by Roseanna White | Aug 30, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
But in listening to a book called The Closing of the American Mind and hearing the acclaimed Mr. Bloom discuss American’ aversion to heroes and how he’d observed that it has impacted our culture as a whole, I realized that all my thoughts on literary heroes and my sorrow when I see statues of Southern heroes being torn down are really about this greater question.
Why do we need heroes? Not just in literature, but in life? And why don’t we have them anymore?
The book in question looks specifically at university students and how they’d changed over the course of this professor’s thirty years of teaching them. The book, though written in the 80s, certainly pinpointed the patterns that continued and which we’re still seeing play out today. I don’t agree with his every conclusion, of course, but there’s no denying the general trends he puts to paper.
The root of them all is the current American mindset that we must accept all viewpoints, all cultures, all beliefs as valid, and that the only things that aren’t valid are the ones that oppose that openness. Which of course is ironic, because no other culture believes the same, and so while we say we grant the validity of another culture, we don’t really, because they’re too “closed.” It’s a cycle that renders the starting point absurd and yet is fully embraced by Americans…which results in a shallow belief system founded on nothing.
Enter the idea of a hero. We
had American heroes, in generations past. Washington and Jefferson. Adams and Hamilton. Lee and Grant. Even though we knew they were imperfect human beings, we still honored them for what they’d done in and for our country. At one point, hero worship of these founders and generals was so complete that it began to worry some educators, and they decided they better start reminding kids that Washington was still human. “He had wooden teeth!” they began to teach. A reminder that he had his weaknesses, his humanness. But it wasn’t yet meant to strip him of his title of “hero.” Merely to remind us that heroes are human.
As the years went on, the teaching continued on this trend. “Let’s teach our kids about their heroism” became “Let’s teach them how our heroes are human” became “Let’s teach them about their faults and flaws” became “They can’t be forgiven for their faults and flaws” became “These men weren’t heroes, they were monsters, and we’ve founded a country on them! GASP!”
The logical conclusion is to tear down the country built upon such monstrosity. And that is exactly what we see happening today, especially in the educational arena.
But that won’t just damage us as a nation. It will damage us as individuals. Because we need heroes.
We need people to believe in.
We need people to aspire to be like.
We need examples to follow.
We need causes to fight for.
We need causes worth dying for.
We need to believe there’s something bigger than ourselves.
This is human nature. And when we don’t fill those needs one way, we just fill them another. Anti-heroes become the people we believe in. We aspire to be like the rich since they don’t ever pretend to be great on a human level. We follow our instincts. We fight for universal acceptance, never ourselves accepting that it’s oxymoronic. We die
only for our own pleasures. And the only thing we’re willing to grant is bigger than ourselves is our need to tell others they’re the same as us.
Here’s the thing–we have this idea today that heroes have to be perfect. Or that we have to agree with them 100%. That if we dare to honor someone for something and then we discover a fault, we’ve committed a grave sin and are endorsing the fault.
That’s simply not true.
We do not have to be on the same side as a soldier to grant that he fought heroically. We do not have to agree with someone’s cause to admire them for sacrificing themselves to save others fighting for it. Heroes don’t have to be on the winning side.
This struck me a week or so ago when my dad had me looking up the memorials at Gettysburg. Thousands of men were lost on both sides of the war during that bloody battle. And memorials to men from both sides were raised after the war. Memorials that show how bravely they fought. That remember their names.
I’d never paused to realize that there were memorials for both North and South on that battlefield. But of course, there were. Because there were men who fought and died on both sides. There were acts of heroism on both sides. And in this case, it wasn’t just the winners that told the story–and even the winners recognized that the cost was hardly worth the win. This was a story owned by both sides of the divide–a story that belongs to our nation, whether you live in the north or the south.
Activists today are making a concerted effort to destroy the memory of American heroes with whom they don’t 100% agree. What they don’t seem to realize is that by doing so, they’re destroying themselves. Because if they teach the next generation that anything “closed-minded” is evil, what happens when that next generation realizes that their very teachers were closed-minded about something? They’ve rendered themselves null.
I believe there are heroes. In the past, and among us today. I believe there is Truth. I believe there is Right. And I believe a person can be a hero even when they’re wrong. I believe being human, having faults, doesn’t negate what they do right. And I believe honoring them for their victories can teach us all something, even when we disagree with some of their stances.
If we don’t believe in
something we’re left fighting for
nothing. And that is sure to ring empty in the ears of those who follow.
by Roseanna White | Aug 22, 2018 | Companion Guides, Remember When Wednesdays, The Great War
Well, that time of year has come again. My family has officially started the 2018-19 school year. Part of me hates the loss of free time…and part of me is excited about all those awesome books we get to read together this year!
