What I Want

I've been asked what I want out of the rest of my life, and thoughtfully considered, I want the Sundays from my childhood back.

I recently re-read two of Fredrich A. Hayek’s books over the past couple of months (I’m spending a lot of time on planes these days) and I wanted to repeat something that Hayek stated about Alexis de Tocqueville that hit me like a 10-pound sledgehammer.

Nobody saw more clearly than de Tocqueville that freedom and democracy, as individualist institutions, stood in irreconcilable conflict with socialism:

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom [he said in 1848], socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

While these times are dangerous, they are also filled with opportunity. Opportunity for America to be reborn, to lead, to again be the beacon of freedom to a drifting world, to fill a need of the global community for someone to set the standard of liberty by which all others are measured against…

My wife and I gave our kids a lot of ammo for their battles in life. While I have not been the steward of their spiritual lives that the Bible commands of fathers, we have instilled them with a value system that protects their immortal souls. Our path has not been the same as that of our parents, we will never live in the same house our children and grandchildren recognize as Nana’s house. While we lived and experienced things we never would have if we had chosen to remain in bucolic New Albany, Mississippi and taken that path in life, the journey wasn’t without cost.

Somebody recently asked me what I wanted as I top the hill of life and coast down the backside toward my eternal rest, and I have thought about that question a fair amount over the past few years.

A few weeks ago, I came up with an answer.

I want Sunday.

I know that may sound weird to wish for a day, but for me, growing up in rural Mississippi, Sunday was the reward of the week. Weekdays were for school and/or work, Saturday was for things that needed to be done around the farm – unless the fish were biting or something needed to be hunted. Sunday was the physical and spiritual reward for time well spent during the week.

Sunday mornings were gloriously lazy to start. I remember waking up to the smell of bacon frying, eggs getting scrambled, and biscuits baking – and the smell of Folger’s coffee percolating on the stovetop of a white enamel GE range/oven, all to be spread out on a 60’s era Sears Formica topped kitchen table. I can smell it now.

Sunday was a morning for gospel music on TV and reading the Sunday paper, especially the comics. I remember spreading the paper out on our living room floor and sometimes even using my Silly Putty to lift images from the pages. Sometimes, in the spring, we went out onto our screened-in porch and had breakfast out there. The smells of clover, blooming dogwoods, honeysuckle, and the sound of birds from the mimosa trees in our yard and in the nearby wooded hills provided the outdoor soundtrack.

Then we went to Sunday School and church. A few hours of communion with our fellow church members and God, a time of reflection and spiritual recharge. Giving God the glory and asking Him to help us live like his Son until we meet again. I remember all my aunts and uncles, all the cousins and all our close neighbors there – everybody knew everybody. Most of our parents grew up together, and we kids were growing together, too.

Sunday dinner was usually around 1 PM or so, after my mom fried the chicken and prepared the purple hull peas, butterbeans and cornbread. If we were lucky, there would be peach cobbler and ice cream afterwards – maybe even fresh peaches and cream or watermelon later in the summer.

Sunday afternoon was for playing outside until after dark. Riding bikes down dirt roads or roaming around the woods and creeks, fishing in our neighbor’s ponds, or when I got older, talking one of our coaches into unlocking the high school gym for us so we could play pick-up basketball all afternoon or head to the football field for a few hours of no-pads tackle football.

Sunday night was a bath, Wonderful World of Disney, and some network TV (one of three channels, not counting Mississippi ETV (aka PBS). At nine, it was gathering school stuff and getting it in one place, so I didn’t miss the bus on Monday.

We didn’t worry or even think about border control, human trafficking, pedophiles, sexual assault, drugs, home invasions, child kidnapping, murders, identity theft, drunk drivers, or internet porn – because there were none. We didn’t know how free we were.

I want that for my grandchild and any future grandchildren. That is why we want to move closer to our family home and back into a culture that still values these things.

Somehow, I don’t think we are done yet. We must stop waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill for the rescue – because it is already here. It is us. We still have choices.