition of dark green shutters and doors (also the summer of 2009). |
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In 2004-2005 we take on the project of a new (old)
farmhouse
in Schuylkill Haven (built in 1890)         Getting things ready to move in (that Thanksgiving of
2005)
     And thus we are able to spend Christmas in
our new home
... even though there is still a lot of work to be done       Completing work on the second floor
(summer of 2007)
    The house …
as of the fall of 2007
  Life at home ... as the house, adjoining apartment, and detached garage
begin to take on their final shape   Then in 2009 we undertake exterior finishing work
           
... and some work in the kitchen joining, molding, finishing and installing kitchen cabinet doors (2009). I made the fancy trim piece over the entrance to the front porch ... and created the kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts, starting out with nothing more than oak planks (which I cut and molded into finished pieces).  ... and
the next spring laying out a patio and a vegetable
garden (2010)
  The house (August
2010)
  Notice the saw-horses on the porch. I’m building more
cabinet doors.
Another project finished up about that
time was the library ... and "superdesk"!
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Finding a place in the area's religious community
One of the absolute rules of interim pastoring is that you do not stay at the church you have just served once a permanent pastor has been called. But we were now staying in the community itself (or at least nearby), and thus we would have to find a new church to call our own. But there were no other Presbyterian churches within reasonable reach. As it turned out, the decision as to where we would henceforth be worshiping was not all that difficult, as I had become personally very close to Bill, the pastor who had started up nearby his own evangelical (and non-denominational) Lighthouse Church. Even my friend Bob and his wife Sue had just moved there themselves, and convinced me to lead a Wednesday night Bible study (the Gospel of John) at that church. So it was quite easy. We simply became "members" of the Lighthouse Church. As far as my Presbyterian involvement (I was still listed as a member of the regional presbytery) things quickly faded away. First of all, presbytery meetings were held in the afternoons, and I was teaching at TKA during that same time, thus unable to attend presbytery meetings. I did agree to do some Sunday pastoring for a Presbyterian church about an hour away in Hazleton, for about a year, 2005-2006, but preaching there only every-other week. I was glad to help out. But I kept my participation to this every-other-week basis in order not to become their interim pastor. I was already fully involved in teaching at TKA! But beyond that, I found that I was distancing myself not only from the doings of the presbytery, but also even of the denomination itself. I was not very happy with the "progressive" direction it was headed in, the denomination being unwilling to understand why that very direction was a big part of the reason for the loss of its former place, its traditional voice, in the life of the nation. Anyway, I knew that what I understood to be the real dynamics driving the life of our people was not something that the "peace and social justice" warriors now directing the Presbyterian denomination wanted to have to answer to. So, I simply dropped further activity with the denomination, the one that I was born in, schooled within, and served as pastor, during those many years. My heart and soul now belonged elsewhere. |
| I do some pastoring in Hazleton at the Presbyterian Church (2005-2006)
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"Baby Bush"
I developed the habit of referring to our newest President (2001-2009) as "Baby Bush" in contrast to his father, "Daddy Bush" (US President 1989-1993). Actually I liked Daddy Bush very much. But Baby Bush was a huge disappointment to me. What bothered me was the way he let His Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld take over the hunt for Bin Laden. That should have been the job of the CIA, who knew how to find local support in Afghanistan – and vital secret information needed to run the monster Bin Laden down. I knew how vast the Hindu Kush mountains were, and sending American soldiers into those mountains looking for Bin Laden was a total waste of time. Not only could Bin Laden easily hide in those hills, he was most likely to slip into nearby Pakistan if he stood in any obvious danger of discovery. And there was no way we were going to send troops into Pakistan after him, short of nuclear war with our supposed ally Pakistan! But what really bothered me about Baby Bush was his obvious desire to bring down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This made no sense at all, in even a more dangerous way. Iraq was a powder keg of sectarian explosives (Sunni Arabs hating Shi'ite Arabs, with Sunni Kurds wanting out of the whole Iraqi deal, and our allies, the Turks fuming over the way American involvement would stir up big problems within Turkeys' own Kurdish population). The only thing holding Iraq together (a post-World-War-One British creation) was Saddam Hussein himself. Taking him out would throw the whole area into turmoil, leaving opportunities for all kinds of political mischief, rather than some idyllic "democracy" as the result. Even Vice President Cheney himself had earlier confessed that we had not gone into Iraq itself after chasing Saddam out of Kuwait, because Iraq was a "quagmire," that is, a bottomless pit to sink into and lose everything. But Baby Bush was determined to be the one to bring Saddam "to justice," and (in keeping with DC political, intellectual and moral standards) now Cheney stood strongly with Bush in this plunge into the same quagmire. I was upset, as Bush tried one excuse after another to justify his Saddam "takeout." And my students knew how upset I was. So apparently were some of the parents. So Dan came to me to tell me to ease up. He felt pretty much the same way I did over the matter. But it was upsetting these parents because I seemed so "anti-American" in not supporting our President. Anti-American? I loved my country. I just wanted my country not to do something disastrously stupid. But stupid it did. And there was not much I really could do about it! |
