Call him Ishmael

Little Miss Sunshine

2009-11-15T19:26:00.003-05:00

This is what our car did to us this morning and has been doing all day, except instead of the horn it's the "ding - ding - ding-ing" of the "door open" alarm, even though the car doors are closed. Halfway home the automatic locks went semi-automatic, all on their own. We had to crank the radio so we could hear each other over the noise.

Jeffy thinks it's an electrical problem.

Thanks, Jeff.

O Let Me Then His Strange Love Still Admire

2009-11-14T16:14:00.002-05:00

Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,
For I have sinn'd, and sinn'd, and only He,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died.
But by my death can not be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety.
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorified.
O let me then His strange love still admire;
Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment;
And Jacob came clothed in vile harsh attire,
But to supplant, and with gainful intent;
God clothed Himself in vile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.

Holy Sonnet XI, by John Donne

Life's tough. . . .

2009-11-11T11:42:00.003-05:00

As my dad and grandpa say, "Life's tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid." This happend at North Station two nights ago.

Proverbs 3100: Female Hormones

2009-10-21T21:34:00.002-04:00

Maggie (pregnant), to Michael, driving home from dinner and coffee out:

You know, the more I go through life, the more I realize that women wrongfully blame their hormones for all of their shortcomings. "Oh, I'm a teenage girl, it's my hormones . . . ehhh, I got my period, it's my hormones . . . oooh, I got married and la da da, my hormones are changing . . . eeeh, sex, my hormones . . . oh shoot, I got pregnant, now my hormones are really changing . . . oh, look, I have menopause, now I don't even have hormones." Shut up. Get over it. Every woman has hormones, it's a fact of life, just deal with it and move on. Why make the rest of the world suffer because you have hormones that you've had your whole life and that every woman before you has had and complained about? You're no different. Just suck it up already, we get it, and I'm tired of hearing you complain it about all the livelong day. Can't handle your hormones? Join the club! Neither can the rest of us. But the rest of us do, and do you think we like it? I realize that we have hormones but I don't see how it's right to pin every single one of our daggone problems on them. Men don't do it, why should you? I mean, half the world's population's got the hormones.

Michael: Actually, men have hormones too.

Maggie: Exactly. But you don't talk about hormones when you get together.

Michael: Well, we talk about your hormones.

Maggie: Yeah, well, you're lucky, 'cause well every time we get together it's "my hormones did this" and "my hormones caused that to happen" and "look what my hormones did to me." I'm so sick and daggum tired of the whole hormonal scapegoat. You know what I mean? DO YOU?

Michael: Oh yeah.

Maggie: I mean, I don't think it's a valid excuse to bite someone's head off just because you have hormones. I don't blame it on my hormones, and you don't let me blame it on my hormones. If I bite someone's head off, you let me know it. I can't stand that some women will do that to their husbands, I mean, you never have to put up with my hormones.

Pause.

This is the—perfect—latte. I mean it. Mmm. Hands down, best vanilla latte I have ever had. AND it's decaf.

Michael: Good, I'm glad you like it.

Maggie, laughing: Sometimes you have to put up with my hormones. Stops laughing. But when my hormones come out, you shut 'em right up, right back up into the box they came in. Send 'em back.

Pause.

You don't actually call me on my hormones very often. Only when it's bad.

Michael: I don't really need to. You do a good job on that. Usually I just have to wait for the echo of what you're saying to come back to you, and you take care if it yourself.

Maggie: Aw, honey, I love you. Michael, I am not kidding. This is the BEST latte I have EVER HAD. I don't know how they do it.

Michael: It's Starbucks.

Maggie: I really don't know how they do it. They just blame everything on their hormones, well whoop-de-do, my hormones caused this, that, and bag of chips, well la di da da, yours and mine both, so stop blaming everything on your dang hormones.

Michael, pulling into the driveway: Well, that was fun—

Maggie: Honey, this was SUCH a fun night, the whole thing. Thanks so much for dinner. And the latte.

Michael: Yeah, thank you, that was fun.

Maggie: Other wives don't have this much fun. And they probebly blame it on their dang hormones. Women.

Exeunt.

Happy Constitution Day

2009-09-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

A Truant Disposition

2009-08-31T19:43:00.002-04:00

Sorry, folks. Check back later. I'm in my first full week of teaching for the year.

A Draught of Whitman

2009-08-18T11:31:00.002-04:00

To a friend of a friend, recently:

I remember when Whitman, for me, went from a mere transcendentalist to an insightful, inspirational, moving poet. There are many things about his philosophy with which I could not diagree more. But they alone do not comprise Whitman. It was rainy and I was exhausted and had an hour to kill before returning to some obligation which, I recall, required me to wear a suit for no good reason, so I returned to my dorm room to catch up on Emerson's gang. Finding my roommate gone, I turned on only my desk lamp and sat on the floor and opened a Penguin copy of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, with preface. I read about 20 pages before realizing, almost abashedly, that I had hardly been conscious of reading at all, yet neither was I drifting off or zoning out; I was being moved. I have been less derogatory toward the poet since. I suppose I hope I have not been truly derogatory at all, but only fair. Anyway, I didn't care much about fairness toward Whitman before then.

Pick Your Poison

2009-08-15T01:03:00.005-04:00

[You don't need this short article for the following to make sense, but it did prompt my train of thought.]

I'm of the mindset that the government generally shouldn't be in the healthcare business. One reason is that the United States government wasn't established with that in mind (although it's been since college that I have read the Massachusetts Constitution, which matters more in light of this article). I realize that nowadays our government must, under the circumstances, operate far beyond its originally intended sphere, and that it can do so constitutionally in large part because of the 14th Amendment. It doesn't follow, though, that the government should try all it can, or that what it tries it will execute well.

A second reason I generally prefer that the government stay out of the healthcare business is that most politicians are (presumably) better politicians than businessmen. I would, however, like a stat on the number of businessmen in Congress and in states' General Assemblies, if anyone finds one.

A third reason I generally would rather the government sit this one out--more accurately, that the government had not entered healthcare business in the first place--is that once government begins to enlarge its sphere, the more people expect it to do for them, contributing to the sense of entitlement our current society has. Frederic Bastiat discusses this in his short and sweet book The Law.

Fourth, and finally to the article, at some point you can hardly blame peope for expecting the government to do such things for them once the government has promised to do them. It was a poor move for the government (and therefore the people) to enter the healthcare business, but is a near scam to pull promised healthcare from people who immigrated here legally.

That said, if the money came in for the government to continue in a business I don't think it should be in--a business which, in a free market, I would expect and hope would go out of business due to being outperformed by more efficient competitors--how would I vote? Still thinking.

Youkilis vs. Porcello @ Fenway Park, 8.11.2009

2009-08-13T11:47:00.007-04:00

We (Mags, Mom, Dad, Becca, and I) saw a Sox game Monday night, when the teams started trading pitches at one another. Then it escalated:

Porcello not trying to hit him? C'mon, he practically threw it at Youk's back. By the way, for those not acquainted with Youkilis or the Sox, the crowd isn't "booing," it's "You-ing," or "Youk-ing."

Here's some home video of it from between home and first. The good part's up front:

Both players were suspended for 5 games. Yoooouk. Go Sox.

Sunday, Sunday

2009-08-10T12:12:00.001-04:00

Did you nap?

Huh?

Did you nap?

No. I drank a pot of coffee.

That's bad for your heart.

Bad for my heart, good for my soul.

Touché.

Prayer = Fishing?

2009-08-04T23:27:00.006-04:00

I began Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer, by C. S. Lewis, yesterday afternoon between not catching any striper and not catching any striper. I didn't get very far; not catching striper can be very time consuming. You can see an example of this in the photo to the left.

I read further today, though. Earlier today I found Lewis's "answer"--he wouldn't like my calling it that--to the question, "Why pray if God is omniscient?" more eloquent and insightful than most I have heard on the subject. Put differently, the question is, "If Jesus says, 'Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him' in Matthew 6, what does prayer do . . . remind him?" Lewis says in Letter IV:

"I presume that only God's attention keeps me (or anything else) in existence at all.

"What, then, are we really doing? Our whole conception of, so call it, the prayer-situation depends on the answer.

"We are alway completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not. But though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can. . . . [W]hen we . . . assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled this sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view" (21).

In other words, we do not pray to catch God's attention, or even to win Him over (but more on that in a second), but to render ourselves more humble, and more willing to accept--or endure?--God's attention. I've heard this answer in different forms before, but it has amounted only to "by praying we help ourselves." This is technically and semantically true, but misleading, if only because it is not far mentally from "by praying to ourselves." My Buddhist friends pray to themselves and would say that by praying, they help themselves, but that's not at all what these Christians mean. They mean only to suggest that God invites--indeed, commands--prayer for our sake, not for His.

