I’ve been thinking about the “law of unintended consequences” of late, and wondering if perhaps it has played quite a role in how our society has evolved in just my own short lifetime. And when I use the term “evolved” I mean declined.
I was born into a world that was extremely influenced by religion, a world where religion was an extreme part of my early life. I don’t think I’m alone. I think religion was a much bigger influence sixty years ago in all our lives than it is today.
And I was born into a world where people held things solemn, held things sacred, now there are two words, and concepts that seems to be foreign to our daily lives today.
Solemn. Sacred. Two words that have disappeared from our vocabulary.
I associate the two with religion. I grew up a little Catholic boy, and you held some things very sacred. Family and faith foremost. Human life was sacred.
Downstream from solemn, and sacred was reverence. You were taught to revere your parents, your elders, the adults in your world. The nuns and priests, coaches and den mothers, scout leaders.
I attended Catholic school growing up, and so religion was a daily part of my life. This sense of good verses evil was omnipresent. This sense of right and wrong, the concept of sin, living one’s life by the tenants of the Ten Commandments, guided by biblical principles and parables.
The idea of living a moral life hung over our daily existence like some sword of Damocles, and punishment lurked around every corner.
Sin.
I’ve watched as sin morphed from a looming horror, to a nagging conscience, and finally today into an antiquated notion, a relic from a distant past. The word conjure a world of black-and-white movies, an idea whose time has passed.
I may have decided as I developed from childhood into those teen years, and then into adulthood to do the wrong thing, to choose the wrong path, and even at times to want to do the wrong things purposefully, with full intention, but I always knew. I knew what I was doing was wrong, I made those decisions willfully, and knew concretely I was straying from a moral life.
And do you know why? Because my early existence was steeped in religion.
But along the way I fell away from the church, as so many of us did. Somewhere along the line the message became monotonous, we questioned, as generations before us had never questioned. And when we questioned we didn't like the answers we received. And so we became disillusioned.
And the “sins” of the Catholic Church itself didn’t help. It only reinforced and validated our questioning. We became emboldened in our desire to move further away from organized religion, and to even raise our own children with a bit of a healthy distance from the daily involvement of the church, of religion, of faith.
Somewhere along the line as we became more secular, we fell away not just from the church itself, not just from faith itself, but also from those moral teachings, the valuable added benefits that religion reinforces, of reflection, self analysis, concepts such as solemnity, reverence, holding some things sacred in our lives.
We meant to remove the structure of religion, the actual mechanism that was “the church”, the requirements of mass, outdated practices that felt artificial, outmoded. We found the idea that the only the church could bestow upon us absolutions, or sacraments ridiculous, we saw priests as mere men, mere mortals, as capable of sin and failing as were we. Who were they to have this magical power to absolve? Who were they to consecrate our union?
So out of our lives went formal religion, but unfortunately when we threw out the religion, out went so much more. We threw out the baby, the bathwater, and the tub itself.
You see it everywhere in our society today.
Theft is excused as some form of social redress.
Abortion went from safe, legal, and rare to actually being celebrated by women today as they go to Tik Tok to tell the world their story, and take some sick pride in what they’ve done, as if having had an abortion is some feminist badge of honor, and not the taking of another life.
Ethics have become muddled or ignored completely. Cheating scandals erupt in sports, no one blinks an eye.
The younger generations today have abandoned the connection between intimacy and relationship. They speak casually about “body count”, not realizing that casual physical relations leads to feeling hollow, empty, unfulfilled. Can cause emotional issues about self worth, personal value. One feels such a greater sense of spiritual fulfillment if the intimacy experienced is with someone you actually care about, and want to be a part of your life.
Every direction in which I glance I see a moral failing, a societal decline, a complete moral failing.
And I have to believe that it is somehow connected to our becoming a more secular society and having moved away from religion.
I feel as if I’m standing with one foot in two different worlds. I am not a fan of organized religion but the moral clarity they bring to our lives, and the manners and concepts they instill in our lives serve us both individually and collectively.
They make us better people, and a better people.
I no longer wanted the duties of attending mass, listening to sermons from single men, morality hanging over all decisions and actions as if a dark cloud.
But in removing oneself from organized religion you lose a connection to valuable benefits, ideas and concepts.
A solemn review of present actions, a reverence for others, these are things that can inform our world for the better.
I think that as we have collectively slid away from religion in our society, we see the results. They are out there right in front of us every day.
Would love to hear your own opinion in the comments section.
Read in reverse order. Bottom post 1st, top last.
I will get into my Father's family upbringing more some other time. But again, poor, hard-working, blue collar, rural, Midwestern. We had a saying growing up that "he really bought the farm" when someone had an accident or wiped out. Basically, it meant that he might have died. As it turns out, my Dad's oldest brother died on the job at 19 when my Dad was 8. The $7,000 life insurance that he had was what my grandparents used to buy the farm which my dad (and I) grew up on. Oh, an my Dad's mother told my uncle Derald who was 18 at the time "I wish it was you that died and not Robert". Yeah. My uncle Derald and my Dad were partners in a masonry business for about 20 years before my uncle retired. He was more like a Father than a brother as my Dad's dad died when my Dad was 33 (from Cancer... it's a family thing).