For those of you who have been reading the Shadows Over England series, you know that one of the most important things for the family of thieves-turned-agents is that with the advent of steady income they can, for the first time, afford to send the little ones to school. While “public schools” had long been available in England, they weren’t what we think of them as today. They weren’t free for the public–they were just available for anyone from the public to pay to attend. Free, compulsory schools were set up in the 1890s, at which attendance was required…until the age of 10. My family, however, didn’t send the little ones to those for a few very good reasons–they weren’t a legal family, and if the children were known by the system, they’d be taken away. So Barclay educated the children at home until such a time as he could pay to put them in a better school.
In An Hour Unspent, we get a glimpse of the kids finally taking on the roles of traditional children. They’re attending school, fighting over books, struggling with Algebra. All things familiar to children today. But for them, this was huge. This was an opportunity. This was a new life unfolding before them.
But the war changed the school system just as it changed everything in England. Many of the teachers were gone, having enlisted. Meals, which had only been served in schools for 8 years at that point in history and were far from inspiring, became sparse and even less inspiring as shortages took effect. Older children often left school as soon as they legally could, usually between 10 and 12 years old, to get a job and help their families survive.
In some ways, the war hit colleges hardest. In my research, I found several mentions of professors leaving colleges when they closed in 1914–presumably because of lack of students. But then those same professors returned to their colleges in the later years of the war–presumably when more students came in.
As the war dragged on and shortages increased, the need for food was on everyone’s mind. “Grow your own” became a necessity, and many schools created gardens and instructed their students in how to grow vegetables. Schoolchildren were also called upon to knit scarves and socks for servicemen, write letters to soldiers, and raise funds for the war, often by selling small flags and pins to be worn on special Flag Days.
Though hard days for everyone, the First World War did, in fact, lead to educational reform in England. In 1918 the school leaving age was raised to 14, with more options available for children 14 to 18, to train them for better paying, skilled labor. This was one of the huge things that led to the stop of child labor. Which meant it was opposed by factory owners, landowners, and even the Church. But it also paved the way for what we know today–mandatory education for children up to 18 years of age (which came into effect after WW2 in England).
Did you enjoy school or dread it? Would you have left school to get a job as a young teen had it been an option?
by Roseanna White | Aug 20, 2018 | Word of the Week
It has been a rainy, rainy summer here in West Virginia. The result? Critters everywhere they shouldn’t be. We live in the woods, and the rodents and spiders inside this year have been terrible.
Then…then…there’s the copperheads. These venomous snakes usually prefer the tops of the mountains, not down where we are. But rainy seasons tend to wash them down (or so is the prevailing theory). My mother-in-law, who lives up the driveway, has been on this property for 30 years, and she’s spotted copperheads maybe 3 times in years prior. But last week we saw our second of the season (and quickly dispatched it with a shovel). (And no, that photo is not mine!)
I shudder at the proximity of that most recent one to our house (it was right behind our car) and thank God above that my daughter spotted it while out of striking range. But this being me, I’m also thinking, “I know the term was used during the Civil War for those with secret allegiances…I wonder why they chose that snake in particular?”
In
Circle of Spies, final book in the Culper Ring Series, I focus on secret groups–in addition to my Culpers, we have the undercover Pinkerton agents, and the Knights of the Golden Circle, which are the ones called Copperheads.
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Upon looking it up, I found an interesting explanation! In the parts of the South where the groups originated (including where I live), there are 2 main types of venomous snakes: rattlesnakes and copperheads. Rattlesnakes are easily spotted and warn you from a fair distance away that they’re there. With the shake of their tail, they’re saying, “Get back, now. I don’t want to have to hurt you.” This, according to an 1854 historian, is what an honorable Southern man would do most of the time. He would lay out his complaint against you in a forthright manner.
But unlike the rattler, the copperhead is sneaky. Stealthy. And aggressive, often biting before people even realize they’re there. This is what the secret societies began to do. They abandoned the overt and went for the silent strikes. Well before war broke out, these societies had been dubbed “Copperheads.”
By the time the war was in full swing, the term had come to be applied especially to Northerners with Southern sympathies. That terrifying “fourth column” that Lincoln himself mentioned, and which comes up in my book. =)
So there we go. A quick lesson in terms inspired by a too-close call with a nasty little snake in my driveway!
by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
We’ve been reading through Matthew lately, and really digging deep, as we tend to do in our Bible studies. This weekend, we were in Matthew 14–quite a chapter! We learn about the beheading of John, and how Jesus sought some solitude after getting the news, He tried to go off by Himself…only to be followed by quite a crowd that He ended up feeding. After that miraculous meal, He sends the disciples off on the boat, goes to get that prayer time that was interrupted before, and then catches up with them…in the middle of the storm-tossed lake. On foot.
These familiar stories that we know oh-so-well can sometimes be hard to dig deeper into. We’ve heard them so many times, we just assume we know what they’re saying, and what they mean, and what their import really is.
This time, something new jumped out at me.
