Somewhere around 13.5 Billion years ago, something happened that began the path to where we are today. I know that, like abortion, that debate is something that I will not change your mind about, nor will you change mine. The "Big Bang" is certain in my mind, because it is the BEST scientific theory* fitting the observed facts.

The recent release of the new photographs from the James Webb Space Telescope are nothing short of breathtaking. And they are reminder of what I have come to believe - that I do not need faith to tell me that there is a G-d. I need faith to tell me that in all of this I matter in any way shape or form.

And these days I find myself wondering more than ever, does it matter?

*Don't send me your eMails about "it's just a theory." Go look up the word in a dictionary  first.

It's a common idea  today that "we don't trust the media."

There's almost a mantra that this is a relatively new thing, and that no matter what side of the political fence you happen to be on, the "media" is automatically presumed to be fully serving as a water carrying propaganda arm of the other side.

In recent days, we have seen another story that reignites this debate. Just three days after the Dobbs ruling by the Supreme Court, the Indiana Star reported that women were coming from Ohio for "reproductive  care."

Among the patients referred to the Indiana clinic was a 10 year old incest victim.

Or... was there?

E=MC2

What does that well known equation  mean? Not in the mathematical sense. Not in the physical sense... what does it... you know...  mean?

For much of my life, I saw it as the key that unlocked certain forms of energy, for both good and bad. But there came a moment, reading a book at lunch, when it was like the figurative light bulb went on for me. The implications of the equation along with the scientific theory it supports were laid before me with the wonder of a young boy looking for the first time through a telescope.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on Einstein today... the concept is important, the details are not. The opening up of understanding is an amazing moment, rarely experienced in full. when it is, it is transformative and it ignites passionate fire.

Last week on Dave Does History*, I said something, related my reading and studying, and in that moment, it was like Relativity had been laid before me yet again, in a more expansive way...

In the early weeks  of 1776, Independence favor was fanned by the publication of the most influential and best selling book ever published in America. Thomas Paine had  arrived in the Colonies about a year earlier with a letter of introduction from Ben Franklin and immediately and set out to continue his legacy of failure at everything he tried.

Until he took the ideas of the enlightenment and put pen to pap and produced a book that soon had every person in the colonies discussing a single idea: Independence.

That fever led  villages, towns, counties all over the colonies declaring their Independence  from the King. And it led the Continental congress to act, and on July 4, 1776, they would issue the Declaration that was - and still is - heard around the  world. They founded a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated tot he  proposition that all men are created equal... an idea to which the men who wrote  those words knew they weren't living.

But they also  believed in the future, Americans would find a way to preserve and expand those  ideas...

“The harsh reality of life is that sooner or later, your beliefs will find themselves tested. It’s easy to say, “I believe this…” and maybe even mean it. Because until whatever belief it is has actually been tested it is just a belief.”

I wrote those words about ten or so days ago, after receiving some rather disturbing personal news. I was upset about the realization that a belief that had been held for a lifetime suddenly seemed out of play.

Now, from a religious viewpoint, that’s devastating enough. But what happens when said belief is your actual life’s purpose? In high school, I read the Book “Lord Jim,” which became one of the most influential books in my life (the movie is good too), particularly in those moments, rare though they are, when my own weaknesses come up against my ideals. It’s a lesson that I keep forefront in my thinking.

I don’t know what will be the final accounting in Uvalde. At this point, nobody does. But I do know this…. there are a lot of questions about what people say that they believe versus what they did when the moment came…

A few months ago we and a caller who was of the opinion that "only a few" guys actually "did anything" at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The idea is one that many people might have, simply because they just don't know anything about anybody except the few names that bubble to the top of the historical bottle. But if you uncork that bottle, you get a wonderful bouquet of ideas and of people that you have never heard  anything about before.

Sitting in that room in Philadelphia was a man who was one of the calming and guiding hands on the tiller. When the "four masters" gathered as the committee of style*, it was this man, William Samuel Johnson, who chaired the committee that would oversee the  final draft of the Constitution.

He was a man who had come late to the American Revolution. In fact, he had once been arrested by the Patriots for "communicating with the enemy." Once American Independence was declared, he was fully  on board with his new country. It shouldn't have been a surprise. He came from a legacy of inventing new ways of doing things.

In fact, you could make the  argument that it was his father who actually invented America...

*Gouverneur Morris, James  Madison, Rufus King and Alexander Hamilton

Links:

America Begins: How Samuel Johnson Created America (JAR)

I got up one  morning last week and I knew who Jesse Kelly is, but I had absolutely no idea  who Haley Carter is. I didn't even know that there was a professional women's soccer team in Houston. I didn't know that Haley Carter is from a town called "Friendswood, TX."  Nor did I care that the town had named Haley Carter as the Grand Marshall of the  Independence day Parade. I guess I have more important things to worry about,  like catching up on my watching of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup.

So when it comes to  the Jesse Kelly Show, there are things that I like about the show. The biggest  one is that he hates callers. So do I. Simpatico!

That said...