Reflections on the Founding
Plus books and articles from June
Welcome to another edition of The Mueller Report!
Updates
I hope you had a good 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence last week! This is a great American holiday that tends to bring people and communities together in ways we seldom see the rest of the year. Perhaps creating more communal events and celebrations will help reverse the atomization going on in society. I’m not a huge fan of big public events myself, but I can certainly appreciate them.
Summer is in full swing at The Abbey. This past week we had lots of Colorado Trail and Continental Divide Trail hikers coming through. The Leadville Race Series holds events throughout July and August that usually fill every available room in Leadville.
I’m continuing to juggle several balls, but most things seem to be going well. The Lake County Republicans are hosting a couple events this month. We are focusing on recruitment and engagement with local self-governance (see my reflection below). At FBCL, we now have three elders with a fourth candidate we’ll be voting on later this month.
Work continues apace, especially with the passage of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill on Thursday. I had interviews about it yesterday and this evening. I imagine news networks and policy analysts like me will be untangling it for weeks.
Writing
Although I took a break from writing The Mueller Report, I didn’t stop writing professionally. This might be a bit much, but I know some of you enjoy reading what I write and may find different articles intriguing. So here are the pieces I published in June:
Reflection
I am sharing here an email I sent to the Lake County Republicans on Independence Day about why they should consider getting more involved in local politics:
Dear Lake County Republicans,
Happy Independence Day!
It's fitting that today we remember the founding of this great nation. Although a great deal has happened, good and bad, since our founding, we still remain a nation committed to law, to Constitutionalism, and to freedom. And, I might add, we remain a nation built on self-governance.
Benjamin Franklin famously told someone as he was exiting the constitutional convention in Philadelphia that they had achieved, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Self-government is how we keep the republic going. My strong belief in self-government is why I agreed to chair the Lake County Republicans and it is why I am asking all of you to join us in whatever capacity you can.
Unfortunately, in the nearly 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, we have outsourced more and more of our governing to unelected bureaucrats and experts.
We see to our families, business, and churches, but by and large we let others take on the (sometimes monotonous and always time-consuming) grind of government. As a result, we have less self-government now than at almost any point in our history.
I'm inviting you to buck that trend simply by coming and hearing about what the Republican party is up to in Lake County. I am including a brief agenda for our Republican meeting at 6 PM on Wednesday, July 23rd. I'll talk there about all kinds of ways, big and small, that you can participate in the great American tradition of self-government.
And I encourage you, as you enjoy barbecues, parades, fireworks, and time with friends today, consider what you may be willing and able to contribute to improving our local government here in Lake County.
So again, Happy Independence Day!
Bookshelf
I’m a little ashamed to say that I am not sure I remember every book I read in June, but here are two I do remember finishing:
In the House of Tom Bombadil by C. R. Wiley
Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World Like the Early Church by Stephen Pressley
The first book by Wiley explores Tolkien’s world through the lens of his most enigmatic character: Tom Bombadil. It was a delightful read with large excerpts and reflections on Tolkien’s writing, story-telling, and source material. Wiley writes in such a way that you don’t quite arrive at an answer of who, exactly, Tom Bombadil is supposed to be (my own view is that he is a kind of incarnation of Nature).
There is a lot to think about and reflect upon in why Tolkien included this character and the events surrounding him in the Fellowship of the Ring (and briefly in the Return of the King when Gandalf goes to have a “long talk” with Bombadil). I recommend this book to Tolkien fans and aficionados – and especially to those who maybe getting most of their impressions of Bombadil from the Rings of Power Amazon show.
Cultural Sanctification was also excellent. It explores the first few centuries of Christianity, focusing especially on how Christians interacted with opponents and a hostile culture and political empire. Pressley explains how central Christian doctrines of the trinity, of eternity, of Christ’s divinity, and of God’s sovereignty infuse not only what church fathers like Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian wrote about, but how ordinary Christian congregations brought new converts into the fold.
I especially commend Pressley’s penultimate chapter on Hope. It was a powerful and thoughtful commentary of how a deep and abiding hope is a uniquely Christian trait. Christians, of all people and all faiths, have the deepest reason to live by hope in the face of loss, persecution, and suffering. Christ’s lordship and God’s promises abide through the tumults of nations and cultures. They abide through individual hardship. Hope moves believers to joyful faithfulness even as the world seems to darken around them.
Game Corner
I don’t think I’ve written about the game Quirkle before. It is an easy and relatively fast game that anyone can play and enjoy. It is not a “Euro” game with boards and pieces and strategies. It is more like dominos. The game is played with square blocks. Those blocks have six different shapes and six different colors. You can play blocks in rows or columns as long as they either share a color or share a shape. You receive points for how many blocks are in the rows and columns you add to with your placement.
If you complete a set of six (so all the different shapes of the same color, or all the same shape of different colors), you receive a bonus. You also receive a small bonus if you use up your tiles first at the end of the game. Everyone plays on the same set of blocks and draws to replace tiles they used on their turn.
Again, Quirkle plays quickly and easily and is a nice game to have for those who are not that interested in longer or more intense strategy games.