August 17, 2021
George Washington, American political leader, military general, statesman, first president of the United States, and Founding Father of the United States, has named for him 31 counties, and 241 civil townships, 11 colleges and universities, 5 forts, 1 estate, 6 geological features, 10 parks, 5 neighborhoods, 8 transportation items, 146 monuments in the United States (I could find none listed for 12 of the 50 states), and 12 in foreign countries. And there may be more.
Built in 1827, the Washington Monument at Boonsboro, Maryland, is the first monument to George Washington to be completed to honor the “Father of our Country.”
The Baltimore Washington Monument was completed in 1829, although it had been started in 1815.
The famous Washington Monument in the District of Columbia was not completed until 1885.
The 34 feet tall stone tower was built and dedicated to the first president by the citizens of Boonsboro on July 4, 1827.
On July 4, 1827, at 7 a.m., most of the 500 inhabitants of the town and a Fife and Drum Corps assembled in the public square. A dedication service was held at noon. Unlike the monuments of the grand architects, this one was built by the hands of private citizens who felt it was their duty to do so. The volunteers gathered for lunch, and then work was resumed and continued until 4 o’clock, when the monument stood 15 feet high on a base 54 feet in circumference. After the harvesting was completed in the fall, the tower was finished to a height of 30 feet.
Over the years, weather and vandalism reduced it to a pile of rubble. In 1882, the monument was restored by the Boonsboro Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (whose motto is Friendship, Love, Truth), but a decade later the tower cracked. Because it was not repaired, the monument again fell in ruins.
In 1920, the tower was rebuilt in its present form by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who set in place the original cornerstone. The third dedication ceremony was held on July 4, 1936, exactly 109 years after that first day of patriotic activity by the citizens of Boonsboro, which produced the beginnings of the country’s first completed monument to George Washington.
The Washington tree, a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park, California, was, at one time, the second largest tree in the world – the General Sherman Tree at 275 feet tall and 36 feet in diameter is the largest. In 1999 scientists calculated the tree to be 253.7 feet tall, with a basal diameter of 29.9 feet. In September 2003, a fire caused by a lightning strike damaged the tree’s crown reducing its height to about 229 feet. The structurally weakened tree partially collapsed in January 2005, as the result of a heavy snow load in the remaining portion of its crown. The tree lost more than half its height, most of its branches, and much of the trunk. It is now 115 feet high, but there are still a few branches living near the top of the tree.
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| The Washington Tree in 1999 |
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| The Washington Tree today. |
More tomorrow.
👉 Some thoughts on aging and other stuff:
• I thought the dryer made my clothes shrink. Turns out it was the refrigerator.
• My bucket list: keep breathing.
• Camping: where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.
• Just once, I want a username and password prompt to say: “close enough.”
• At my funeral, take the bouquet from my coffin and throw it into the crowd to see who is next.
👉 We will throw some Pearls Before Swine before we close today:
👉 Today’s close, “God Is Good, Even When You’re in Pain” is by Rick Warren.
There probably have been many times that you’ve prayed for something, and God didn’t answer the way you wanted, or you feel like he didn’t answer at all.
Does that mean prayer doesn’t work? No, because you’ve seen it work too many times. Does it mean that God isn’t good? No, God is good, whether you’re in pain or not. Does it mean that you should give up on prayer? No! God is not a vending machine, and prayer is not a painkiller. He has not guaranteed us a pain-free life.
When you’re in pain and you pray but don’t see the answers, don’t give up. Your job is to keep praying and keep trusting God, because you know that everything he does and allows in your life, he will use for good. God is a good, good Father, even when you’re in pain.
If a doctor cuts you open during surgery, that’s going to cause some pain. But if that surgery saves your life, you wouldn’t say the doctor was bad; you’d recognize that the painful work saved your life.
When God doesn’t immediately end your pain, he is saying to you in that moment, “This pain may feel like too much. But my grace is sufficient for you.”
I’ve had a lot of pain in my life. And, in fact, almost everything I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned through pain. That’s because God is more interested in making me a man of character than he is in making me comfortable. God is more interested in making you a man or woman of character than he is in making you comfortable. If you never had any pain or difficulty in your life, you would never grow to maturity. You don’t know God is all you need until God is all you’ve got.
“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT).
God wants good for your life, even more than you do. Will you trust him?
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