POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Disintegration

Pop would often say (when I was a young Root), "These things that we know beyond what is inherently known to us imbued by the Creator - the knowledge passed from one generation to the next is a treasure - the cumulative wisdom of the lives of those who came before us". Or some such. His argument was that only a fool would rely on his own experiential knowledge. He would lament the concept of a "self-made man" - to him this fiction was the height of arrogance and pride. So, a man who would say such a thing, in Pop's estimation, was a self-made fool. But he was (and is) olde school that way.

As I have grown older and older still, I have come to appreciate Pop's opinion on the matter more and more.

I am saddened by what I see, of course. Not unlike many of my fellow countrymen, I too fear that there are great swaths of people among us (all infused with the knowledge of good and evil in their hearts) who have no treasure from which to draw, no compass to refer to, no default script on which to depend in these most interesting times. These individuals born as dignified creatures, God's most prized creation among all of His Creation... these Human Beings intended to achieve beyond the Angelic Choirs... have been betrayed. It is true. But they have not been betrayed by "Society" - they have been betrayed by their very own predecessors. And while Society may have a level of obligation toward these, the least among us, it is fair to discuss why a man's unfulfilled obligations to his children is so very morally reprehensible.

One need only read the stories about abandoned babies, children living in condemned homes of filth, children being beaten to death, infants being shaken and smothered, and the wholesale abuse of children in every conceivable manner to realize that there is something more than financial need in the world. This is to say that money is a salve for pocketbooks. What does it do, really, to alleviate a Human condition so destitute and laid bare that none can make an actual account of the deficit? Even a dumb animal needs for food. We are more than animals. It is fair to use the term "Morally Bankrupt", but it begs the question: how can one be bankrupt when one inherited  no estate to begin with?

This is neither the first or the last generation to lament its inability to reconcile what it sees with its own eyes to the romance of bygone days and the real expectations it is seeing dashed upon the rocks day-by-day. I am old enough to remember a very different country. And I am still young.

Our family lives in the burbs. Most local atrocities still occur 25 or so minutes away.  Nevertheless, the Cancer is spreading. And by that I am not speaking in code. I am not even talking about inner-city, Black Human People moving out in this direction. Nope. I am talking about the truly disenfranchised. The fatherless children. The children being raised in broken homes. The children being raised by another mom or dad... or no mom or dad, or moms and dads that really don't have time for them. In what manner can a father pass along the wisdom that is the child's rightful inheritance if he is not there to do it? Or will not do it? Or is not permitted to do it? Perhaps worse; how is a man who was not entrusted with an inheritance to begin with supposed to pass along what he does not himself possess?

I fear we really have entered into a phase of the American Story from which we cannot recover. Father is a caricature. Mother is a MILF. Daughter is raw material for future issues of Playboy and Penthouse, and son is raw material for someone else's pension. Husband is a relative term and wife is diminished.

I am not suggesting that any reasonable Person is innocent due to circumstance. Not at all. What I am suggesting is that perhaps there is something to the tried and true approach to living. I know I may sound backward-looking, but Father, Mother, Sons, Daughters - a so-called "Traditional Family" means a hell of a lot more than Daddy and Mommy having sex without people getting all judgey about it. I know it's not exotic... it's not "progressive"... it is sort of melba toast in the eyes of Those Who Know Better... but really maybe, just maybe there's something to it.

Even so, so much is lost already. For Age and a Day, commentators have longed that this library hadn't burned... that this painting had not been destroyed... have trembled in fear that this work or that work seems lost forever. And it is reasonable to cry over these things. No?

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

More Posts - Website