Farewell for now

Washington DC is looking more and more like Rome BC: some bizarre nominees, and eventually we’ll hear resignation stories from the honorable ones. To understand more about current life along the Potomac, I recommend reading a trilogy of novels by British writer Robert Harris about life along the Tiber back then.

Here’s a great passage from Harris’s Conspirata: A Novel of Ancient Rome, about separation following a political decision. At a social gathering one Roman politician asks Terentia, the wife of Roman leader Cicero, what she thinks about a choice her husband has made: “She removed the necklace from her throat, unclipped the emerald brooch from her breast, and slid the gold bracelets from each of her wrists. Finally, grimacing with the effort, she pulled the rings off her fingers. When she had finished, she cupped all this newly purchased jewelry in her two hands and let it fall. The glittering gems and precious metal scattered noisily across the mosaic floor. Then she turned and walked out of the room.”

That scene is not parallel to what happened in Donald Trump’s first term when some honest folks gave up their cabinet glory: Cicero in this instance in Rome BC was doing the right thing, and his wife was demonstrating how costly the decision would be. But I like the graphic sense of how hard and painful it is for those with power and wealth to give it up—although in Washington DC that is sometimes the only honorable thing to do.

The 2025 circus will be fascinating to watch, and this is my note to Current readers that I’ll now be at a different vantage point. I wrote nearly three dozen short pieces for Current this year, but have now become Christianity Today’s “executive editor for news and global” and am putting aside some other endeavors, including Current writing. I hope you’ll continue to subscribe to Current but will also subscribe to CT.