The benefits (the word is too pecuniary, but it must do) of being unveiled, of going from a state of merely being known to a state of showing, telling, offering all to God are, most Christians will agree, overwhelmingly wonderful. At times they are terribly wonderful, in the fullest sense of the word terribly. And though they are not unfit for a blog, I'd rather not discuss them here too directly. I will say that Lewis's comment does not attempt to explain why God seems to prefer that we approach him in an "actively" vulnerable state. But Jesus does both tell and illustrate for us that God wants us to ask Him for things, and that He is pleased to help when asked (and if my life is any example, pleased to help when not asked, too). Ask, seek, and knock, and it will given, found, and opened; and if you "who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7). That God wants us to ask before he gives is a truth (and a mystery) of which my wife is apt to remind me.

How's Your Left Hook?

2009-08-02T23:55:00.005-04:00

The other day Jeff (visiting all of last week from Dayton) and I joined Ryan (Jeff's brother) and Ryan's wife, Sarah, who were in Boston for a conference, at their hotel's restaurant for a half-hour or so before meeting up with Maggie at the Barking Crab, a sensational seafood joint on the water which has quickly become a Brotherhood tradition. Well, sitting there at the Marriot with Jeff, Ryan, Sarah, and three friends that Sarah made at the conference, I noticed that one friend, named Ortell, was wearing a teal wrap of some kind, and since I'm not proficient in the names of all women's clothing, I have to leave it at that. No, Jeff, it wasn't a shawl, contrary to the claims of your well trained eye and matchless prowess. Anyway, Ortell's active and elaborate gestures with her right arm, wrist, hand, and fingers called my attention to the sheer absence of gestures with her left arm. It was then that I noticed that she seemed not to move her left side at all, and that her teal shawl (oops, maybe you're right, Jeff), covered her left shoulder entirely while leaving her right arm free and easily deployable. I realized then that she didn't have a left arm.

Now all of this occurred within the first 10 minutes of the table's conversation. My mind was wandering a bit, because I was concerned about my wife getting caught in the torrents rapidly moving northeast toward Boston from New York and Philly, and I didn't want her to stand getting drenched waiting for us at the Aquarium stop on the Blue Line while we're stuck on the shoddy and unpredictable Green Line somewhere between Prudential and Government Center. I sat back and listened for awhile, and was fine with that until I saw the lightning strike and the rain just stampeding out of the sky, and eventually I glanced around the table for a watch facing my way. Imagine my surprise when, there, plain as rain, I saw Ortell laughing and gesturing with two arms and hands, her magically apparent left arm complete with a digital watch telling me that we had better get going. I gasped. I just about fell out of my chair. I did a double-take and a triple-take, so convinced was I that Ortell had no left arm, not even a prosthesis, and I'll be rain itself if I thought she had a flesh-and-blood left arm tucked into that teal whatchamacallit.

Well, it was time to go, so we said our nice to meet yous and shook everyone else's right hand, but before I got to Ortell I made sure to shift my cell phone and money clip to my right hand so that I could make a pretense of being inconvenienced by a right handshake. Then I stuck out my left palm, holding my busy right hand within view so she could see why, supposedly why, she was getting my left, and out came her left fingers and palm and wrist and elbow and arm from the teal shawl, as naturally and smoothly as if she'd had them her whole life. She had.

Who Cares About An Indestructable Water Bottle?

2009-07-29T23:34:00.005-04:00

Mike: What's that?

100 Nalgene Users Mike Has Met: It's a Nalgene.

Mike: Oh, yeah. So . . . it's a like a water bottle?

Nalgene Users: Um, it is a water bottle. [Pause] I love 'em. They're great.

Mike: Sweet. . . . What's so great about it?

Nalgene Users: Um, it's virtually indestructable. [Takes a sip of from the Nalgene].

Mike: [silently: that is the first time I ever have heard someone describe a water bottle as virtually anything]. Oh, wow, that's cool.

[Pause]

Indescructable?

Nalgene Users: Yeah.

Mike: Is that it?

Nalgene Users: What?

Mike: It's an indescructabe water bottle? Does it do anything else?

Nalgene Users: What do you mean?

Mike: I mean--

Nalgene Users: It's unbreakable. What more do you need it to do?

Mike: Well, nothing, I guess. Why not just use a regular water bottle?

Nalgene Users: I told you--

Mike: Have you had recent problems with water bottle destruction?

Nalgene Users: *

Mike: It's nice. Really, it--

Nalgene Users: It's good for the environment.

Mike: *

Nalgene Users: Stops pollution. You reuse it. It keeps the earth clean because you're reusing it.

Mike: Oh, yeah.

