Hail The Conquering Hero

Faithful Pat The White Hound

When I arrived home this afternoon, both terriers were barking at the south end of the barn.  I assumed they were bothering my chickens, who were on pasture for the day.  But as I passed the sawdust bin, I saw the body of a red fox draped across a stack of concrete bags.  Closer inspection revealed that it was still warm and limp.  Neither terrier was bloodied, so I placed the carcass where they couldn't get it, checked my birds, and returned to the house to change and do chores.  Faithful Pat, the white hound, was waiting for me at the back door of the house.  He was seriously bloodied and had a deep gash across the top of his head, revealing his bare skull.  He didn't seem to be in pain, and so I slipped a lead on him, walked him to the Jeep, and drove him to the vet, who assures me that with a few stitches he will be as good as new.  I pick him up tomorrow morning. 

For some ten years, Pat has been my primary line of defense against deer, racoons, fox, coyotes, and other mid to large sized animals who left to themselves would decimate my gardens, kill my birds, and generally wreak havoc on the farm.  While I have lost a few chickens, lettuce, and cabbage from time to time, and more than my fair share of quail and pheasants on one or two occasions, Pat's presence has been a consistant and generally non lethal deterrent to maurading creatures in the neighborhood.

But today, the game was obviously more serious.  Herr Todd had designs on my laying flock, and a thirteen year old dog, retired and well past his prime, did exactly what he was bred and kept to do, at no small cost to himself.  I salute his courage  and look forward to his triumphant homecoming tomorrow morning.  He will have a place of honour by the fire, and I might even cook him steak and eggs for supper tomorrow night.

It is said that the High Kings of ancient Ireland kept special packs of white hounds which were valued for their courage, faithfulness, and sporting ability.  I don't know if my Pat carries their bloodline, but he certainly exhibits their characteristics.  Thank you Pat for a job well done.  Might we all be as true to our calling as you have been today.

As for Mr. Fox, I will take him to the taxidermist tomorrow morning.  His beauty will entrance children and visitors for years to come. 

Classical Virtues and True Beauty

Rector's Rambling: October 2012


Phidias: The Cavalcade-Balance, Function, and True Beauty

Sitting here in my chapel/study, I am surrounded by memories.  Directly in front of me is a bronze statue of the Minuteman at Lexington (or was it Concord,) presented to me by the members of my regiment upon my retirement.  He stands defiant, rifle in hand, alongside a plow over which is draped a cloak.  The reference to Livy's account of Cincinnatus is inescapable.  On the shelf below the Minuteman are the chief's stripes from my Dad's dress blue Navy Uniform. In the far corner stands another bronze of St. George slaying the dragon, and beneath that stands a stuffed red fox in front of a Joseph Petro print of Bishop Moody blessing the Knox County Hunt (which still needs to be hung after these many weeks.)  Behind me is a plaster cast of a Celtic hound, his collar broken, the oppressor's sword clenched between his teeth, and a broken crown beneath his left front paw.  Dave Harmon gave it to me when we dedicated the chapel here at Briarwood.  Over the altar, in the Romanesque leaded window, stands the Celtic cross my fellow professors presented to me when I left the college to enter chaplaincy and parish work again.  Next to me on the wainscoting ledge sits a picture of Rebecca taken when we were in college, sitting on a wall built by her father.  There is an Icon of Christ, and another of the Romanov martyrs, and small figurines of Generals Lee and Jackson.

There are so many memories in this room, and yet as I think about them, I realize that they all represent a common heritage and a common philosophy.  Tristan expressed it well when he called home last night.  He was in the midst of processing a particularly virulent attack on about everything he believes, and needed a sounding board.  I was it.  The article was a generalized attack on traditional Graeco-Roman concepts of beauty.  It maintained that they were merely long established tyrannies of the historic male hegemony which oppressed women and those who did not meet the traditional sculptor's standard of beauty.  Tristan responded that in design, good form always follows function, and that certain physical attributes are historically valued because they enhanced performance in a particular realm.  Furthermore, to maintain and develop those attributes, certain desirable social qualities are essential, like self-discipline, restraint, hard work, enhanced levels of understanding, and dedication to reaching goals.  He added that the article seemed to be written by a person who was unwilling to practice those "virtues" necessary to exhibit that beauty of form which follows and enables human function in its highest expression.  In short, the writer was, in his opinion, lazy, undisciplined, unwilling to sacrifice, and far too willing to blame their own rejection on the attitudes of others rather than on their own unwillingness to cooperate with those laws of nature which are self evident;  those laws which in an earlier age brought death or slavery to those who ignored them.

I suppose the vast majority of my nick knacks and keepsakes are reminders of what Tristan called "Traditional Values."  They remind me of old comrades, of shared sacrifice and hard work, of heroism and the disciplines which preserved freedoms and built empires-spiritual as well as political or economic.  In a very real sense, they call me to examine my spiritual life, and to realize that my physical and intellectual lives are important expressions of that "spiritual life" which I value so much.  Certainly, my salvation is all of grace.  It is freely given by Jesus Christ through the blood of the everlasting covenant.  I neither deserve it, nor can I do anything to attain it.  But once it becomes the defining feature of my life, I am changed forever, and called to put aside those bad habits of laziness, and thoughtlessness, and selfish lusts of the flesh and mind.  I am called to so discipline myself in grateful humility that I do my best to follow the example of who Jesus is and what he does in history.  The virtues of temperance, self-control, hard work, personal discipline, dedication, and submission to the revealed will of God- along with so many others, enable me by God's grace to be more like Jesus, that his work might be done in this world. 

David Brainerd, the early Puritan missionary to the natives of New England, lamented that God had given him a message to proclaim and a horse from which to proclaim it.  By not taking care of his physical health, he said, "I have killed the horse, and now I have no way to deliver the message."  His words call us all to pay closer attention to the exercise of the traditional virtues in our lives.  God calls us to do our best to develop physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual health that we might be able to serve him more faithfully and fully.  It is true that not all of us start with the same raw materials in every area.  Some of us have found our abilities to develop in one area or another severely limited  by accidents of nature beyond our control or by bad decisions we made in the past.  But whatever our situation, we are called in the here and now to do the best we can with what we possess in the present.  To labour toward that end is to attain true beauty in both the Classical sense and in the Christian sense. 

Thank you Tristan, for reminding me why I kept all of this junk.  In the weeks to come, might we all commit ourselves to the practice of those virtues which will help us to build stronger bodies, stronger minds, stronger relationships with each other, and more intimate relationships with Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, my Master.

Faithfully,
Bill+