Waxing Philosophic

It’s good to be back in Arizona for the weekend. The first few things I noticed about being back were:

1. The roads sure are nice, compared to up there;
2. This is a big city!

I started sweating once I landed and got things out to the car. It’s amazing how one can get relatively acclimated in a short period of time. We’ve had a busy 24 hours since I got home. Lots of chores to do, the yard to clean up, floors to mop, boxes to sort out, kids to squeeze, etc. We somehow made it out to Sean & Jana’s house in Mesa for the annual look at the Christmas lights get together. It was fun. Lucy had a good time and was pretty tired by the time we got back. Everyone seems well.

While we were walking around looking at the lights, my dad told me that I was waxing philosophic in my old age. I guess when you move you become old. And when you blog you’re philosophical. So I guess it fits. I finished John Adams on the flight home last night. I’ll end this short post with some more philosophical waxings that I found in the book. Then it’s back to ornery old me — until I find another book, that is.

John Adams lived a long time. I’m too tired to look it up, but he was 89 or 90 by the time he died. He lost children, grandchildren, his wife, and many close friends. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the same day as his one-time close friend, later fierce rival, and ultimately again close friend, Thomas Jefferson. McCullough writes:

That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day, and that it was, of all days, the Fourth of July, could not be seen as a mere coincidence: it was a “visible and palpable” manifestation of “Divine favor,” wrote John Quincy (his oldest son and 6th President of the United States) in his diary that night, expressing what was felt and would be said again and again everywhere the news spread.

To one of his granddaughters, Caroline, Adams wrote:

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.

And, finally, he wrote just after his wife, Abigail’s, death, through correspondence with Jefferson:

I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe, this all, this totality would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.

Indeed.

That’s all for now, dad. Philosophical and all. I uploaded a few pictures tonight. Those you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/