As Jesus is walking to the disciples on the water, they see Him and think it’s an apparition. The Greek work used is phantasma, from which we get phantom–used to mean vision more than disembodied spirit, for which they frequently used angelos (angel). Regardless, the disciples are a little freaked out, to say the least.
And Jesus is quick to say, “Hey, chill out! It’s just me!” (Totally his words. Very literally translated. Ahem.)
We all know what Peter said in response. But have you ever really thought about it? Look at this.
“Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
Um…what? Who here has ever reacted that way? “Lord, if that’s You nudging me to do something, command me to perform a miracle”… “Lord, if that’s you tugging on my heart, tell me to jump out of the airplane”…”Lord, if that’s You beside me in my troubled times, tell me to do the impossible.”
That isn’t the human response. We never ask for anyone, even God to prove Himself by having us do something risky and awe-inspiring. We ask Him to do it, maybe…but in this passage, He already was. He was walking on the water already. (I mean really, who else could it have been??)
That takes a particular kind of faith, that Peter invokes. And as my husband said, “I wonder if this is the moment where it became so clear that Peter was the Rock on which the church should be built.” Because he’s the only one who greeted terror with, “Lord, let’s do something miraculous together.” Yes, he took his eyes off Jesus, and when he did so, he began to sink. But still–let’s not forget that first he not only asked to join Him, he demanded it as proof.
Do we do that? Do we demand, as proof of our Lord’s identity, that He do something amazing through us?
Should we?
When Peter and Jesus make it back to the boat, the storm ceases, the wind dies down. And the disciples all say–for the FIRST TIME in this Gospel–“Wow. This dude’s the Son of God.”
Why? Why then do they proclaim it? Just a few chapters before, Jesus calmed another storm on a tumultuous sea, and it made them ask. Made them wonder who this guy was. Why, this time, did it become clear?
My first thought was that it was because He did that little walking on water bit.
But many prophets had subdued nature and the laws of physics before. We have Elijah praying for no rain, then for rain. Making an ax-head float. Making oil never run out. We have a dead man springing to life by merely touching his bones.
Miracles, all. So Jesus calming storms made them certain He was, at least, a prophet.
But there’s a big difference between a prophet and the Son of God.
A prophet could have calmed the storm. Maybe a prophet could have even walked on water (after all, if an ax-head can be made to rise to the top of the water, why not a person?).
As I debated this question in our study, there was only one thing I could come up with that really set this incident apart as Son-of-God-unique. And that was Peter. That Jesus could command Peter to come to Him. So far as I can recall, no other prophet could confer the miracle like that. Yes, they had people act in faith–go dip in the Jordan five times; pour out the oil and make a cake. But the miracle wasn’t performed by them.
Peter partook in the miracle, though. Peter was the doer of it. Much like the disciples went out and did the work in Jesus’ name. That means that Jesus had to have the authority, to grant it to them. Only an heir could do that. Only a Son of the Most High.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Peter…and in this passage, he really taught me something about what my faith should be. It shouldn’t just ask for God to DO…it should demand He do it through me. It should demand to partake of the miracle. Not just to watch, but to do. To be a co-heir. To have some of that authority.
Whenever I’m in doubt, I shouldn’t just say, “Lord, show me the way I should go.” I should be saying, “Lord, do the impossible through me.”
by Roseanna White | Aug 13, 2018 | Word of the Week
Last Wednesday, I was invited to speak at retailers event near Lancaster, PA. As my husband and I were driving through Pennsylvania, also known in our family as “the land of oh-so-helpful road signs,” we saw first the “Don’t Tailgate” sign. And then one that said “Beware of Aggressive Drivers.”
My husband, who had only caught of glimpse of that one, said, “Did that say ‘beware aggressive drivers’ or ‘beware of aggressive drivers’? Because it would be funnier if there were no of. Then we wouldn’t know if it was warning us to beware of them, or just warning them.”
Naturally, this led to the next question of, “So is beware just be + aware?”
“Probably,” I said. “Or be + wary. In fact, I bet aware and wary are variations of the same word.”
And so, it turns out, they are.
Beware is from around 1200, a contraction of “be wary” or “be on one’s guard.” It’s from the Old English wær, which means “prudent, wary, aware, alert.” Aware is also directly from the Old English, from gawær, which is obviously just a slight variation, meaning “wary, cautious.”
So there we go. Our musings were correct. And Pennsylvania will forever remain the Land of Oh-So-Helpful Road Signs.
Enter the idea of a hero. We had American heroes, in generations past. Washington and Jefferson. Adams and Hamilton. Lee and Grant. Even though we knew they were imperfect human beings, we still honored them for what they’d done in and for our country. At one point, hero worship of these founders and generals was so complete that it began to worry some educators, and they decided they better start reminding kids that Washington was still human. “He had wooden teeth!” they began to teach. A reminder that he had his weaknesses, his humanness. But it wasn’t yet meant to strip him of his title of “hero.” Merely to remind us that heroes are human.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.