[Pause]

Can't you just reuse a regular water--

Nalgene Users: No. They break. [Walks away]

Mike: Okay. . . .

Question for my readers: How can a Nalgene bottle save your life, aside from being filled with water?

The World Our Oyster

2009-07-28T22:59:00.005-04:00

(The New Yorker, 2009)

Today the world was my brew, my wing, my cigar, my coffee, and (of course) my oyster--two oysters, in fact. Make that four if you count the two that Jeffy, to my sheer foolhardy delight, slurped down just to humor me, and five if you count the pearly-white-haired man named Paul who sat to my and Jeff's left, all three of us happy as clams and piling our elbow grease atop Daniel Webster's at the raw bar of the Union Oyster House, est. 1826, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in America. After tasting several varietals of delicious free beer for an hour at Boston's own Harpoon Brewery, wolfing down a burger and wings at a favorite pub, and desserting afterwards in the North End with cigars and coffee at Cafe Vittorio, Jeff and I decided that we couldn't rightly conclude our hedonistic exploits without night cap: oysters, slimy, on the shells, with a twist please. I've had 'em raw once before, but never without marinade, so I admit I was at a loss and was no help to Jeff. But Paul was. Paul is vintage Boston, born and raised, now pushing 65 and living in Lynn; so we're neighbors. Paul wears a threadbare blue suit and navy tie, two jeweled rings on his left hand, a gaudy turquoise the size of a postage stamp on his right, and, of course, a Red Sox cap.

"Do you eat many of these?" I ask.

"All the time. Years ago I watched a funny-looking lady put that horseradish on it and that red stuff--it's like a red sauce--"

"Like a cocktail sauce?"

"Yeah, it's a cocktail sauce--that's exactly what it is--on her oyster, then one of these here crackers--"

"Is that why they call these oyster crackers?"

"Yeah, they're oyster crackers--that's exactly what they are--and gulp it down, and I been eatin em that way ever since. The cracker adds texture to it, gives it a different texture than the slippery."

I crushed a cracker over my first oyster.

"Yeah, just like that," said Paul.

"Do you put the lemon on it?" asked Jeff.

"Yeah, the lemon numbs it."

"Ha, it numbs you?" I said, thinking he meant your taste buds.

"No, it numbs the oyster."

So . . . were those oysters alive?

Flight of the Conchords: Frodo

2009-07-22T03:57:00.001-04:00

Yard Sale for Romolo

2009-07-19T13:45:00.001-04:00

Two round-trip tix to Guatemala: $1100
Enough stuff to fill a Saugus lawn: $785.84
Spending Saturday raising cash to help loving parents adopt a little boy: Priceless.

Saturday, July 18 saw God answer many prayer requests–good weather (against all predictions), enough helpers, and decent merchandise–but none so great as the $785+ cleared by the yard sale at Jake and Amy Robinson’s that morning.

That’s a major chunk of the dough needed to fly John and Carrie Gerber to Guatemalala, which they must do several more times, until the courts let them officially adopt a toddler named Romolo. For the last several months, they’ve been great parents to Romo, who suffered severe burns as an infant. The Gerbers have repeatedly gone the distance (geographically and financially) for Romo and for Christ, and the cost adds up. So, many thanks to God and to the 20+ people from Seven Mile Road who gave their time, belongings, or cash.

Here’s how it went down. Cars started lining up without a break right at 9 o’clock(apparently greater-Bostonians can smell a yard sale a mile away). Customers gleaned rows and rows of donated furniture, lawn & exercise equipment, books, electronics, purses, clothes, toys, and baby paraphernalia, and they walked away with good deals for everyone, including us. Lauren, Sam, and Mia’s lemonade stand drew a crowd as the sun beat down on potential buyers. And whenever the customers began to swarm (and haggle), more 7-Milers seemed to arrive and help out.

As the business day began to slow around 1 p.m., we broke out the pizza (Costco’s finest) and washed it down with more lemonade. Not a bad day for a yard sale.
Buyers were mostly Saugus locals who hadn’t heard of 7 Mile Road, but they readily dropped a few $1’s into the donation bin when they learned that this was their chance to help Romo.

In fact, donations comprised about $200 of the profit. Thanks, Saugus.

