OldSouth celebrates a birthday this week; today, as a matter of fact. This is not urgent news, as it appears to be an annual event for every soul on the planet.
The bad news is that OS realizes he is one year older, and feels mortality breathing down his neck, especially as he sees those born in his year (and even those younger) called to their reward. The good news, of course, is that he is alive and healthy and alert enough to experience these moments of neurotic self-absorption, and hopefully in good enough mental frame to have the presence of mind to laugh at his own navel-gazing.
To have been born in 1955 is a real privilege. OS remembers a childhood those even ten years younger cannot remember, before the assassinations, the upheaval of the late 1960's, TheWar(that one in Indochina, not the Middle East), Johnson's grandiosity, Nixon's paranoia, Ford's well-meaning attempts to right the ship, Carter's ineptitude--before drug use became a major problem, before the single-parent family became commonplace; before, before, before, before the wheels began to come off the culture.
To his own children, 1955-1965 may well as well be 1890-1900, so removed is their experience from that of their father. OS and his sainted bride did all they could to form a home life that replicated that sweet and safe time, centered around books, friends, music, church, home-cooking, small-town bucolic life. The little county in which they settled is, in many ways, a time warp back to 1957, and it has been (with its many failings) a wonderful haven in which to raise the kids, both of whom now prosper wonderfully as young adults. Still, with all that, they spent formative years with the television discussing the odd sexual proclivities of a sitting president, his intern, and his cigar. It couldn't be completely banished, nor would it have been wise to do so. The world is what it is, and they had to be equipped to live effectively in it. They learned that no outrage is sufficient to merit removal from a place of responsibility, as long as one has power to share, favors to trade, money to shower in the correct directions. (Think Bernie Madoff, Jon Corzine...) They learned that virtue is indeed its own reward, but that given the choice between virtue and power, power wins the day for most people. And that the pursuit of virtue is the only sane course to chart in life. OS is unspeakably proud of them both.
In this Anno Domini of 2011, OS has felt keenly that the cultural ground has shifted under our feet, perhaps in some ominous direction. His friends report that same experience from different corners of the world. He notices that he spends less time writing in this blog, perhaps wishing to spend his energies more directly and face-to-face with family, colleagues, students, and friends. He has become rather less diplomatic of late, sensing that time is short, and he best say what he means while still he can.
All is not darkness, and this not a day to despair; unless of course we believe that this Vale of Tears is all there is to life, that we don't live in the context of Eternity, that if there is a God he walked away from his creation. Those folks are not only mistaken, they are doomed to hopelessness, and thence to madness and cruelty.
OS once heard a grizzled old Calvinist preacher drive home three points during a dark year of these past fifty-six. It still keeps him going, all these years later.
1. God's in charge.
2. He always finishes what he begins.
3. He never leaves himself without a witness.
That being said, OS has a birthday gift for his readers--the story of a boy from El Salvador who refused to die, refused to quit, and extraordinary people who came alongside him in his fight for his life and his future.
OS hopes his readers take a moment to read this account of tragedy, love, perseverance, generosity and ingenuity, and take the time to share it with their circle of family and friends. Hopefully, we'll each have opportunity to participate in just such an inspiring life during the time remaining to us.
