Saturday Good Reads – July 4, 2026 – America 250

Fifty years ago, my wife and I were living in Houston when the Bicentennial celebration occurred. The memories that lasted are the tall ships sailing into New York City, the fireworks at Houston’s Northwest Plaza on July 4 (the the resulting traffic jam when it was over), and Bicentennial Minutes.  

Bicentennial Minutes were hosted by CBS. As the name implied, they were one-minute history lessons, each with a different celebrity narrator. Speakers included movie stars like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, and Ed Asner; Alfred Hitchcock; Kukla, Fran, & Ollie; Walter Cronkite; and scores more. Reportedly, CBS initially hated the idea, but it turned into one of the most popular events during the Bicentennial.

 

Somewhat controversial was the sponsor, Shell Oil Company. First, it was an oil company, when many were howling for oil companies to be broken up. Second, it was owned by the Royal Dutch Group, a foreign company, no less, half-owned by British interests. Ultimately, people decided to sit back and enjoy the minutes.

 

I was working at Shell Oil at the time. And my job was reading, researching, and writing about the effort to “break up Big Oil.” Eventually, the issue died, and I moved into the speechwriting group. But I think I’ll always connect those Bicentennial memories with “breaking up Big Oil.”

 

And now, it’s 50 years later, and it’s the 250^th birthday. Happy birthday to all of us! And to the men and women of 1776 who had the courage to make it happen!

 

The Declaration of Independence in its moment

 

The Anticipation of Late June 1776 – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription – National Archives.

 

Declarations Before THE Declaration of Independence – Ray Rphaeol at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Viking word hidden in the Declaration of Independence – Sophie Hardach at BBC.

 

The Man Who Argued Against Independence – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

July 2, 1776: “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America: – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Inner American Revolution – Stephen Mansfield at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

Scotland and the Birth of the United States – S. Donald Fortson at Ligonier.

 

On the Semiquincentennial – Spitalfields Life.

 

The War for Independence

 

Monmouth: Longest Battle of the American Revolution – Eric Niderost at Warfare History Network.

 

The Britons who supported the War of Independence – Tom Cutterham at The Conversation.

 

How a tiny Caribbean island made American independence possible – R. Grant Gilmore III at The Conversation.

 

General Washington and the Other Declaration of 1776 – Charlton Allen at American Thinker.

 

The America 250 Celebration

 

Congress dedicates national time capsule ahead of America’s 250^th anniversary – Associated Press via PBS.

 

World Monuments Fund spotlights ten heritage sites for the US’ 250^th – Elena Goukassoan at The Art Newspaper.

 

A History of America’s Milestones: Celebrating Independence – Ron Faucheux at Real Clear History.

 

The Declaration in American History

 

Why Americans Once Held Separate Fourth of July Celebrations – Tim Ott at History.

 

At America 250, Remember the 2 Presidents Who Saved the Declaration – Janice Rogers Brown at Coolidge Review.

 

When Independence Hall Was Almost Demolished – Elizabeth Yuko at History.

 

Assessments of the Declaration

 

Liberty, War, and Sovereignty in American States System: The Declaration of Independence at 250 – Robbie Totten at Isonomia Quarterly.

 

America 250 Forum, Day 1: The Idea of America, Day 2: The Weight of History; Day 3: Giving Thanks as American Christians – Mere Orthodoxy.

 

250 Years of Faith: The Story of Christianity in America – Thomas Kidd at Desiring God.

 

The Radical, Conservative Experiment That Is America – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Our Inalienable Declaration – Jack Butler at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

The Heroes of 1776 – Neil Gorsuch and Janet Nitze at The Free Press.

 

The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty by Bradley Birzer – Faith, Fiction, Friends.

 

Why I Wrote Finding the Founding – Casey Spinks at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

The Declaration at 250 – 28 thinkers at Modern Age.

 

Music of the Declaration – Henry Long at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

People Speak

 

The Country I Would Still Die For – Ncholas Dockery at The Free Press.

 

The Summer I Turned Patriot – Josh Kaplan at The Free Press.

 

If Jesus Founded a Nation – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

America 250 and Poetry

 

Bradford Skow and American Independence in Verse – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

What America Was Meant to Be – poem by Mike Johansson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The First of Modern Nations and An Errand into the Wilderness – poems by James Matthew Wilson at Word on Fire.

 

“Old Ironsides,” poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Paul Revere’s Ride – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

The Declaration of Independence – read by Max McLean

Painting: The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas (1818)  by John Trumbull (1756-1843), U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

No grumbling!

After James 5:7-12 

No grumbling against

one another; grumbling

implies you’re judging

one another, and you,

too, will be judged;

the Judge is standing

at the door. Consider

the prophets. They were

patient on their suffering,

and they suffered 

for how they served

the Lord. Be patient

and steadfast in your

patience. Job remained

patient and steadfast

in the face of terrible

trials and ordeals.

And Job received

compassion and mercy.

So, cut the grumbling.

 

Photograph by Engin Akyurt via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Concerning a Nightingale,” poem by Alcuin – D.S. Matin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“He Leadeth Me,” hymn by Joseph Henry Gilmore – Anthony Esoloen at Word & Song.

 

The Secret Place – Daniel Kunkel t Mere Orthodoxy.

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution

We learned this back in elementary school. If one poet’s name sits atop the poetry of the American Revolution, that name is Philip Freneau (1752-1832). And like the new nation he was part of, he kept re-inventing himself.  