| Bush
announces his "Bush Doctrine" ... punishing the Afghan Taliban for not giving up Bin Laden.    But the CIA’s Tenet and the Pentagon’s Rumsfeld compete for command of the operation. Rumsfeld wins … except that the military is not close to being ready for the task. In this long delay, Bin Laden is able to go into hiding. It will take the next ten years to find him. Then Bush decides to take on Iraq ... dump its dictator and "free" it for democracy! After
maneuvering to try to get more international allies to join his crusade
against Saddam Hussein (but few do), in March of the next year (2003)
Bush is ready for his full assault on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
We call what happens
next to Iraq "Shock and Awe." We bomb … then invade with ground forces. The Iraqis fight back … and Saddam Hussein goes into hiding. To me, what we are doing to an Iraq that is of no threat to us is pure evil ... an evil that, as all evils do, justifies itself according to some kind of high moral principle. But few people – other than gullible Americans – bought Bush's moralizing. It was all just too horrible to be justified. And in the end, we stepped into Cheney's "quagmire." At the same time, Bush had "freed up" the American economy from long-standing economic rules (in part to cover the huge cost of his Iraqi war) in order to bring the American economy out of a slump. But in doing so, he also fired up a horrible speculative fever in the housing market ... which in the end bankrupted a huge part of the world of high finance ... and private citizens as well. |
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Obama's "change"
When Baby Bush left office, with the American economy in near-melt-down status, I was hoping that the country would turn its leadership over to a proven patriot of the bravest kind, John McCain. But I also realized that the Republican Party would take a huge hit because of the economic disaster Bush left behind. And also, much was made by the Democrats of McCain's age, running for office at age 72. But they couldn't find much dirt to hit him with (besides his age) so they went after his running mate, Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, whom they accused of being no more than a beauty-queen bimbo. And with McCain so old, the Democrats made as much as possible about how dangerously close the country was to coming under the presidency of a beauty-queen bimbo if the McCain-Palin ticket were to win the election. However, my students and I attended a rally put on by both candidates, where from my point of view, they were both impressive in the way they addressed the major issues facing the country. And we also attended a Clinton rally, in which only Hillary's husband Bill was present. At this point Hillary had already been defeated by Obama in the race for the Democratic Party nomination, and the event was more a celebration of "Clintonness" than any presentation of the major issues of the campaign. As far as Obama went, I could not make out much about the man, except that he rode big his "Blackness" (despite being raised by a White mother and White grandparents), and that he intended to "change" America. I was a bit nervous that Obama's goal was to bring the country back to the days of the late 1960s, when race became a very divisive issue, even violently so. But I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this matter. But little by little his program of "change" saddened me. He really wanted to bring Middle America down because of all of its failings. He rightly understood the Supreme Court (not Congress) to be the most pivotal institution in getting his changes in place. When he appointed two unmarried and childless women – one of them also Hispanic and the other Jewish – to the Supreme Court, I knew Middle America was in for trouble. Then too, Obama couldn't stay out of local tragedies, first the shooting of a Black youth in Florida, which Obama went before the public announcing that if he himself had a son, he would have been like the Black youth killed in this struggle with a White (actually mixed race himself) in a neighborhood-watch event. And later, he would go full force against a White cop in Ferguson Missouri, when the cop shot a Black youth, Obama doing so, well before the facts in the matter were fully assembled. This event in turn birthed the Black Lives Matter Movement, which got full support from Obama, and his Attorney General, Eric Holder – who Obama sent to Ferguson to make sure that the final verdict on the matter went against the White cop. But the actual facts ultimately supported the cop, to the grand disappointment of Holder, who could not resist issuing deep criticism of the (White) racism that underlay the whole mess. And so it was that America was back in the business of issuing racist accusations across American society, something that the country definitely did not need. But it seemed to serve some strong, but very narrow, political interests quite well, as racism (and for that matter nationalism, religious sectarianism, tribalism and now even sexism) always does. But serving such narrow political interests is always guaranteed to undercut the larger social order, disastrously so. I was also saddened that Obama had America back trying to export its democratic idealism abroad, especially in the Middle East – when the "Arab Spring" of 2011 broke out, and country after country went through the disruptions of mob uprisings (the mob hysteria even spread to Greece, Italy, and ultimately even Great Britain). Obama sent air support to the heavy European involvement in the takedown of Libyan dictator Gaddafi, which threw that country into deep civil war. This would turn around and bite us a year later when our American ambassador to a post-Gaddafi Libya and two other American officials were killed in the very region that we had been supporting, in the largely anti-Gaddafi East (Cyrenaica) versus the largely pro-Gaddafi West (Tripolitania). Ironic, not to mention tragic. And Obama did everything he could to take down Syrian president