"Angel Of The Hopeless"

A rare short story sale, or in this case a resale: my story "Angel of the Hopeless" was just accepted by an historical audiocast magazine called Tales of Old. Woot!

"Angel of the Hopeless" originally appeared in Aoife's Kiss back in 2006, and is about a beleaguered fellow who keeps waking up as a soldier fighting in hopeless battles throughout history. I think it was my first attempt at writing historical science fiction...or maybe historical fantasy. I leave the actual source of the main character's plight a little vague.

At any rate, I'm sorry I can't remember now who first told me about Tales of Old--but if it was you, thank you. :)

Putting A Founding Father Back In Context

Every now and then I get mass mails with supposed quotes about religion from Founding Fathers. These messages are usually trying to put forth the idea that the Founders really intended to create America as a wholly (fundamentalist) Christian nation. Most are from the big names: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams.

And in almost every case the quotes are false. Some are misquotes or taken out of context, some are paraphrases, but nearly all are outright inventions from the 1980s. The most prominent of these, some variation of George Washington saying that the best government is the kind that answers to God and the Bible, was invented in the 1930s.

Then I started getting e-mails with a quote from a lesser-known founder named Dr. Benjamin Rush. It runs as follows:

"...The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that for once, the e-mails had a genuine quote. It comes from his essay "Of the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic", printed in a collection called Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical.

Of course, then you get to the next paragraph, which the e-mails ignore:

"Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth, then see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles."

Yet there is no doubt as to Rush's sentiments. He finishes the above paragraph with "But the religion I mean to recommend in this place, is that of the New Testament."

Rush's religious beliefs are strong ones. In this essay and others he lays out his arguments for the truth of Christianity; he advocates the Bible for use as a schoolbook; he talks often about morals in a religious context. But before anyone decides to start using Rush as an example of a Christian Founder, they also need to take into account some other ideas Rush espoused which many modern fundamentalists might take issue with:

He was against the death penalty. A primary reason for this was the same as many hold now: That if the executed person turns out to be innocent, you can't withdraw the punishment.

He was in favor of the government paying young Americans' college tuition. He shared this belief with James Madison, who considered federally-funded tuition as part of his definition of "the general welfare".

For all that, Rush believed that a liberal education--his words--was critical to the health and soundness of the American republic.

Like the other Founders, Rush had no concept of the idea of an illegal immigrant, but welcomed everyone who wanted to come to America if they were law-abiding and would work. He thought that anyone who wanted to be a U.S. citizen should be offered citizenship after two years of residency. Rush specifically, like Benjamin Franklin and others, wanted to offer America as a haven for those persecuted by tyrannical governments.

This isn't so much an issue nowadays, but Rush also advocated liberal education for women. He thought literature was especially important. His arguments here boil down to the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats--the way he put it was that America, both at the local level and the country in general, would be made more prosperous if women were educated too.

So, that is Dr. Benjamin Rush. To sum up the highlights of what I've learned about the Founders so far based on their actual writings, which don't have a wide e-mail circulation:

George Washington was a religious man in the general sense, but only once in all of his thousands of writings did he use Jesus' name. That was in a speech to the Delaware Indians.

Benjamin Franklin was almost certainly an Epicurean Deist.

Thomas Jefferson denied the divinity of Christ and edited his own Bible to remove Jesus' miracles.

John Adams believed in God and Heaven, but not Hell.

James Madison was a devout Christian--as far as anyone can tell, which is difficult since he was very private about his own religious beliefs. He was also nearly what we would call a Humanist today, arguing repeatedly for the uplifting of humankind through human efforts.

In fact, there are plenty of genuine quotes about Christianity from the Southern Founders apart from Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. I suspect, however, that these don't get much play not just because most people won't recognize their names, but also because (like the aforementioned big three) they were slave owners. (Benjamin Rush, by the way, was anti-slavery.)

As for me, I self identify as a Methodist and an historian; in certain quarters both are interpreted to mean "trouble".

Entering Hohokam Land, With A Dash Of Heresy

When I originally started plotting Arizona--I mean both last year, when I got down to serious plotting, as well as the notions I've had in my head since I visited Arizona in 1987--I imagined that I would have a character who accompanied Coronado on his famous 1540 expedition there. Now I'm having second thoughts--sort of.

I know this could be tantamount to historical fiction heresy, but I'm finding myself more and more interested in using my explorer character to highlight a much lesser known part of Coronado's entrada into North America. Instead of following Coronado on the main expedition to the non-existent Seven Cities of Cibola, I would have him following one of Coronado's lieutenants, a fellow named Hernando de Alarcon. We don't know a whole lot about Alarcon, but what we do know shows that he was interested not in gold or glory but Christianizing the natives--out of genuine concern for their souls rather than as a means of control--and that when he encountered them he treated them humanely, moreso than even the normal 16th century standards of humanely treating Indians went. He did occasionally deceive them, but generally this was done to protect his men. As historian Bernard de Voto put it, when Alarcon encountered the Indians, it was the first and last time in history that they were sad to see a white man leave.

Alarcon and his men were also the first Europeans to lay eyes on the Colorado River.

He's not as well known because logistics and poor communications meant that he never actually hooked up with Coronado's main force. Instead he carried out a mini-expedition of his own. I know this smaller trek was far less important to Arizona's history, but it's still a tale I'm getting increasingly interested in telling.

At any rate, I got back to work on Arizona today, starting the third section--"The Canal Builders"--of my first / prehistoric chapter. This one will be more ambitious than the preceding two; those took place over the course of one to eight years, while this one will cover several decades in the lives of two Hohokam brothers who live just outside what is now the city of Phoenix, chronicling the massive expansion both of the Hohokam canals and the culture that followed the water.

PROGRESS REPORT

New Words: 800.

Total Words: 31700.

Reason For Stopping: Taking care of our dogs, then getting ready for work.

Book Year: A.D. 742.

Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was at his post; Nate and Vegas' sister Velvet also made brief appearances to sweep the room.

Exercise: Took Tucker on a half-campus walk a little after midnight. Walked down to campus this afternoon.

Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.

Today's Opening Passage(s): Normally the brothers were just Bear and Wolf. Sometimes fighting, most of the time hunting together. But today they were the Warrior Twins, Ahayuta and Matsilema, children of the Sun-Father and killers of monsters, and they were searching the world for the missing Corn Maidens.

If it just so happened that they needed to look for the Corn Maidens in the shallows of the river where they were helping collect salt for their village, so much the better. That way they could save the world from starvation and still keep their parents from yelling at them for playing when they should have been working.

Darling Du Jour: Though today the boys were actually doing more diving than playing—mostly, they were testing their limits. Judumi was in high spirits, feeling closer to manhood than ever since he was nearly ten, and watching small, cord-like muscles beginning to form on his arms just as his legs had them from running and swimming. Like all children they were confined to the shallows of the wide Salt River, but today the river’s flow was almost gently slow and he wanted to see how far his Bear powers would let him dive. Maybe all the way out to the middle like the adults!

Kwewu wanted to try it too…someday. Today he wasn’t so certain. He and his brother both swam across the Salt—with adults swimming on either side of them—the previous summer. But going underwater was altogether different. The water could be heavy atop them and the currents, even in the slow parts, strong enough to sweep you away if you weren’t careful. He reminded Judumi of these things.

“I know,” Judumi told him, with a shrug his younger brother knew was exaggerated to hide his own nervousness. “But if that’s where the Corn Maidens went, we should go looking there.”

Once Judumi made up his mind to do something, it was a foregone conclusion that Kwewu would follow him. That’s just the way things were with Bear and Wolf.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Michener.