Americanism Redux

October 23, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775

“Reality means (fill-in-the-blank) to me.” Or try this: “reality (fill-in-the-blank).”

That’s what today is all about—reality, the real, the realistic.

250 years ago, reality is on the minds of a lot of people. You’ll see how people think of reality from unique directions.

* * * * * * *

A different life is being lived today, 250 years ago in Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Maine). It’s the new reality.

Three of every four structures in the town are destroyed, blasted apart or burned to ashes and cinder. People are homeless and possessionless. Livestock and pets are dead; many of those still living, whether human or animal, show signs, detectable signs, of trauma. Stocks of food have been consumed in fire. And geography being what it is, winter is waiting, ready to function as what God told Job was the storehouse of the snow. Job and his boils, illness, loss of wealth, death of family, and totality-of-life setbacks might be invoked more than a few times in the weeks ahead.

In a devastating raid and attack a few days ago, a British naval squadron followed orders and laid waste to this community.

The woes depicted in legends, prophecies, and ancient accounts are now the 24-hour-a-day reality of Falmouth. The atrocity of reality.

* * * * * * *

The reality of New York’s 46-year old imperial governor William Tryon isn’t exactly about smoke and fire. But to him, it’s just as upending. He’s made the decision today, 250 years ago, to flee to a British ship anchored in New York harbor. He can no longer guarantee his own safety. The New York colonial-rights advocates have driven him off, isolated him on the square footage of a British naval vessel. Tryon’s reality is salt water, not dry land.

* * * * * * *

“I was going to say that all depends upon their success. If they do all that is in their Power, it will be as much as their Country can within Reason expect from them. Mortals cannot command success.”

These are words this week from Samuel Adams, Massachusetts delegate in Philadelphia’s Second Continental Congress. He’s convinced that everything about the American cause hinges on what happens to the two colonial invasions of Canada. If they succeed, we win. If they don’t, we lose. He wants to be positive and happily optimistic. For a moment in this statement, he flirted with fantasy; you can practically taste it in his words. He quickly returned to reality, though, in his acceptance of mortals.

* * * * * * *

“We must be content however to take human nature as we find it, and endeavor to draw good out of evil.”

These are the words this week from one of Adams’s fellow delegates, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Lee’s statement comes amidst his open recognition of the limitations of working in a large group of people and trying to not only to get consensus but also create decisions, actions, and results from that consensus. Lee’s words are a reminder that, crucially, reality often includes a “however.”

* * * * * * *

(James Duane)

“I sincerely join with you in dreading a Separation from Great Britain which can be acceptable to very few.”

250 years ago right now, yet another delegate in Philadelphia—this time it’s James Duane of New York talking with fellow New Yorker Robert Livingston—expresses reality as he sees it, assesses it, predicts it. Duane’s remark suggests that reality has a math: the presence of a majority of people on one hand and a minority of people on the other. The former makes the reality, and the latter seeks divergence from it.

* * * * * * *

Two doses of reality are pouring down on the entire Second Continental Congress. Duane, Livingston, Lee, Adams, and the rest of the delegates are immersed in debate about whether every scrap of foreign commerce should be cut off from outside the colonies. Think of it: stopping every aspect of foreign trade, everywhere, for everyone. Realistic? This debate happens while delegates are mourning reality as the inevitable—death, in this case, the death of Virginia’s Peyton Randolph. Randolph had been chosen a year ago to lead the first meeting of continental union that had occurred. Now, a year later, a delegate states Randolph was “One of the first American Characters, as he was the first President [Preside/nt] of the united colonies.” Another delegate said “American liberty has lost a powerful Advocate and human nature a sincere friend.” These are enormous statements. Episcopal minister Jacob Duche is now writing his eulogy of Randolph. Will he adhere to a realistic remembrance or veer into something more speculative? We’ll know soon when he delivers it at the funeral in a few days. For the next month, all members of the Continental Congress will wear a black band on their left arm. As they debate foreign trade, they’ll raise and lower their hands while wearing the strips of black cloth.

Black is the color of mourning. Will it also be the color of reality?

* * * * * * *

Surely there’s no more realistic topic than power. And power is what is being handled, and handed out, in two venues.

The first is in George Washington’s Continental Army encampment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s meeting for hours and hours, days and days, with a delegate delegation from the Continental Congress and various governors of upstart provincial assemblies from New England colonies. The group is pounding out the use of power in the form of tasks, duties, and responsibilities assigned to the Continental Army, the Continental Army’s commander, the Continental Congress, or some iteration of colony-based government. A few examples from among scores of topics: individual colonies get the power to manufacture weapons; the Continental Army’s commander gets the power to seize wagons, carriages, and horses for military use; and the Continental Congress gets the power to name a new surgeon-general. The categories of power distribution are frequently narrow, specific, and itemized. These outcomes aren’t formal, public declarations or resolutions. They are deals, exchanges, and haggled-out agreements. Each is made of power.

One of the more arresting decisions is this: black men and boys will be prevented from joining the new army establishment, while Native men and boys will be encouraged and implored to join the American cause through their tribes.

Besides the gathering in Cambridge, Massachusetts, power also flows in the work underway at the Johnston County Courthouse in North Carolina. Tracking a similar timeline of meeting and discussing, the men here are sorting through selections for district representation in the provincial council, outlining procedures for filling “militia” and “minutemen” units separate from the “Continental establishment”, arranging for the printing of money, and allocating funds for various expenditures. As is true in Cambridge, deliberations at the Johnston County Courthouse cover a vast array of topics, each linked to power.

