Lillie and I married in 1984 and that year we wrote our first annual Christmas letter. Our intent was to write one annually. We did so through our 2018 letter, marking 35 Christmases touching base with our friends and loved ones.
We’d like to resume our letters, not because you badly need to hear from us; but rather because we need to communicate with you.
The “big event” this year was my mother’s passing away from this earth and into glory with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Whose birth we celebrate this season. The events leading up to, and including, her death are very vivid in my mind and I suppose they will remain so for the rest of my life. We buried her in Fairburn, Georgia, next to her beloved husband, Charles, our father, who preceded her in death by 41 years.
Life with father and mother seems like yesterday. I can still hear my father’s voice announcing his arrival from work or from a trip to the store. And I can hear my mother’s reply.
Memories can be a great joy, so long as one does not live in the past but rather uses the past as a stepping stone to advancing his calling in life. We do not worship our ancestors; rather we honor our parents and our elders — those who came before — because we know that unless we stand on their shoulders we will not do well in life. But, more critically, because God commands us to. To worship ancestors is to stagnate; to denigrate them is to destroy the future; to honor them is to progress and to help our children and grandchildren do so as well.
I am grateful for my parents and seldom do I live a day when I do not recall or act upon a gem of truth or a piece of advice given to me by them. I hope I will be half as profitable to my children and grandchildren as my father and mother were to me. I am also grateful for my birth in El Pao, Venezuela, and my childhood years there. I had good childhood friends and wonderful teachers whose wisdom persists despite the passing of the years. I am thankful for the privilege of having grown amongst Americans of different states and Latin Americans of different countries. Looking back, I can clearly see what an honor and benefit that was to me and to my own family.
Whenever I visited my father’s burial place, I would walk past Shingo’s grave. Shingo was a member or our small country church in Fairburn. The site always had flowers which I understood were placed by his sister who cared for the site for decades. In my last two or three visits to my father’s site earlier this year I noticed that Shingo’s tomb had no flowers. During my mother’s burial and for two visits afterwards, Shingo’s tomb remained bare. I can only suppose that his sister has either moved out of state or has passed away.
I know that over time, most graves will become unvisited. That thought saddens me and reminds me that most of us will not be long remembered after we leave this earth. It is good to know, however, that our Lord does remember and He will accompany us throughout our lives and as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And He will also raise us from our tombs on that Great Day to live eternally in a New Heaven and a New Earth.
That, too, is part of the great story of Christmas.
Two grandchildren, James and Ada, were born in March and January to Elizabeth and Tyler and to Charles and Essie, respectively. They have added to the rambunctious joys of family visits, along with their siblings and cousins, Grace, Ebenezer, Emily, and Beverly. And there are two more on the way: one to Esther and the other to Essie.
This year marked my 70th birthday. My children gave me a great gift, the Folio Society edition of George Eliot’s great novel, Middlemarch, which I look forward to reading early next year. In closing this year’s letter, it is appropriate to quote from that work:
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Be faithful.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, now and always.
Taken on September 11, 2023, after my mother’s funeral. I was not feeling well and had no idea that my children had aligned behind us in birth order. Thank you, dear children. And beloved wife.
The photo below was taken in our home in El Pao, circa 1955. At the left, is my uncle, Alfred Barnes; to the right is Mr. John Tuohy, a dear friend to the very end.
I do not remember the two gentlemen in the center.
The painting on the wall was held by my mother to the end of her days. It is one of the constants throughout my entire life. Whenever I think of El Pao, invariably that painting comes to my mind. It is of huts in Lake Maracaibo in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
The late Otto Scott used to say that the primary reason he enjoyed watching older movies was not so much the plot or the acting, although both might have been very good in a given picture. The primary reason was to be reminded of how folks used to behave; how they talked; how they dressed and how they exhibited courteous behaviors.
Mr. Scott’s point was not that folks were necessarily “better” or “purer”; rather that they observed restrictions that are necessary for the proper functioning of a society.
Courteous behavior is like motor oil in a finely tuned machine. If the oil runs out, the machinery will collapse.
As you observe the photo below, which was sent by a family friend to my sister, you will notice that the four gentlemen are dressed in coats and ties simply for a visit to a home in the mining camp in a jungle. You will also notice that they are well groomed. Based on my personal knowledge of my uncle and of Mr. Tuohy, I can tell you that they also carried on lively, knowledgeable, interesting, and — most importantly — respectful conversations.
