Personal Reflections to those I love

Today, we experienced the first real snow of the year. The horses were skittish as I led them to pasture in the semi-darkness of a mid-December day. The terriers literally tumbled down the front steps in wild anticipation of what they might find. Cleo, the barn cat, observed their idiocy with an icy glare from her safe perch. Real winter is arguably my favorite time of the year. As it limits my activities, it gives me more time for real contemplation of what is truly important. Some wag once said that with age comes wisdom. I don’t know about that, but with it certainly comes stiffer knees and a changed outlook. Most of the cause’s célèbre which occupied my energy and activity in earlier days have been abandoned or repudiated by most of the people I know, and certainly by society at large. But I continue to mull them over in my mind, and am convinced that a goodly portion of them, some with minor modifications, are as true as ever. The Old Republic has passed, and the ideas of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin are as unknown as those of Scipio, Cicero, and Tacitus. The stately commitment of the Old Empire to responsibility and order is reinterpreted as nothing but greed and oppression by a younger generation of scholars and students, if they know of it at all. Even those Churches that God used to form my spiritual habit and outlook have developed into things that Fr. Maier and the Venerable Bede would not recognize.

In spite of the painful realization that the values which have shaped my life are at best repudiated and at worst forgotten, I remain an optimist for the most part. I remember as an undergraduate, and later as a graduate student, studying in detail the fall of Roman Britain. It was a slow and gradual passing from that day in the Year of Our Lord 486 when the Emperor wrote that there were no troops available, and that “the cantons must take steps to defend themselves.” Within a few years, the great villas were no more. People who could not or would not return to Italy clustered in the walled towns, or were slowly driven back into the mountains of the west. These were the days of Arthur and Gildas and Patrick, days of great deeds in desperate times. And then one day it became evident that the children no longer spoke Latin, and that the stonecutters had lost their art, and the flowing lines of Latin verse had been largely replaced by the throbbing and guttural chant of the Saxon warrior. But in spite of it all, the faith survived, and many of the old manuscripts were preserved, and stories were told of great days and great men. Lives and generations passed, but the ideas were passed down faithfully from Father to Son, from Mother to daughter, from Abbot to Monk, from Bishop to Priest, and from Priest to People. And then, many years later, by God’s good grace, there was a Renaissance of piety and learning. The barbarian was converted, civilized, and gentled. The ideas bore fruit, and God rebuilt that which had been lost through the excess of human sinfulness. Then, He was as always faithful to those who were called by his Name, those who followed Him in faith and in obedience.

And so, at the beginning of 2010, I remain an optimist, and I pledge myself to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love. I pledge to pass on those ideas and things which are good and true and beautiful. I pledge to study and pray, to teach and preach, to faithfully administer the sacraments, and to maintain the values I have received from apostles and prophets, from liberators and defenders, from my fathers physical and spiritual. I will “work with my hands and study to be quiet,” that I might be a godly example among those to whom I am called. I will gently resist that which is contrary to God’s Word written, and love all those for whom Christ died. And that will, I think, be enough for one year.

May God bless us all in this coming New Year. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN+

To Christ, The True King,

Bill+