Degrees of Home
Look o'er the election results in this morning's newspaper I noticed that those who I voted for got swamped in the county I now reside but won handily in the county from which I came from. Makes me nostalgic for home, since birds of a feather and all that. It's alienating to see so many around me voting for the party of death.
In a way, more home would be a place I'd never been, 1820s America, when Noah Webster could write a dictionary that was suffused with his Christianity. Imagine a time before the great bifurcation, a time when you might be edified while doing something as secular as consulting a dictionary. There seems a greater naturalness to religious faith then, a lack of self-consciousness in the public sphere. The New Yorker puts it: "Webster's faith shines through on nearly every page, even under the most unlikely bushels." He would use words in a sentence after defining them, such as these for love: "The love of God is the first duty of man....The Christian loves his bible".
Finally, the least familiar home, the one ear hath not heard nor eye seen, is the one towards which we are journeying.
No comments:
Post a Comment