September 21
Laura M., age 15, North Carolina
September 21, 1997
Up at 10:30. Ate breakfast. Dad picked me up. We, Cap, and Em went 2 lunch at “Semolina’s” for free — it was good. Did homework. Em picked me up and took me home 'cause Dad played tennis. Did homework. Ate. Went 2 store. Watched TV.
Anna L., age 75, Illinois
September 21, 1960
Lo not coming for lunch so thot it a good time to have Mrs. B. to eat a little lunch. Fussing with bed pads. Bleaching and drying of clothes etc.
Marcy S., age 47, North Carolina
September 21, 1971
I’ve been trying to think through the concept of free will. If we’re free to reject God’s love then we must also be free to accept it. And that gives us a certain power. Is our freedom to reject stronger than God’s power to break down our resistance to His love? Or rather can it be stronger?
I’ve had the strange experience at various times during my life of being able without any conscious effort to trust, to accept, to “let go and let God.” It’s as if I had consented at a deep, unconscious level to let Him come in. It has never happened as a result of my trying to trust, relax, etc. Because if it had I would have been able to take some of the credit and eventually my pride would have spoiled the joy and marvelous sense of freedom.
We belong to God by creation and redemption and He loves us so much that He’ll never give up until — what? We surrender, we open the door, we stop resisting — all these are something we do and imply that we have the power to achieve our own salvation to a certain extent.
I believe that God needs people to reveal His love but what is our part? I know he uses us when we’re not even aware of it.
Maybe our part is to do nothing — just simply nothing. And we can’t even do that on our own! E.g. my need (even compulsion) to analyze everything, to think things through and figure them out logically — I have no power of myself to stop this because I’m a slave to it. All I can do is ask Him to free me — even when I still want to keep on analyzing — It’s like that piece of apple cake I wanted to eat so much that I didn’t want not to eat it at all — at least not enough so that my own will could keep me from eating it. Then I prayed fervently (because I realized then that I was a slave to compulsion) that the Lord would free me from the bondage, from the compulsion to eat the cake. He did and I’ll never forget the sense of real freedom that filled me to the brim!
Is self apart from God all evil? If all good is of God then whatever we do that can be called good is (can’t think of the word — instigated?) by the Holy Spirit.
There’s something I’m trying to reconcile and it’s so hard to get hold of — God created the self, therefore it is good. But only if it acknowledges Him as creator, sustainer, etc. and trusts (depends upon) Him completely. Self becomes evil when it rejects God’s dominion and tries to be God, going its own merry, selfish way.
Love has to be stronger than hate, good stronger than evil, which means that God’s love is always at work breaking down the resistance of the self that is on the wrong track, and Love will win out because it is more powerful than our resistance. Otherwise the self that is evil could become God.
But what does that do to our free will? We’re free to reject but it won’t do us any good in the long run. So how can it be “free”? Maybe this — we are free to reject but in the end God’s love will break the last barrier down (The Hound of Heaven) and there we’ll be — truly free, at peace, full of joy and finally realizing that all God wanted to give us was the best — everything Himself. It’s like the story Pickett told about the man who died and left a million dollars to everyone in the town. Some people started spending their money right away — others couldn’t believe their good fortune (too good to be true), and still others didn’t even know about it. But in reality they were all millionaires and could have lived accordingly.
Henry S., age 26, Michigan
September 21, 1887
This has been an eventful day with us. It was a stormy forenoon and we did not go to the fair ground until late and the rain had liven in our table and we boarded up the place where it rained in and started our writing. We had a few customers during the day, and a good many lookers on. We took in about $3.00 in all. Mr. Hubbell, Mr. Adams, and Fred Waters came around and saw us. We walked back to town with them, and called at their stopping place after supper and looked at the surveying drawings they are doing. I got shaved tonight. Wrote 1 Doz. cards. Hope Kate and baby are well.
*(R. Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville)
Cornelia H., age 26, North Carolina
September 21, 1862
Cloudy & warm this morning but no rain yet. We have turnip salad for dinner. Our first mess. The turnips will be few this year as it has been too dry for them. Sam killed a kid yesterday evening two weeks ago today. The hogs like to eat up old Jim Knight. He was drunk & lay down in the road, not far from Gudger’s Mill on Hominy & they suppose it was the hogs. His face is badly cut up & both ears smooth off. I have not seen him. I will soon stop as it is dinner time. Mr. Henry down stairs reading. Willie & Pinck gone with the negroes chinqueapin hunting. They are opening a good deal now. Zona upstairs with me. It seems like fall of the year to look out today. The wind blows mournfully like it. How I wish I was at home this day with Dora & them. I want to go badly.
*(Fear in North Carolina: The Civil War Journals and Letters of the Henry Family, Eds. Karen L. Clinard and Richard Russell, used with permission.)
Samuel P., age 35, London
September 21, 1668
Up, and betimes Sir D. Gawden Alderman Sir Denis Gauden (Navy Victualler)with me talking about the Victualling business, which is now under dispute for a new contract, or whether it shall be put into a Commission. He gone, comes Mr. Hill to talk with me about Lanyon’s business, and so being in haste I took him to the water with me, and so to White Hall, and there left him, and I to Sir W. Coventry, and shewed him my answer to the Duke of York’s great letter, which he likes well. We also discoursed about the Victualling business, which he thinks there is a design to put into a way of Commission, but do look upon all things to be managed with faction, and is grieved under it. So to St. James’s, and there the Duke of York did of his own accord come to me, and tell me that he had read, and do like of, my answers to the objections which he did give me the other day, about the Navy; and so did W. Coventry too, who told me that the Duke of York had shown him them: So to White Hall a little and the Chequer, and then by water home to dinner with my people, where Tong was also this day with me, whom I shall employ for a time, and so out again and by water to Somerset House, but when come thither I turned back and to Southwarke-Fair, very dirty, and there saw the puppet-show of Whittington, which was pretty to see; and how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even myself too! And thence to Jacob Hall’s dancing on the ropes, where I saw such action as I never saw before, and mightily worth seeing; and here took acquaintance with a fellow that carried me to a tavern, whither come the musick of this booth, and by and by Jacob Hall himself, with whom I had a mind to speak, to hear whether he had ever any mischief by falls in his time. He told me, “Yes, many; but never to the breaking of a limb:” he seems a mighty strong man. So giving them a bottle or two of wine, I away with Payne, the waterman. He, seeing me at the play, did get a link to light me, and so light me to the Beare, where Bland, my waterman, waited for me with gold and other things he kept for me, to the value of 40l. and more, which I had about me, for fear of my pockets being cut. So by link-light through the bridge, it being mighty dark, but still weather, and so home, where I find my draught of “The Resolution” come, finished, from Chatham; but will cost me, one way or other, about 12l. or 13l., in the board, frame, and garnishing, which is a little too much, but I will not be beholden to the King’s officers that do it. So to supper, and the boy to read to me, and so to bed. This day I met Mr. Moore in the New Exchange, and had much talk of my Lord’s concernments. This day also come out first the new five-pieces in gold, coined by the Guiny Company; and I did get two pieces of Mr. Holder.
*(The Diary of Samuel Pepys M.A. F.R.S., edited by Henry B. Wheatley F.S.A., London, George Bell & Sons York St. Covent Garden, Cambridge Deighton Bell & Co., 1893.)