Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa
The Comfort of Our Eternal Patterns
Hal Borland, a writer whose wisdom I often turn to, frequently referred to nature’s eternal patterns. Up here on the hill, we always look forward to those recurring patterns. Years ago, when we first spotted a nesting pair of Canada geese at the swamp down the road, we named them Max and Myrna. They are there now, their fuzzy little goslings in tow. Their reappearance gives us some solace about the nature of things. Something many of us find ourselves desperately in need of these days. Whether or not these are the original geese does not matter. What matters is the comfort they afford us. And the fact that the patterns persist. Life would be a tough row to hoe without some degree of predictability.
There are those who would extol the virtues of chaos. A little bit goes a long way. I am gratified by the return not only of Max and Myrna, but by the equally reassuring return of several pairs of bluebirds and the oriole whose early spring aria fills one with a sense of hope. Other familiars fly about the place searching out nesting sites setting the stage for the most crucial recurring pattern: procreation. And then there are those early spring chores we start to look forward to about mid-winter. All is ebb and flow.
Predictability is essential to spiritual stability. For most of our history we have been able, despite the execrable behaviors of some, to base our collective lives on certain assumptions. I write here of birds and spring chores because they are part and parcel of what have always been nature’s patterns. We depend on some certainties if we are to function with any degree of stability. The boat gets rocked from time to time. Much of the time we are able to ballast ourselves remarkably well. The question we face these days is how to find stability within the whirlwind of chaos.
Lawlessness works in no one’s favor. We hear the phrase “the rule of law” bandied about quite a bit nowadays. For good reason. It has been our collective practice to regard the rule of law as sacrosanct. And to accept the consequences of not doing so. Things seem a bit frayed these days. In order for any system to function there must be agreement as to its legitimacy. At least during my lifetime, there has been out there in the commonweal an acceptance of our judicial system and the constitutional principles upon which it is based. We now have people in the present administration who not only feel free to ignore established law, and the clear determinations of our courts, but have a chief executive officer who mumbles that perhaps he is not sure if he is bounded by the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend.
There is genuine confusion and then there is outright contempt for everything we stand for. This sort of behavior is clearly at odds with the deeply embedded system of justice that we have for so long not only abided by, but have revered. Its imperfections notwithstanding.
No system can survive for long when its essential rhythms begin to break down. And that is where we find ourselves today. How long can the center hold when in the throes of such destabilizing forces, especially those willfully created by a monkey wrench gang unimpeded by ethical standards akin to any norm we have known and counted on? The reason we have laws, the reason we have courts, the reason we have a written document that guides us in our search for our better selves is because we know all too well what our darker angels are capable of.
Fortunately, there are many efforts afoot to right the ship and get us back on some sort of recognizable track. Court cases take a great deal of time. We need to find ways amongst ourselves to find common ground. The recurring patterns of shared cultural values that have shaped our relationships for so long have worked pretty well. Dissent and difference have always been at the core of our cultural mosaic. Ideological greediness has no place in a free society. Yet, that seems to be the fly in the ointment.
Expecting politicians to lead us back to the center is fruitless. They can do all that macro, performative stuff they do, but in the end it falls upon each and every one of us to make an effort—if we believe our essential patterns are worth saving. Edmund Burke once offered some very good advice: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one.”
Dick deRosa’s Hawthorn Hill essays have appeared in “The Freeman’s Journal” since 1998. A collection, “Hawthorn Hill Journal: Selected Essays,” was published in 2012. He is a retired English teacher.