If you weren’t able to make it to the yard sale but still would like to alleviate the Gerber’s expenses, please do! We expect them the to have need for several months. Feel free to give to them directly or through 7 Mile Road. Most importantly, please pray that God will continue to bless by bringing their labors to quick, Christ-honoring completion.

www.sevenmileroad.org/blog

Memorial Day Week

2009-05-29T08:41:00.005-04:00

A dose of perspective from The American Patriot's Almanac, my Christmas gift from Rachel, Jason, Baby Reg', and Gid the Kid:

Conflict: U.S. Military Deaths*
Revolutionary War (1775-1783).......25,000
War of 1812 (1812-1815)..............20,000
Mexican War (1846-1848).............13,300
Civil War (1861-1865)
..........Union.........................360,000
..........Confederate.................260,000
..........Gettysburg (Jul 1-3, 1863)....5,755-7655**
..........Antietam (Sep 17, 1862)......3,654**
Spanish-American War (1898)..........2,500
World War I (1917-1918).............116,500
World War II (1941-1945)............405,400
Korean War (1950-1953)..............36,600
Vietnam War (1964-1973).............58,200
Persian Gulf War (1990-1991).............380
Afghanistan (2001- ).......................450***
Iraq War (2003- )........................4,100***

*Includes battlefield and other deaths, such as soldiers who died of disease. Because official records may be incomplete, esp. prior to WWI, military death figures are estimates.
**from this outstanding website, esp. if you're spending Thanksgiving 2009 in Gettysburg: http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/prelude.aspx
***Approx. military deaths as of June 2008

To our veterans & their wives: thank you for serving.

MTH

Speaking in Tongues

2009-04-06T23:51:00.003-04:00

We'll be posting this on the Ham Fam video blog as soon as we figure out how!

Swagger (Boston: "Swagga")

2009-03-15T21:38:00.004-04:00

3 days in and I'm up to 22 Swag Bucks and rising w/ no time commitment. . . . I'm gaining on the iPhone. . . . You should join: http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=395937.

By the way, today's sermon was out of the park. It's not online yet but when it is I'll post it from the Seven Mile Road website.

Good phone talks recently with Zach, Joey, Jud, Dad, & Mom (in order of occurrence).

God grant us all a good week for His name's sake.

Swagbucks

2009-03-11T15:56:00.004-04:00

So this is really cool & takes 5 seconds. It's called Swagbucks, and it uses Google and Ask.com to search, except you and anybody whom you refer gets free stuff just for searching.

Or: http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=395937

Yatzee.

Best Books, Plays, and Stories of 2008

2009-02-24T13:12:00.008-05:00

My great friend Judson, now learning to write history at St. Andrew's of Scotland, recently asked me to compile a list of the best books I read in 2008. I threw in some short stories to boot, since books can be daunting for the commitment they entail, while a short story by nature wields the virtue of timeliness.

I don't rank these according to their enduring literary value, but by my enjoyment and appreciation of them based on my circumstances at the time. And I have remembered one or two since writing Jud.

Novels and Plays
1. A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin
2. Black Boy, by Richard Wright
3. Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
4. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller
5. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

6. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
7. The Unvanquished, by William Faulkner
8. Bacchae, by Euripides
9. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
10. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by the anonymous Pearl poet

11. The Heidi Chronicles, by Wendy Wasserstein, Maggie and I saw in Cambridge, and it is undoubtedly the best play we saw in '08. Wasserstein's play won her the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989.
12. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, by Ron Hansen

Short Stories
1. "The Fire and the Hearth," by William Faulkner (a chapter in Go Down, Moses, which everyone thought was a short story collection until one year Faulkner referred to it as a novel in an interview. The story is long, but so good that I read it three times in my final and busiest semester at HC).
2. "Cathedral," by Richard Carver
3. "Brother Grasshopper," by John Updike
4. "The Devil and Daniel Webster," by Steven Vincent Benet
5. "The Examination Room," by Harold Pinter

Tom Cruise Wins Scientology Medal of Valor Part 1

2009-01-29T15:44:00.003-05:00

This is NOT a parody. No, really, it's not a parody.

French Military Victories

2009-01-15T12:48:00.001-05:00

The Advent Conspiracy

2008-12-17T08:56:00.001-05:00

Have a George Washington and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T08:45:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I highly recommend giving the few words below at least one read. They're George Washington's, from his First Thanksgiving Proclamation. I dared my homeroom students to read it at the dinner table on Thursday, and one (the least apt, to my surprise) agreed.

We'll be reading it Thursday. . . .

Oh - anxiously awaiting Zach and Karen's arrivals from Colorado and South Carolina, respectively.

Sam Adams sells six (6!) holiday beers. I am excited to try them all - and to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42u0TiZZPCY.

May Christ be at the center of y(our) hearts and conversation this Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Proclamation
George Washington [New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be-- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war--for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

GO: Washington