Fellow Residents and Staff,
As we celebrate our national holiday, what do you know about the founders of our nation? Do you have any personal heroes or villains among them? George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? Crispus Attucks? John Barry? Benedict Arnold? Ethan Allen? Abigail Adams? Marquis de la Fayette? John Paul Jones? Francis Vigo? Charles Carroll? Baron von Steuben? John Hancock? Pierre Gibault? James Madison? Benjamin Franklin, who has been called the first American, tops my list of favorites.
Franklin was born in Massachusetts, had no formal schooling after the age of ten, learned the printer’s trade from an older brother, and moved three hundred miles away to Pennsylvania at age seventeen. There this self-taught genius edited a newspaper, studied electricity, founded a library, established a fire department, became postmaster general of the colonies, and represented Pennsylvania before the British government. At age seventy, when anyone could have reasonably expected him to retire, Franklin participated in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and then set off to Paris to enlist French help in the Revolution. Later he helped negotiate the treaty with Britain recognizing the independence of the United States and then returned home, only to participate four years later, at the age of eighty-one, in the constitutional convention, his last significant contribution to his country.
Known for his pithy sayings and charming personality, Benjamin Franklin was a deist, a man of the Enlightenment. No one would seriously call him a model of Christian spirituality. Never-the-less, he took the talents that God gave him and throughout his long life developed them over and over again in the service of his fellows. This oldest of our nation’s founders and the service that he rendered well into his eighties inspire and challenge me. As I prepare to enter my eighth decade, what service can I offer? What service can you?
In the words of Saint Francis, Peace and every Blessing!
Loren Connell, OFM,
sacramental minister
P S Did you recognize two Hoosier heroes among the list of founders? What do you know about them?
July 1, 2012
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