What Is History? Part 14
The collective knowledge gained over time includes an awareness of mankind’s tendency to miscalculate. —Wiley Sword
History tells us where we have been. Our minds define where we are going. —Wiley Sword
In every economic boom and bust there are winners and losers. —Gary North
What goes up must come down. —Proverbial
I'd like someone to tell me one day, why the bastards who want to put up my taxes are always so rich. —Bernard Cornwell
. . . when mankind arrives in paradise he will drown the glory of the angels with neon signs and honkytonk bars. —Bernard Cornwell
The demise of the Roman Empire has been mourned to excess. Its essence was violence and its accomplishments were fundamentally second-rate. —John Davies
If it is accepted that a nation has an organic nature similar to that of a human being—a concept full of difficulties . . . —John Davies
We learn nothing because we remember nothing. —Gore Vidal
Montaigne felt that lying should be a capital offense because once the tongue grows used to telling lies there is no end to it: Worse, there can be no sensible discourse between people as their society collapses due to incomprenhension. —Gore Vidal
. . . wasn't the 1860 Civil War really about the abolition of slavery? No, it was not, but our historians tend to be cut from the same material as the media. —Vidal
Battle is decided not by the orders of a commander in chief but by the spirit of the army. —Tolstoy
Teach the free man how to praise. —W.H. Auden
I do not see the national flag flying from the staff of the sycamore,
Or any decree of the government written on the leaves of the walnut . . . .
—Wendell Berry
Entries(RSS)
This is Fr. Denis Fahey's comment on history: "The supreme law, illustrated in the actual historical world, is that it is well or ill with it, simply and absolutely, in proportion as it accepts or rejects God's plan for the restoration of our Real Life, the Life of Grace, lost by original sin. The events of our age, as of every age, are, in the last analysis, the results of man's acceptance or rejection of the Divine Plan for ordered human life. They are, therefore, the consequences of the application to action of the ideas of what is order and what is disorder, which have been held by different minds."
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.
--William Faulkner
Dr Wilson, here's one I've always liked: if you don't know where you're going, then any road will take you there.
"I do know I'm ready for the job [the presidency].
And if not, thats just the way it goes." - George W Bush
"I understand small business growth. I was one" - George W Bush
"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas." - George W Bush
"They have misunderestimated me" - George W Bush
"Our enemies are working twenty-four hours a day to harm America. And so are we!"
--George W. Bush
"It's a pun!" the King added in an angry tone, and everybody laughed. "Let the jury consider their verdict." the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
"No, no!" said the Queen. "Sentence first--verdict afterwards."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Alice loudly. "The idea of having he sentence first!" (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
I would rewrite the last sentence of Mr Sword's words: History tells us where we have been. Our petty egos, blindness, stupidity, folly, lack of attention, and muddle-headedness define where we are going.
5Joseph Salemi:
"I have seen the enemy and he is us". A great truth indeed.
H.F. Wolff
"Teach the free man how to praise. —W.H. Auden
This is the most noble of human actions. Virgil and Dante were of this mind as are all the really good or great poets. Both Virgil and Dante spent a couple of verses, no more than a few, describing what e.e.cumming's saw as "mostpeople" ( who are just outside the vestibule of hell) and then went on to use the rest of their poems on those worthy of praise. Of course the psalms are like this too as is the whole liturgical year for Christians. Social programs, taxes, more government, pre-emptive wars, and television are not. One " metric " of measuring a culture is who is praising what and why. I always enjoy your articles, Dr. Wilson. I think you are worthy to be praised, so thank you.
Ezra Taft Benson- "Get Big or Get Out", said President Eisenhower's Agriculture Secretary to the American farmer. And so another Eisenhower policy acts as solvent of traditional American life. Remember the Interstate Highway System, the travails of Attorney General Herbert Brownell, and the invasion of Little Rock. One must wonder whether Ike hated rural American life as much as Peter Bogdanovich or Barack Hussein Obama.