The Freneau family came from La Chappelle, France, in the Ardennes Forst and near the current Belgian border. The family was Huguenot, not exactly the best faith option in Catholic France. In 1707, Andre Freneau emigrated to New York in America and became part of the Huguenot colony there. He married and had five children. One of his sons, Pierre, became part of the family business married in 1748. His oldest child was born in 1752 and named Philip. Ten years later, the well-to-do family moved to New Jersey, although Philip remained in boarding school in New York. In 1768, aged 16, the boy entered Princeton University, set upon becoming a minister.

 

At Princeton, however, Pilip discovered writing. He’d read widely in the English poets and Latin classics, and he was already composing poetry. In his class at Princeton was a young man who became a lifelong friend – James Madison. Freneau, Madison, and others were beginning to get up in the spirit of the times, and it was an anti-British, increasingly independent spirit. (In 1770, the senior class voted to wear only clothes of American manufacture for commencement.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Philip Freneau.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Dust – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Metastatic – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Orphan Lamb – poem by David Whyte.

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Ambivalent War on AI – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“Chicago,” poem by Carl Sandburg – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Battle of Blenheim,” poem by Robert Southey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Moby Dick – Chris Arnade Walks the World.

The Job in Which No Day Was Like Any Other

I worked as director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools for seven months. I’d gone through the strangest job interview I’d ever had, and I had a first day on the job unlike any other I had had or anyone I knew had had. But I figured that, after that tumultuous first day, things would settle down. 

I figured wrong. 

 

Things would never settle down. Every day would be unlike every other day. 

 

One ongoing source of turmoil was the Board of Education itself, the seven people elected by voters to oversee the district’s operations. Four had been elected on a reform slate. Three had not. Most of the turmoil generated by the Board came from those three. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph of the Headquarters building by St. Louis Public Schools.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Advice for Older Writers – Nathan Bransford.

 

“On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic,” sonnet by Charlotte Turner Smith – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Bradford Skow and “American Independence in Verse”

Before the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, there was at least some 15 years of growing American disenchantment with Britain. The roots of the American Revolution lie in the French and Indian War (1756-1763), but it’s often said that the American Declaration of Independence has its roots in the Magna Carta.  

Fortunately, the historical landscape is littered with documentation of what was happening in the American colonies: statements, declarations, letters, newspaper reports, speeches, and more. The 15 years before the Declaration was a ferment of ideas, debates, and arguments that grew with every new event, every new action by the British government.

 

What is striking about all this is what a literate ferment it was. Menand women argued literately on both sides of the governance and independence question. You can read only some of these documents before you realize how articulate and passionate they are.

 

And poetic.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

4^th Sunday of Each Month – poem by J.A. Gilbert at Frivolous Quill.

 

New Video! – Brookhaven | Civil War Novel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Seeing Slant in the Company of Others – Eric Malczewski at Front Porch Republic.

 

“The Men That Don’t Fit In,” poem by Robert Service – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Crème Brulee -- poem by Toby Alfier at Every Day Poems.

“Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible” by Shelly Eshkoli

If I were asked to name women in the Bible, my answer would come out rather perfunctory. Other than Eve, my answer would gravitate to the New Testament. Mary. Mary Magdalene. Martha. The woman at the well. Priscilla, friend of Paul. The woman who touched Jesus’s robe. All people from the New Testament. 

I have to think harder about the Old Testament. Then they surface. Sarah. Pharoah’s daughter. Rachel and Leah. Rebecca. There are more. They all have stories, some short and some longer. But there are also women who appear and then almost vanish.

 

Writer Shelly Eshkoli aims to correct that with Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible. She features 10 women from the Old Testament, some named and some nameless, who appear in the accounts and then almost vanish, or as Eshkoli might say, almost erased.

 

Shelly Eshkoli

The 10 women are Zipporah, the wife of Moses; the daughter of Jephthah in the Book of Judges; Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah; Lot’s wife; Jael, the woman known for a mallet and nail; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah; Athaliah, the murderous daughter of Jezebel; Esther, the queen of Persia who saved the people of Israel; the Queen of Sheba; and the witch of Endor, consulted by Saul and supposedly summoning the ghost of the prophet Samuel.

 

Eshkoli begins each account with a fictional “scroll,” allowing each woman to tell her story in her own words. Then a solid, well-researched account follows. Eshkoli sifts through history, archaeology. Linguistics, and other sources to draw a picture of each woman and the times in which she lived. What emerges is a nuanced, thoughtful discussion which brings depth to the story of each woman.

 

The author is a well-known and highly regard tour guide and group leader in Jerusalem and the Biblical lands of Israel. She holds an M.A. degree in Biblical Studies and is also a lecturer and teacher, bringing in-depth knowledge of the life and culture of the ancient Near East to her work.

 

Unveiled is an engaging look at 10 women of the Bible we know little about. Eshkoli brings them alive on the page, and we can see the vital role they played in the Bible story.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

America at 250: Teaching with Honesty and Gratitude – Janie Cheaney at Redeemed Reader.

 

The Sad Death of Tabloid English – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour.

 

The Siege of Basing House – A London Inheritance.

 

Spring Blossoms and Untimely Reflections – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Prince Andrei and War and Peace.

Patience

After James 5:7-12 

Patience is a trial,

but it is also to what

you are called, so

be patient, for

the Lord will come.

Follow the farmer,

who knows his fields

and waits for

the harvest to come.

The coming of the lord

is soon; the coming

of the Lord is at hand.

That is what you’re

awaiting, and patience

will be rewarded, just

as the farmer is rewarded

with his harvest.

 

Photograph by Free Walking Tour Salzburg via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Lost Art of a Wandering Mind – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

‘Religious Affections’: Textbook of the American Soul – Obbie Tyler Todd at Desiring God.