A year ago, communities up and down the Atlantic Coast were grappling with rights, liberties, and freedoms—in other words, the abuse of power as they saw it. Now, however (there’s that tip-off word for reality), the grappling is with the dispensation of power as they wield it.

There is a next point. Reality can be new, or renewed. In addition to handling power, these two groups, the Cambridge and the Johnston Courthouse groups, are looking at different directions in which power will move. Cambridge is about a union’s horizontal elements of power, such as the governing entity and the military entity. It’s about the top, staying connected, and armed force. Johnston Courthouse is about a union’s vertical elements of power, such as the locales and the locals, where people are face-to-face, heart-to-heart, side-by-side. It’s about the bottom, staying rooted, and lived life.

The reality of today stands on top of the reality of yesterday.

* * * * * * *

Samuel Hooper looks for the edges of opportunity in the current reality. He’s a businessman in Newburyport, Massachusetts, holding wide-ranging interests in far-flung markets. The hard part for him is that risk seems to be everywhere, especially along the coast, in the ports, on the open sea. He’s very grateful for the thoughtfulness and care that his partners show toward him; without their support, reality would turn into plight. Nevertheless, Hooper thinks he might see a few bright spots: demand for molasses and corn is up, and reports show the European harvests will be down.

It takes a sharp eye to see the good in this reality.

* * * * * * *

John McPherson and Samuel Goodwin think they have Hooper eyes, too.

McPherson is a mega-wealthy trading merchant in Philadelphia. He is well-known for his gift of navigation and commercial strategy on the high seas. He’s also convinced that he has the trick—the secret weapon—that can destroy any British naval vessel it comes into contact with. What is it? He’s not saying. He’s on his way to meet with a secret committee from the Continental Congress where he’ll pitch his idea of a shockingly lethal secret weapon.

Meanwhile, Samuel Goodwin is in Pownalborough, Massachusetts, having just completed a detailed map of the region between his town and Quebec. He knows all the rivers and creeks, all the swamps and ravines, information he’s encapsulated into a large map that he’s given to Colonel Benedict Arnold, leader of the Quebec-bound pronge of the two-part American invasion force of Canada. Goodwin thinks a fabulous opportunity awaits if General George Washington gives the go-ahead to Goodwin’s idea of a new-cut road leading into the Canadian interior. The transportation artery for wagon, carriage, and horse traffic would be a bonanza for economic development in the future—and Goodwin would have an insider’s seat at the table.

Goodwin and McPherson dream of a new reality.

* * * * * * *

And today 250 years ago, Phillis Wheatley, the young black poet, formerly enslaved but now living free, is hard at work on a new poem outside of Boston. Each of her writings is, in a way, an effort to frame a reality made from timeless and boundless images, themes, and references. Her topic today: the glory and heroism of General George Washington. Like McPherson and Goodwin, perhaps, Wheatley stares at reality more for possibility than anything else, more for horizon than the ground under her feet.

* * * * * * *

For each person, today 250 years ago, from Falmouth’s ashes to Wheatley’s quill pen, reality is what’s happening now.

Also

It’s been a hard day for Manuela Pinuelas. Today’s journey—the start of a trek from Tupac in the Santa Cruz River valley to colonize San Francisco—has led to what reality had in store for her nine month ago: childbirth. After walking the entire day with 300 other people, 1000 cattle, and a train of pack mules, she’s gone into labor while the night camp is being set up. Manuela had been told that the greatest danger on this trip would be from violent Native Apache tribes who live along the unmarked route.

Turns out that’s not true. Childbirth in these conditions is the far graver danger.

And as the brilliant stars blink and shine in the night sky, her baby is born. Manuela dies.

Someone else will have to carry the baby during tomorrow’s rugged hike northwest.

That’s the reality of it.

For You Now

I’ve hit on something important in this Redux entry. Reality.

Yes, part of reality is what is happening to you right now. However—that word again!—it’s also other things. You bring something to the stuff happening to you right now. If you didn’t, that would mean you are totally driven and determined by your immediate circumstances, your momentary blips. Neither you nor I think that’s true. Reality starts with here but grows into more.

So, you’re bringing something else to the right now. You might label it “perception”. I tend to think it’s more than that, it’s in addition to that. Your perception travels with you Down River from an originating moment or experience in your life. Up River is where the perception began and it’s why it’s in the boat with you as you’re going through the right-now of this present time. It’s continuing during all of the changing, but likely it’s changing as well in the journey. You may not even realize your perception has changed to the degree it has.

Two people are in my head as I’m reflecting on reality. One is a person who sees the White House ballroom construction mess and says, “POTUS is awful.” The other is a person who hears about a truck driver, illegally driving a vehicle and killing someone in an accident, and says, “POTUS is great.” Each sees what’s just happened in front of them and then each brings something else to their sight.

My point from today’s Redux is to simply state that reality is also more than what’s happening right now. The right-now blends with other things. I’d encourage you to think through the range of your “other things”. If you do so, I further encourage you to do so again, an additional time, because you might begin to discover that “other things” can come from non-material, unmaterial, and immaterial sources. Your reality matters because it’s more than matter, it’s alive and living. Your reality is not a unisource.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: how could the reality of Phillis Wheatley’s quill pen help someone from Falmouth whose reality was a burned-out home?

(the multisource of your River)