Again, no one is saying these men were “good” — there is none good but God — or that they had no blemishes or dark spots. That is not the point.
What I am saying is that the courtesy they learned at home and exhibited throughout their lives enabled society to proceed despite rough spots and sharp edges.
As that courtesy and rules of manners have eroded, society also has eroded alongside.
What maintains such courtesy? Well, readers of this blog will know my position: Christianity is what produces such courtesy. Christianity gives us the law of God by which we live, and by which we agree to function.
Last Sunday was the First of Advent. May we all enjoy this season and also ponder its significance.
[My intent is to return to the series of posts begun before my mother’s death wherein I discuss our neglect of the Historic Faith and the concomitant breakdown in our society. The post below was first published four (4) years ago, on October 11, 2019, and serves as a good re-introduction to the aforementioned series, which we will now continue.]
If you don’t denounce breakdowns in the fringe, you’ll soon see them lionized in the center.
In El Pao in 1958, we children did not know that, back in the States a horrible drama was unfolding, which, as I saw decades later, confirmed a comment I had heard. Something about breakdowns in the fringes of society, if left unaddressed, would take center stage.
This was an era when, for the most part, certain subjects were not discussed in the presence of children. I recall sitting in the El Pao bar with WWII veterans and never hearing a single curse or blasphemy. So much was the care to not offend children, that when Hollywood profanity was unleashed in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s my shock at the language suddenly present in films was genuine and guileless.
So it does not surprise me that I only heard about the Starkweather murder spree decades later, when movies and at least one rock song were based thereon or alluded thereto.
We children did hear conversations about movies like East of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause. Films which, according to the general tenor of the discussions, reflected disaffected, conflicted, alienated, and mutinous youth. You might call them Jean-Paul Sartre’s offspring. Furthermore, when families were portrayed, the depiction was not flattering.
I remember seeing Rebel Without A Cause during a movie night in the camp. Several things struck me: the father walking around wearing a girly apron; the absence or diminishment of God; an utter incomprehension as to what exactly was bothering the James Dean character; and revulsion at the Dean character’s drinking the family milk directly from the bottle and placing it back in the refrigerator. As usual, I assumed these themes were too profound for children; hence my distaste was probably unwarranted. However, I wasn’t alone in the confusion, as I heard adults talking about it and also expressing less than full admiration.
The series of aforementioned events took place in Nebraska. The protagonists were a nineteen-year-old young man who dressed, combed his reddish hair, and acted like the Rebel’s James Dean; and a thirteen-year-old girl who dressed and acted as much as possible as her Dean-like boyfriend, except her hair was dark brown.
These two could be Exhibit A for those Americans who “knew”, in a guts-knowledge sort of way, that the theatre, of all other arts, had perhaps the greatest influence or effect on behavior. But most did not know the men across the Atlantic who worked obsessively to use the stage and the theatre precisely to influence the society in which they were reared. Men such as Bertolt Brecht and, of even more influence in America, Kenneth Tynan, and a few others, who were transparent in their purpose: to promote hedonism and permissiveness, including the unrestrained use of coarse, blasphemous, profane language on the stage and in public: some, because they believed there was a link between the utter denial of self-denial and their socialistic political agenda; others, because they simply were compelled to tear down whatever Christian pillars remained in what they considered to be a stifling, boring, bourgeois society.
So we should not be surprised that Brecht fervently worked to use art “not as a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” He also said, “Don’t expect the theatre to satisfy the habits of its audience, but to change them.”
Kenneth Tynan’s oeuvre can probably best be summed up with his, “I hope I never have to believe in God, it would be an awful confession of failure.” Well, he succeeded wildly in coarsening our culture. It is sad to think that, despite his ugly outlook, he did admire C.S. Lewis, who had been his tutor at Oxford. After having read Lewis’s The Hideous Strength, he said, “How thrilling he makes goodness seem — how tangible and radiant!”. It is unfortunate that he did not follow through with this admiration.
I will readily concede that by the time of these men’s work, there was already a demand, however inchoate, in western audiences for the excreta they would put out. But their impact is undeniable, nevertheless.
Of course, it is much easier to tear down than to build up. And the two Nebraska murderers certainly destroyed: a masterful vindication of Brecht, who died a mere 3 years before the events related here, and Tynan, whose influence was greatest in the America of the late 1950’s through the 1960’s. Not to mention the existentialist tenor pervading society, especially youth.