"Teach the free man how to praise. —W.H. Auden" and also "Robert @ 9"
Today, while traveling Louisiana 507 for the purpose of going to a meeting, a stretch of road which carries one not too far from where Bonnie and Clyde were shot and while touches the foot of Driskill Mountain, the highest point in Louisiana, God chose to show Himself to me as phenomenon. It is much harder to articulate God's unanticipated manifestation as it is to experience it.
My paternal grandmother had not lost her Celtic sensibilities from which she would declare, as we would walk though the fall woods looking for hickory nuts and winter huckleberries, that October and November were the "thin time" during which a body, turning some corner in the forest, might just like Enoch walk from Earth to Heaven or meet God in some special way.
This year, an exception in these climes and in these times, autumn has come upon north Louisiana with a beauty which I have not seen since my teens. I was particularly aware of that beauty and equally aware of its fleeting nature, soon to give way to the barrenness of stark winter.
Often, when I drive, I make time to pray. This morning, as I cruised through an arched canopy of trees encroaching on the roadway as they often do here, trees wearing Joseph's coat of many colors, I was recounting and confessing sins. With the assistance of last night's rain, the trees had laid some of their color onto the back asphalt of the narrow road.
I was listening to classical music on the radio. Such was the beauty around me that I chose to stop at a spot, just for a moment, near the old Sparta Road which once coursed through antebellum Louisiana. There, an old logging road, long abandoned and hard flanked by towering, channelized and focused my eyes to its vanishing point, which ended in a blur of hues. While looking to the vanishing point, a Bach suite arranged by Gustav Mahler for a 1909 performance in New York, a performance which Mahler himself conducted, spilled out of my car and mingled with the wet leaves and the fragrances which come with fall foliage. From some home hearth or perhaps a hunter's fire came the smell of smoke, inviting to fellowship, food and warmth.
"Reality" tugged in as a duty to get to the meeting on time. As I returned to the car, and Mahler's arrangement of Bach, the composer whose theme is redemption, ended, it was announced that what I had just heard was a reproduction of Mahler's performance, a reproduction conducted by a friend of mine at the Hot Springs' Music Festival this year. Therewith did God seal His miracle on Louisiana 507.
As I drove on, I realized that when one apprehends God as phenomenon, there are actually two miracles: the event itself and the ability to perceive it. The latter does not come to one by magic or overt merit but with a subordination to those wise ones who over the course of time impart it to one: my paternal grandmother who retained and shared her understanding of "the thin time" and my father who as we would go on the hunt in woods just like those I experienced today would say, "Son, be ready to see something you do not anticipate; a good hunt is more than just for deer."
As I returned home, I was tempted, in the real sense of that word, to return to the spot where all of this hand come together earlier in the day. But I realized that to do so would already be a form of idolatry. It is the God of the event who is worthy of the praise. This little cyber missive is my praise and a sharing.
In the times which seem to be upon us, the gift to be ready to see that which we do not anticipate will make life worth living whatever might befall us.
Mr Peters, that was a beautiful post. Regarding your realisation that to return to the spot where you had that experience would be idolatry, you're absolutely right. Furthermore, you obviously have the wisdom to handle such an experience. Such experiences as you had are present-moment experiences which come on their own, leave on their own, and we cant make them come to us no matter how hard we try, nor relive them.
Some of these experiences can be profound, and when someone who, unlike you, doesn't know better, has such an experience and then tries to explain it to others who have no understanding, or tries to show them 'this is what happened to me, and you can have it happen to you too', etc., this can lead to all kinds of cults and false religions. How God reveals himself to us is up to him, but how we handle it when he does is up to us.
Mr. Peters,
I have always thought you should submitt some articles for publication. You have eyes to see, are thoughtful and your southern manner allows you to be authentic without affectation. I consider it a privilege to have met you last summer and look forward to many more years of keeping the door with you and other posters at Chronicles--- in the very manner you describe above --our feeble attempts to know, love and serve God, and through his mercy, to be with Him forever. Amen
I agree completely with both of the above. Your ability to see the profundity in daily things, is the key. And you write about it in a way that is not self-conscious, or deliberately attempting to be clever. These traits are extremely rare in modern letters.
It would be wonderful to see these published. I am willing to donate to whatever fund someone may care to start taking up so that this can be accomplished.