Since my last post I have read two more books - American Gospel, by Jon Meacham (which I read earlier, so this was a re-read), and What Would the Founders Do? by Richard Brookhiser. Meacham's book I found much more helpful, especially the first part of the book. Some of these books deal not only with the Founders, but continue on throughout American History - Meacham talked about Lincoln, all the way through JFK and MLK, Jr. Very helpful book, though.

Brookhiser's book has much to do with the Founders, but only one chapter was about the Founders and religion. Some good points in there, though. I saw the book at Borders, and I probably should have just sat down and read the chapter there, rather than ordering the book. Oh well.

I am now reading Washington's God, by Michael Novak and Jana Novak (father/daughter). I am finding that in history, as in Biblical exegetical work, it often happens that we go into the history, or into the text, with the idea that we know what we want it to say, so we're going to find how it can say what we want. Washington no doubt was religious, but it may well be that for him - as well as many of the other Founders - religion was useful and helpful, and led to good conduct and good citizenship. What did Washingto have to say about Jesus? Not a whole lot. Maybe, say the Novaks, that is because he was a taciturn Anglican.

Another book came in this week - Inventing the Great Awakening. I'm still waiting for two more books to come to the house, and one should be coming to the church this week, called The Faith of the Founding Fathers. Lots of reading, but it looks like I'll get it all done with plenty of time to reflect and write on what I have found.

On another note - I didn't get as much reading done this week as Wednesday afternoon through Thursday afternoon were spent thinking about and worrying about Andrew. It's a very strange feeling to know that your youngest - he's 22, but still - is in the emergency room about 450 miles away, waiting for tests to see if he will need surgery to remove his appendix. It was also a strange feeling to be told at 6:30 p.m. that he would be going in for surgery shortly, so you expect a phone call perhaps by about 10 p.m. No call. Nothing until 9 a.m. the next morning, when Andrew calls and says it is all over. "Didn't the doctor call?" "No." "Well, I guess that's ok, since it would have been about 2 a.m. before she could have called." Seems that there was an O.R. delay, so Andrew didn't go in until about 11:30 at night. I'm glad the doctor was able to stay awake! Then at 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon he called and said he had been discharged. While we were pretty calm through it all, it was still very good to get that phone call.

Last Sunday we worshiped at St. Andrew Pres. in New Tampa. Tomorrow we will probably go to Palma Ceia. It's interesting to be a church visitor, and giving me a lot of things to think about with that as well.

The Rays came back to win today - when Matt Joyce came to the plate I said, "this would be a good time to break out of that slump." A couple of pitches later - grand slam. Nice. We'll see them on Thursday night against the Indians. Hope they're on a roll at that point.

That's all for now. Stay healthy and happy!