THOMAS writes:

First of all, I would like to apologize if I start to ramble, or if my thoughts seems disorganized. I am an engineer by trade, and am unused to expressive writing.

I am a husband and a father of two small children. I am a 12-year veteran: eight years active duty, four years reserves. I was raised to be patriotic, honest and loyal by my wonderful parents. I am trying to do the same with my own children. And yet, at every turn I am confronted by a culture and a government that wishes to destroy all I cherish. For example, my former military profession, submarines, which helped win the Second World War and the Cold War, is being systematically destroyed by the introduction of women. All this is being done not only with the acquiescence, but with the enthusiastic support of military “leadership” that swore an oath to defend the country and their fellow servicemen.

At first, I felt indignation. Then I felt sadness. Then despondency. Now, all I feel is contempt, for my country, our culture and the stupid masses that allowed this nation to be plowed under. I know this is wrong, but I almost welcome bad news. I keep hoping that maybe, if things get bad enough, people might wake up and put a stop to the lunacy. Let it burn, and maybe we can rebuild from the ashes. I realize this is a counter-productive mode of thinking, and likely to lead to darker times, but I cannot help myself.

Do you have any advice, or words of hope?

Laura writes:

Your despondency, anger and disgust are signs of health. When a civilization goes bad, it goes bad everywhere, in every sphere of life, because the desertion of God touches everything and there is no escaping it. If you loved your son and he had become a drug addict, you might reach the point where you wanted him to experience a major downfall, perhaps even end up in prison, in the hopes that it would save him. Wishing that American would experience something similar is not disloyalty. I am glad and reassured to read of your anger, which I hope will become a steady form of militance. Thank you for expressing it so well.

I advise you to be a walking contradiction to this chaos and folly. America was formed by men of honor. They dressed well, spoke well, read widely and were natural aristocrats. They had dignity. Be this sort of person in the smallest ways — and pray that the chastisement this country will inevitably experience leads to some form of rebirth. In your bearing and habits refute the nihilism you see. Whatever comes, you will offer sense to those around you. Humility and militance are two essential qualities of any counter-revolutionary.

Don’t despair. Bitterness and cynicism are spiritual failings. They cannot be blamed on anything or anyone else, no matter how evil. They arise from within the heart, not from without. If you become bitter, you will have only yourself to blame. What is false cannot last. Have confidence in God. And love your country, not because it is good or wise, but because it is yours. Like all forms of love, love of country does not always come easily. Love is not just a good feeling. Remember that America consists of the living, but also of the dead and the unborn. They are all here and I assure you most of them would agree with you. It’s entirely possible that America, or a nation that arises from it, will be better someday than what it was in the past. But in all of human history, order, liberty and peace are the exceptions, not the rule.

That we often love something not because it is good and wise or because it makes us happy, but because we are bound to it in time reminds me of Robert Frost’s poem Hyla Brook.

Hyla Brook

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow)—
Or flourished and come up in jewelweed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent,
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.

— Comments —-

Buck writes:

“Because we are bound to it in time”; “We love the things we love for what they are.”

That’s true for me.

But, many things change. Our personal histories begin when we do. Today’s children and theirs, are bound in time to modern things, many of the very things we abhor, things that we wish that we had the power to unbind them from. Hyla Brook could be read as melancholy, even lament.

The Hangman by Maurice Ogden, written in 1951, has been on my desktop for years. Like most poems, it’s open to interpretation and might align with other world views. It could have been about McCarthyism or the Holocaust, and it can be about the relinquishing of our natural rights.

As a carpenter, and all-around nice guy, always granting good intentions, I might show up at the site with my truck load of tools, my skill sets and ask if he needs help. I love building structures. Who am I to question or judge him or to judge the building supply store, or the county permit department, or whoever contracted the job? I have my own interests.

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