The girl’s parents (mother and stepfather) were opposed to her relationship with the young man and acted to stop it. In addition, the youth’s parents were also opposed, a position which enraged him to the point of physically attacking his father, an event resulting in his expulsion from home.
One night, the angry youth stopped by a gas station in the town where they lived. He pulled a shotgun on the attendant, a young man of twenty-one, married and soon to have been a father. Before long he lay dead, his head blown beyond recognition.
The youth then went to his girlfriend’s house where they killed the girl’s mother, step-father, and two-year-old sister with rifle butt, kitchen knife, and bullets. They stuffed the mother’s body down the outhouse toilet opening; crammed the baby sister’s body in the box that had been used as a garbage can and placed it in the outhouse; dragged the step-father’s body to the chicken coup and left it there.
They then cleaned up the blood in the house and drank pop and ate chips that evening. For almost a week, they remained there, buying food and milk on credit from the milkman, as her family’s corpses rotted nearby. When folks would come by to visit or inquire, they were scooted away by the girl who would tell all that everybody was very sick with a highly contagious flu, an excuse which soon began to wear thin.
They realized they’d have to skip town and decided to go to an old friend of the young man’s family: a seventy-two-year old farmer who often let the boy and his siblings play and hunt on his farm some twenty miles from town.
The murderous couple’s intention was to steal the farmer’s car. And kill him.
After shooting him in the head, wounding his dog as it ran away, and dragging his body to an out building, they spent the night in his house eating and drinking pop.
The next day they drove off but got stuck in mud and had to abandon the car and walk, with the old man’s 22 rifle and handgun. They were befriended by a teenage couple, childhood sweethearts, who offered them a ride. The killers asked them to drive back to the dead man’s farm; this they did, in innocent ignorance.
The seventeen-year-old young man was shot six times in the head; his sixteen-year-old sweetheart was shot once in the head and stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen and pubic area.
Their bodies were hauled to the storm cellar and abandoned there. The killers took their car and drove off, back to town.
There they invaded an industrialist’s home which the youth had often seen during his days as a garbage collector. They repeatedly stabbed the wife in the neck and chest, while finding a moment to break the family poodle’s neck to keep it from barking.
When the man of the house arrived, he was met with the barrel of a gun, but he quickly deflected and began a fight to the death with the killer, who excelled in only one class in school: gym. The fight dragged on but finally the youth got the upper hand and shot the forty-seven-year-old man dead.
The killer couple remembered the maid they had locked up in a bedroom closet. The maid, who was hard of hearing, meekly allowed the degenerate teens to tie her to the bed where she was repeatedly stabbed. They then drove off in the family Packard.
This time they drove west, towards Wyoming. They had car trouble. Seeing a car parked alongside a road, they thought it’d be a good one to steal. Its owner, a middle-aged shoe salesman was sleeping and the youth woke him, only to shoot him nine times in the head. That was to be their last murder victim, Mr. Merle Collison, husband and father. The murderer pushed the body to the passenger’s side and tried to drive off, only to have trouble releasing the emergency brake.
A young geologist saw them and, thinking they were having car trouble, walked up to the driver’s window only to have a gun pointed at him as his eyes glanced at the corpse in the front passenger’s side. He figured he had to fight and so did.
That was a good decision, for while they struggled, a Wyoming deputy sheriff drove by and, seeing the commotion, stopped. The youth jumped back in the Packard, while his girlfriend ran to the sheriff, quickly transforming herself into a damsel in distress.
After a short pursuit, both were in custody and returned to Nebraska where they were tried and found guilty of murder. He, playing the deceased James Dean to the end, was electrocuted in 1959; she made parole in the 1970’s.
Later in life, I apprehended how prescient had been that conversation I had heard, that the breakdowns in the fringes of society were not being explained, let alone denounced.
As severe deterioration was increasingly evidenced here and there (for instance, the Clutter murders took place in Kansas a mere year later), some (many?) parents were closed mouthed about it, believing that “the experts” – teachers, bureaucrats, psychiatrists, clergymen — were better able to deal with it. However, some clergymen, either directed their fury to wine and beer and other irrelevancies (alcohol played no part in this ghastly series of crimes), while others continued slouching their congregations away from the historic faith towards a sort of progressive twentieth century new beginning, cheerfully oblivious that, thus far, more people had been killed in that degenerate century than in any other, while still others preached what was termed an evangelical gospel message, but one that had little relevance to what was happening right before their very eyes.
In an age whose elite was feverishly busy destroying and mocking its Christian foundations, all under the guise of creating a truly “civilized society”, the church should have been dedicating the time and sweat to intellectually and spiritually denounce such intellectual termites.
So it is no surprise that, when it came to parenting, millions of parents of “The Greatest Generation” turned from the Bible to Dr. Spock’s humanistic advice in Baby and Childcare. The results have not been pretty as generations have been trained to look to themselves for solutions as opposed to seeking the Mind of God, our Creator and Redeemer.
To take two noteworthy examples, while parents and churches hearkened to humanism’s siren songs, Marx’s 19th century
Manifesto and Connolly’s 20th century “programme” were being promoted in the theatre and university and legislatures throughout the twentieth century and bore spectacular fruit: abolition of the death penalty; equalization of wealth; rehabilitation of criminals; free medicine; food subsidies; decriminalization of homosexuality; easing, if not outright elimination of divorce laws, thereby weakening marriage; children’s rights; elimination of all discrimination; and so forth. Question any of the above today and you will be denounced as a troglodyte. Or worse.
As for teachers, they were coming awfully close to intellectually justifying or at least “understanding” these acts – acts which even children (before twentieth-century-indoctrination took hold) could plainly see were wholly, horrendously unjustifiable by any civilized measure.
As for politicians and bureaucrats, they sought for angles and positioning: the political Freudians, in their myriad manifestations, urged more therapy and, therefore, more dollars to state-funded psychiatrists and psychologists, most of whom represented another, alien, philosophy as opposed to an empirical discipline; the political Quakerians, in their multifarious, contradictory incarnations, urged more jails, as if evil could be transformed into goodness by some inner light emanating from a cell in Sing Sing.
A mere twenty years later and beyond, Hollywood was making, not one, but up to four or more movies, in effect, romanticizing these murderers who were absolutely devoid of any sense of pity or compassion. A major rock star wrote a song about them. And a major publisher was backing a project where the murderous lassie would be able to tell “her side” of the story (she claims innocence, of course).
If you don’t denounce breakdowns in the fringe, you’ll soon see them lionized in the center.
In that era, the paradoxical 1950’s, precious few men forcefully and learnedly tied such actions, whether murder or otherwise, to their antecedent: a loss of the Faith. Lonely preachers valiantly made that case. But they were few.
Typical reactions to such acts were ineffectual because both the action and the reaction proceeded from the same source: an antithetical faith whose genesis occurred way back in Eden, where man determined to decide for himself what was good and what was evil.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980)
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather, convicted murderers.
Robert Jensen (17) and Carol King (16), the sweethearts murdered by the killer couple. This was the murder which was tried and for which the James Dean wannabe was executed. Their high school junior class was reduced overnight from 8 to 6. Both were greatly loved and greatly missed. And, decades later, their town was aghast to learn that the murderers held a fascination for some people, including Hollywood.
Robert Colvert (21), murdered gas station attendant. His only daughter, Barb, was born five months later. She still weeps when talking about him, given her recollections of interactions with her mother.
Mr. and Mrs. Ward. He was the industrialist who fought to the death. Still remembered as a generous couple.
Lilyan Fencl, the Ward’s maid. She was remembered as shy, gentle, quiet, and hard working.
Velda Bartlett: Caril Ann’s mother. One of the first murder victims.
Betty Jean Bartlett, the 2-year old step sister of the murderess. They killed her with the butt of a gun.
Murderer statement shortly before his execution in 1959. A self-pitying, alienated sentiment, worthy of Jean-Paul Sartre, who is very much with us still.
I was blessed with a happy childhood. Part of what enabled that blessing was having a mother and father who did not allow a complaining spirit in the home and who were astute enough to remind us of our blessings and daily provision, not least of which was food on our table every day.
I tended towards a bit of “shyness” but my parents did not allow me to shrink away from social events or gatherings; on the contrary, they pushed me into them, which sort of “forced” me to swim or sink. And I am grateful, because to this day gregariousness is not my strong suit; nevertheless, I remember my parents’ and now “force” myself, instead of relying on mother or father to do so.
Ada Barnes, née Rodriguez, was born September 30, 1930, in Upata, Estado Bolívar, in the interior regions of Venezuela. Her home was typical of the era and the region: a rustic, colonial type structure, meaning a front door and heavy wood casement window facing the dirt street. Beyond the door was a small rectangular receiving room. Farther on, an entryway led into an open hallway which led to the kitchen, and beyond it, a larger garden area with fruit trees, chickens, turtles, and pigs.
My mother’s earliest memory was of the men who would be hired to come and slaughter a pig for food. It was a very loud affair and she would run as far away as she could within the house, find a corner, and stop her ears. That memory stayed with her to the end.
She had formal schooling through the third or sixth grade (I heard both versions and was never able to confirm either), however, her grammar was impeccable and her handwriting, beautiful. After a secretarial course, she was hired by the Bethlehem Steel and worked in San Félix until she met and married my father who also worked at Bethlehem, known to all as he who “nos pagaba todas las semanas (he paid us every week)”, as an elderly friend recently wrote to me. But he was better known outside the company as a wonderful baseball player and manager who skippered his rag tag team into Double A championships. Mom was his biggest fan.
They moved to El Pao and our family grew to four children: two girls, Brenda and Elaine, and two boys, Ronny, the youngest of the four, and me, the firstborn.
In that time and era, our parents’ friends were also our friends. So, I remember with great fondness, Mr. and Mrs. Berán and Ninoska, and their patriarch, Mr. Axmacher, and matriarch, Mrs. Panchita. Also, the Belafonti’s and Jackson’s, Carmen Luisa, who was also my godmother (Madrina), Mario Pérez and his wife, Oladys, Paco, who ran the camp gasoline station, and also Sr. Medina, Dad’s mechanic, and Mercedes, his wife, and Mr. John Tuohy and his wife, Clara, and Mr. Giliberti and his wife, Lucila, and Charles Abaffy with whom my father had a hilarious, continual repartee, Mr. and Mrs. Ivanosky from Russia. Those are the names that come up immediately, and more and more also are making their way from my memory banks, but I must stop. The point is that all these folks were adults who, later in my life, were also my friends and advisors. My parents’ friends were my friends. Practically all are gone now. But my gratitude remains.
In 1978, I had planned a 3-week vacation to Venezuela. My plans were detailed and efficient — I had packed lots of experiences into that period of time. Or so I thought.
Then I shared my plans with my mother, who immediately thrust a list — a multi-page list — of names with telephone numbers into my hand. She insisted that I visit each and every one of the people on her list.
“How can I fit these visits into my plans?!” I asked, with a bit of exasperation.
“You must”, was the simple reply.
And I did. I visited every single family or person — with only ONE exception, and that was because the husband was ill and the wife was indisposed, or so they told me over the phone. Later, as I dutifully reported my obedience to her, when I came to the one couple whom I had failed to visit, my mother smiled, “Well, at least you called them. They cannot say they were ignored. And I am not surprised at their refusal. Life has many people like that, but you must not be like them.”
So, she figured they’d tell me to hit the road and still she included them in her list! That’s my mother.
I must say, of all the trips or vacations in my life, including spots in exotic places of the earth, that 1978 trip, jam-packed with visits to friends and family, was among the most memorable because it was focused on people — men, women, and children who meant very much to my parents and to me.
Not too many young men can boast unapologetically that their mother planned their exotic vacation. I am proud to say that my mother planned mine on that occasion, and it turned out to be among the most memorable of all. And it was a lesson that has remained with me to this day: what endures are the personal relationships — friends, family, dear ones — more so than the spectacular sights or experiences. Life is short, too short. But we were created to live forever. In the Lord, friendships, family, brethren will live on. And we will see them again.
My mother widowed on October 9, 1982. She had no interest in remarrying and remained a widow until her own entrance into glory on September 6, 2023, 24 days shy of her 93rd birthday.
The last weeks of her life as she steadily weakened, the last thing to go was her mind. She remembered me immediately each time she saw me or upon hearing my voice. But not only me: it was the same with her other three children, and her grandchildren, and even her great-grandchildren. She was alert, even when appearing to be asleep. At times she’d exclaim, “Me duele el cuerpo“, or “¿Qué me pasa?“, or at the end of a prayer or the reading of Scripture, with great effort, she’d say, “Amén” or she’d be able to utter, “Dios te bendiga“.
Such utterances became more difficult and infrequent.
Shortly before her passing, we received a visit from Carmen Herminia, one of our childhood friends whom we had not seen for over four decades. It is difficult for me to describe that joyful occasion, other than to say that it was impactful to my mother, who by that time could not speak. She had tears of joy as Carmen Herminia played voice mail messages from several ladies from the church in El Pao and as she heard them express their gratitude to my mother and to my father for their years of service there and their impact on their lives and their consistent reflection of love and devotion to the Triune God and the Christian faith. We sang hymns and prayed and Mami was content.
In addition to her husband, Charles, her parents, Julio Rodriguez and Eleana Pérez also preceded her in death. She is survived by her children, Richard M. Barnes (Lillian), Brenda E. Barnes, Elaine M. Childs (Christopher), and Ronald M. Barnes (Heather); 21 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; many nieces, nephews, and extended family.
She is the last of the fathers, mothers, aunts, and uncles with whom we grew up. My sadness is deep, but so is my gratitude. She died midst her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Thank you, Mom.
This is not Upata; however, structure on the far left offers an idea; my mother’s birthplace front facade was a single door and casement window in a space slightly wider than what is seen above just left of the utility pole.
This gives a clearer idea; however the above is far “nicer” and beautified for contemporary consumption.
From left: Aunt Sarah, Uncle Wichy, Father, Mother, Miami, Florida, circa 1956. Mom was the last surviving member of that generation in our family.
Mother and Father, September 25, 1957
A day where most but not all her children and grandchildren visited. She talked and smiled much.
Mom received children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The photo does not reflect her gestures and smiles, but they were there. She was content.
“Without the fear of hell and the hope of the Last Judgment, the Western legal tradition could not have come into being.”– Harold J. Berman
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams
“Communism begins where atheism begins.” — Karl Marx
“Every time a society finds itself in crisis it instinctively turns its eyes towards its origins and looks there for a sign.” — Octavio Paz
My boyhood years in El Pao, which I still regard as a paradisiacal jungle location in Venezuela, gifted me with wonderful, cherished moments and memories.
One of those remembrances is sitting at the bar in the club and listening to the rambunctious, freewheeling, carefree, and often loud conversations of the men who assembled there after the 4 O’clock whistle. These men spoke of the news, of events back home in the states, of the prior night’s movie, of anything that occurred to them. And they did so without inhibitions and certainly with no concern about being “censored” or “cancelled”.
One thing that I never thought about was bad language — four-letter-words. I never thought about it because I never — not once — heard one uttered in those conversations.
This became a wonder to me as I looked back, especially after seeing the movie, The French Connection, in 1971. That was the first time I heard so much foul language in a film, in particular, the bar scene where Popeye crashes a drug scene fingered by an informant.
The wonder to me was that I had not heard such words from the rough and tough men — several of them combat veterans — who talked loudly with one another in that bar in El Pao. They knew I was there. And they checked their profanity accordingly. And this also applied when ladies were present.
Parenthetically, there were no laws then against children being in the bar in El Pao. And I never saw a single drunkard there — man or child.
How did the American men in El Pao know that profanity was not to be uttered in front of children? Undeniably this hearkens back to the colonial era, a strong echo of which is seen in George Washington’s strict orders to the Continental Army forbidding profanity — especially taking the Lord’s Name in vain — and enjoining attendance at Sunday worship services.
Any cursory reading of the era’s primary sources will readily establish that the basis for such proscriptions and prescriptions was not “custom” or “tradition” or “squeamishness”. It was the love of God and the fear of God. And that love and fear is abundantly in evidence throughout the colonial era and well into the mid 19th Century.
No doubt that genuine devotion eventually did indeed devolve into custom and tradition; so much so that European intellectuals in the 20th Century mocked the “prudish” and “Puritanical” Americans, many of whom in turn would not know how to explain the moral foundations for their behavior other than by appealing to custom and culture, not to Christianity or the Bible.
Octavio Paz’s reference above is a statement of which I am not so sure. I see precious few folks today turning their eyes to our origins in order to seek answers to the current lawlessness in our cities or to the haphazard enforcement of laws in our politics. I hear or read precious few allusions to the Mayflower Compact, John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, or John Witherspoon, let alone to the Book of books, The Bible.
All of the above, and much more, would comprise a major part of our “origins”. If we are to seek a sign there, we’ve barely begun to look.