Assad, not only helping to throw that country into ever-deeper civil war (several million people forced to flee the country) but giving Russia and Iran the excuse to come big into Syria to make themselves very useful to Assad, and find a new position of political influence right there on the shores of the Mediterranean! Wow! That was a big political loss for America. And Obama came close to doing the same in Egypt, after the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Mubarak, with Obama's enthusiastic support of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, Morsi, when he narrowly won new Egyptian elections as the country's president, and then immediately issued an arrest warrant for his largely Secular opponent (who had to flee the country)! The election was so divisive, and Morsi so dictatorial, that this in turn threw the country into even deeper disorder, until the Egyptian military finally stepped in and restored order in the country ... to the great disapproval of Obama! But America really had little say in what was going on in Egypt at this point. And I was unhappy with Obama's non-response to China's building a military base in the South China Sea, just offshore from the Philippines, in order to enforce its claim that this vital waterway was actually Chinese territory. No, all the rest of the world, and the many countries surrounding the South China Sea knew it to be "high seas," belonging to no one. And Obama also loudly claimed this point, but did nothing to put military muscle behind that claim. Building our own military base somewhere near the Chinese base would have been what I would have done, though no one was asking me what to do on the matter! Overall, in the same way that Bush left America hurting deeply both economically (the meltdown) and diplomatically (Afghanistan and Iraq) I felt the same hurt for America in what Obama left behind morally and spiritually (as well as diplomatically) in departing from office after serving eight years as president. Not only had America further weakened its position internationally, the country itself was once again bitterly divided across not only racial lines but now also across unbending ideological lines as well. |
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Wanting to see America get back on course
What America needed badly at that point was healing, not more ideological divisiveness. That's why I so much wanted to see someone like the famous surgeon Ben Carson take the American presidency. Although he was even more "Black" by birth than Obama, in his go at life, he had become entirely Middle American in spirit, living well-above the crude racial divisions that were now tearing at the country. Having Carson as our American president would have served greatly in inspiring the country to rise once again to some kind of grander social purpose, and sense of unity. Dr. Carson was a wonderful example to put before all Americans of traditional American "rags to riches" development through hard work (rather than just standing around complaining about how unfair life was). He was self-taught, demonstrating an ability to take on most any challenge and going at it wisely. He was an outstanding team player. And he was deeply and most authentically Christian. America needed someone like Carson to get the nation back on track politically, socially, morally and spiritually. Otherwise the county was in danger of going further down this road not only of ideological hostility, but also that of social class, race, and even sexual and generational hostilities – the very things that self-serving politicians love to exploit for personal gain,1 but also the very things that destroy social unity – and thus a society's ability to achieve and sustain greatness. But in the 2016 Republican Presidential Debates, Carson was given little attention, because Trump kept swinging the TV cameras back to himself with his loud comments and running attacks and insults aimed at his competitors. I was deeply saddened that, in the end, this was the basis on which the Republican Party made its choice of candidates. I must say that after this, I found myself rather removed from what was further unfolding at the political heart of my beloved America. I was tired of listening to self-serving political "Reason" loudly proclaimed by this or that group. My prayers for Divine rescue
My heart was breaking for the country I loved dearly. It seemed to me that, since the beginning of the 21st century, we had gone so far down the very destructive "silly road," that short of divine intervention by God himself (another Great Awakening), America would no longer be able to self-correct in its social plunge downwards. And thus it became my daily prayer (and my beloved family's prayer) that God would intervene, and bring Middle America back on course, the one that was set out four centuries ago by the Puritans who came to America to make this new social venture one of setting up a City on a Hill, a Christ-like Light to the Nations. And it was ultimately why I made the decision finally to take on the task of telling just that story, in my three-volume history of America – The Covenant Nation, A Christian Perspective. 1Cheap-shot White racist politics employed by Southern politicians in the 1950s and 1960s served no good purpose to the poor Whites that these politicians were seeking votes from. It only gave poor Whites an excuse to accept their status, because of the supposedly impassable social barriers placed in front of them by the so-called "Black Threat." But the same holds true today when "Progressive" politicians also play the same race card – except now against Whites – in an effort to broaden their political base within the Black community. Such appeal to Black racism is guaranteed to be no more of an aid to poor-Black development than Black-baiting was to poor-White development in the previous century. |
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| Asked what the graduates had learned at TKA, instead of a gushy tribute to all they had learned from the wonderful teachers, etc. ... that had typically been the response as they went down the line of graduating seniors ... John’s answer was one word: "perseverance." |
Miles
H. Hodges