We had that farm in the family from 1949 until 2022 when he got sick and couldn't keep it up. My Dad was hardworking and was a good man. He was faithful and a good provider. He was a lot more reserved and less affectionate that my Mom would have liked. He worked for himself, so he worked hard. But he also did a lot of business in a lot of bars like the one you worked in growing up. Prior to cell phones my mother used to have a chart on the wall with phone #s of the bars in the little towns around us. It looked like a subway chart. So if my Dad was working in a certain town she would look at the 1st bar and start calling when it was supper time to spur my Dad on to get home for supper. Funny thing, we moved there in 1974 and he was driving until 2021 when he got sick. In 47 years he was never pulled over despite usually have a 12-pack on the floor of the truck.
So my parents both lost a sibling and despite jawing at each other, were pretty happily married. I was the oldest son with a younger sister and youngest brother. I was and am very ADD. Not an athlete. More academically inclined. Weirdly, I developed a LOT of friendships. I always felt like an outcast, but my sister (who speaks at conferences with 500 millionaire brokers and gets heaps of praise) points out that I was the glue among all of the friends. That's just not how I remember it. But okay. I recall that I like PEOPLE and I like being around people. I wasn't always the most popular, or the funniest or the smartest. But I liked to bring people to together and tag along. I also have always had a few very tight, intense friendships that I think only ADD people can have. That's what I remember. I think I'm still that way.
So I'm rambling as per usual. But as I said, you hit a nerve on the Faith part. My middle daughter says she's not a church-goer as they don't want to push their values on my granddaughter (2 YO and talking up a storm. Beautiful like my daughter and with long beautiful hair like her dad... as I like to tease him about). My middle daughter (MD) was the rebel who I didn't think would live to 25. I remember chasing her miles out of town at 80 because her boyfriend broke up with her, she was drunk and she said she "wanted to just die". I ended up indian wrestling her to the ground on country road while calling my wife to call someone to hold her for 24 hours... and my wife occasionally tries to tell people that I am too easy-going and not willing to die on any hills. Hmmm. But as I tell my MD, she and her fiance were both raised "in the faith" and benefit from that. So not raising my granddaughter in a similar way is depriving her of that same benefit.
One of things that I like about what you write is the vivid details. I shared that article I noted with them in the hopes they would keep reading. Here is what I wrote to all 3 of them:
This is today's blog by Michael Herman. He is a writer on Substack that I follow. He gives full access and he doesn't charge. So that's cool.
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He comes from lower-middle class Baltimore. Was raised Catholic. He talks a lot about his upbringing and the experiences that are very vivid. I would expect he'd write a book at some point with these musings. I like him because he just seems very real and I think you can read what he writes and kind of feel what he felt when he had those experiences. And he describes himself as ultra-conservative, so you can kind of see how a person can consider themselves to be of that political persuasion, but also tell people to reach out to this girl and sit down and share some wisdom with her and give her a hug.
To me, this is the kind of person that personifies America. Striving to figure out their idiosyncrasies growing up. Trying to overcome their origins. Working hard. Having experiences that at the time seemed like a distraction but later on in life seemed like the real lessons that needed to be learned. Finding their niche in life and then finding a person that they can share that life with. Trying to do their best. Sometimes succeeding but looking back and wondering whether they made the right choices. I think there's a certain humility to what he writes as well.
But I think more than anything, he does a good job of making you look at life now and see what is going wrong and read his stories and realize the things that maybe weren't ideal, but were the right things done in the best way people were capable of doing them.
You should read his old stuff too.
Dad
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So I don't know if you realize all of this about yourself. We're just making it up as we go... I think you did say that. So I think your Catholic faith carried through in your life despite not being devout in your adulthood. I hope your children profited from that as well.
I made my OD read Marcus Aurelius growing up (homeschooling). Stoicism isn't Catholicism, but they aren't in opposition either. I think you can do both but I think it's kind of dualist. You have your faith for the supernatural and stoicism for the natural. So be contemplative. Have values. Be steadfast. Because the family helps order society, but the Father helps order the family. Well most. My wife and I have a little role reversal going on. But as my friend with 15 kids said "One parent needs to be the heart". It's better if it's the wife. But they can't both be stern or it'll destroy the kids.
So order yourself. Order your family. Raise them in the faith and instill values. Educate them and make them strong in their beliefs. But don't shelter them because they have to be able to survive in the world. And if you do it right, they will be leaders and others will follow them. But also, have Faith in God. Have Hope. Show Charity. Be patient. Be kind whenever you can. Show restraint.
That's the plan of course. Being human means that I talk to much, complain too much, drink and eat too much, pray too little, am prone to laziness and am far too self-pitying. We as individuals are no different from the Church as an institution. As I stated, God didn't promise Heaven on earth, just the means and circumstance to achieve salvation. So when you fall, you dust yourself off and you get up again. By God, you get up again. And again.
And you know what? In all that struggle there are a lot of true times of joy and peace and happiness. It's sometimes hard to appreciate them because we learn they are fleeting. Weirdly, I almost relish it when life is beating me down, because I so enjoy the upswing. When things are good, I always feel like I am just about at the peak of the roller coaster and dreading the ride down. But old age mellows me a little. Life is less stressful for my wife, so there's less drama... not NO drama, just less frequent and less severe.
And when my day comes to meet my maker. I will say the right words. I will try to comfort my family and will probably joke with them. I will try to set a good example for them to follow. And I hope that, as with my Dad, that is one of the many stories they tell to their children and grandchildren. And I hope they keep the faith and always get back up when the fall.
ttfn
chanson56215@gmail.com if you want to confer.