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Looking through these three windows on history reminds us that while the tools of civilization evolve, the human story continues to be driven by many of the same hopes, challenges, and ambitions that have shaped every generation. Continue reading 

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. commemorates the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826). Today marks the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's death as well as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, drafted primarily by Jefferson.

King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

To serve my country day by day
At any humble post I may;
To honor and respect her Flag,
To live the traits of which I brag;
To be American in deed
As well as in my printed creed.

To stand for truth and honest toil,
To till my little patch of soil
And keep in mind the debt I owe
To them who died that I might know
My country, prosperous and free,
And passed this heritage to me.

I must always in trouble’s hour
Be guided by the men in power;
For God and country I must live,
My best for God and country give;
No act of mine that men may scan
Must shame the name American.

To do my best and play my part,
American in mind and heart;
To serve the flag and bravely stand
To guard the glory of my land;
To be American in deed,
God grant me strength to keep this creed.

Edgar Albert Guest (1881 – 1959) was a British-born American poet who became known as the People's Poet. His family moved from England to Detroit, Michigan when he was ten years old and he lived there the rest of his life. He worked for the Detroit Free Press for 64 years. He published more than twenty volumes of poetry and was thought to have written over 12,000 poems. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life. Of his poems he said, "I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them. "His popularity led NBC to produce a weekly 15-minute radio program, “Guest in Your Home,” which ran from 1931 to 1942.
The Globe editorialized his passing by quoting Philip Coldren, the late editorial page editor who wrote that the key to Guest’s greatness was “that among the thousands of Guest poems, ‘there has not been a single one that has promoted wickedness or meanness or anything else but kindness and gentleness and peace and hope" 

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Some 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance. Clearly distorted by galactic-scale gravitational interactions, large spiral galaxies NGC6769 and NGC6770 are seen face-on, with luminous galactic disks scarred by obscuring interstellar dust lanes. Their young blue star clusters along drawn out spiral arms are spawned in star forming regions that result from collisions of massive molecular clouds. Below, spiral NGC6771 presents a more edge-on perspective, its boxy central bulge due to tidal star streams. Of course, in the distant future a merger of the three galaxies is inevitable. At the estimated distance of this galaxy trio, known to some as the Devil's Mask, the sharp telescopic frame spans over 300 thousand light-years within the boundaries of the far southern constellation Pavo.

Photo by Mike Selby

Common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) feeding on fig (Ficus sur), in the Kibale Forest, Uganda.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two supernova remnants and their surrounding environment, about 6,000 light-years away. The younger one is the well-known Jellyfish Nebula in the center (mostly in yellow). If we could see it by eye, it would appear larger than the full moon in the sky. The filament shown in purple is part of an older, overlapping supernova remnant, G189.6+3.3. A new study used data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to piece together their story. Astronomers believe that there were two stars in a binary system, then the first one exploded as a supernova, kicking away its companion, which also exploded as a supernova tens of thousands of years later, creating the superimposed supernova remnants we see today. The bright star on the right is actually a triple star system named Propus.

Schwäbisch Hall, Germany: the northern old town on Salinenstrasse, seen over the River Kocher. In the foreground is the Kocher weir with a fish ladder (right).

Roman Eisele, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

John O’Donohue

To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings