Relatives

My uncle sent my dad this email today:

Have a happy St. Patricks Day and remember to raise your glass of Guiness and give a toast to your 4^th Great grandfather, Richard Guinn, born in Monaghan Ireland in 1794, passed away Dec 1874 in Walkerton Ontario

And by the way – FYI – you are related to the 34^th President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower, your 4^th cousin, 4 x removed.

Cheers

The Great Strength of the Family

I read the below quote in Stanley Hauerwas' book A Community of Character: toward a constructive christian social ethic earlier today. The quote is not Hauerwas', but from Robert Nisbet's Twilight of Authority.

"Even if we assume that in most places at most times a majority of spouses knew something akin to passionate love, however fleetingly, the great strength of the family has everywhere been consanguineal [of the same familial descent/blood] rather than conjugal [i.e. based on emotions]. And here, not affection, but duty, obligation, honor, mutual aid, and protection have been the key elements."

This is difficult to read. Between the lines of the quote, Nisbet whispers an uncomfortable word for people who follow their emotions while forgetting their intellects. We are informed that passion grows cold, that hearts deviate when difficulty knocks, and that love is a verb that often runs away. But there is hope.
Nisbet's whispers more than gloom. When justice and fairness reign, there is hope, there is constancy, and therefore joy and more than a chance for real affections.

We learn so little from society about what things really are.
"What is marriage," I asked Society.
Society did not know, and trying for an answer said, "It is what you want it to be."
"But, Society, aren't you abandoning something reasoned and sturdy for an institution half-made and ready to crumble?" asked I.
"I am simply telling you how it is!"
I walked away, perceiving that Society's angry retort was simply an attempt at masking her stupidity and lack of clarity.
I have had many conversations with Society that run this same way. Yet, sometimes there is a decent answer, or at least half an answer. These, too, are pieces of the puzzle, but often muddied and in need of a good scrub.

"Society!, we long for steak, but you hide a snake under plates! We cry for sunlight and you inject us with B12. We ask for lasting pleasure and you send for a prostitute."

Sometimes we ask God for the same pleasures. Sometimes he gives them, most times he says "in time", other times he withholds entirely for your good. But he does not kill us, give us poor substitutes, or give us twisted goods.

"O taste and see that the LORD is good."
-Psalm 34:8a