“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

The following was originally composed in 1971.

The Challenge of the Generations

From century to century, generation after generation has sounded the trumpet which summons those that come afterwards to a struggle at once glorious and ludicrous. It is the call of this trumpet that wakens hope and meaning in the lives of ordinary men and women; it is the tune of such an instrument that is the purest solace in times of failure and sorrow.

Children for many hundreds of years have found themselves compelled to learn about the past. Sometimes they heard great tales at the knees of grandparents, and sometimes they toiled over obscure, dry books. Yet the drive of their elders to instill in children a sense of history is one of the most basic of all human drives, shared by all cultures and all times.

Some children find that the sense of adventure and triumph in history easily captures their imagination. These happy young people take inspiration from what they read, or horrid revulsion, or even laughter. And we know what will happen to these children - they will grow up to become the administrators of the system, in their turn passing on the heritage to their posterity.

Of course, other children never understand history, never love its pages. For these children, the learning of names and dates is a hopeless toil imposed on them by the adult world without good reason. To be sure, like their comrades, these "anti-historical" children learn what they want from history. They learn the atrocities, mistakes, and disasters, then use them on their elders who proclaim the majesty of history. "Well, there's nothing in history worth learning," these anti-historians say. Or they say, "history doesn't teach us anything good." Or, "history's just the dead past." Too late in life, these children (if they live long enough) realize that they have themselves become part of the history which they deplore. They realize their only choice was to join history's march with pride and love, or to have that same marching column of years roll over them, leaving their names in oblivion.

What, then, is the "use" of history? Sure enough, it is not a good guide to how to do things right. Great general though George Washington was, if one wanted to learn how to lead an army, how to arrange troops for battle, Washington's campaigns would be a miserable source of information. If one wanted to know how to raise children, one could do much better than learn about Marie Antoinette. We all know that history does contain episodes when things were done right, when wise and brave decisions were taken. But those are truly rare.

History is not, then, a guide to how to do things well.

(This does not imply that history is not a guide to mistakes which should be avoided. We can, for instance, learn much from the campaigns of Pyrrhus, or from the lamentable and weird story of the Marquis de Sade. But a history consisting only of a catalog of crimes and errors would hardly stir the passionate love and deep emotions which it holds for us.)

A little better is the excuse that history tells us where we have been, and such knowledge is needed to know where we are going. This at least has some practical sound to it. But history is so complex (like the pathway through the years on which we now walk) that we cannot safely read the signs, cannot even know when we are finished reading and must return to our journey. For the capture of human experience is not a little thing; it is vague, slippery, and ever squirming out from our grasp.

No, history does not teach us practical "lessons".

There is another reason for history, much deeper, much more important. History is not our guide. History is not a sign which we can stop and read as we please. History is not a tool of any kind. History is our own selves. It is our own consciousness, and the sharing of that consciousness with those of our own time, and with those who crossed the bridge of time before us, and with those who will cross it after us.

In many societies around the world, there is a saying that amounts to something like this: "It is right to speak with reverence the names of those who have come before us". Why is it right, if there is no practical benefit to be gained? The answer lies in the fact that such speech makes us who we are. The knowledge, deep inner conviction, that there were those who built what we have to day, makes us more reverent, more respectful, but above all, more hopeful. In identifying with those who have come before us, we gain hope that even when our names are forgotten, our deeds will live on in some small way in the lives of those who come after us. This hope gives color and meaning to life, gives courage in dark times, gives will power when we are weak.

And beneath this proclamation is something else, even stronger and more durable. That to which I refer is the spiritual wholeness, well-being, which arises from a clear sense of who we are, of what still needs to be done.

It is never enough to rest human life on the achievements we can see in one lifetime. Were it so, millionaires would always die happy. But we know well enough that the rich must experience sadness, shame, and failure as do the poor. Meaning in life is impossible without a strong sense of the majesty of time and the passage of generations, inconceivable without a sense of belonging gracefully to such a passage, moving easily and constructively through the passage of minutes, hours, and days which belong to the human lot.

And even beyond the great gifts of meaning and purpose conferred by history, there is something else yet scarcely spoken, something more powerful still. For in the act of comradeship stretching across the years, holding out the hand to those who came before us, sometimes in admiration, sometimes in revulsion, we exercise on our own souls that most delicate and powerful of all our emotions, simple, lucid, decent friendship.

Now I say this: the unfailing practice of courtesy, of comradeship, of helpfulness, of consideration for others - this is truly the ultimate weapon of the oppressed, of the weak, of the humiliated. In wielding this sword which is not a sword, the wretched of the earth know in their inmost hearts that millions must die in the course of the long stroke; but they know, too, that the stroke shall one day cut true, will one day strike home.

It is this which history gives us. No, it is this which history is for us. No, again: it is we who thus become history. Not in glory do we toil, not in mighty deeds and famous victories, but in the course of the vast, often silent, almost invisible construction of a fitting way of life, not thinking to have it ourselves, but praying and working that our grandchildren many generations hence may have it. And, as with all acts of love, only by giving it do we gain its joy; only in reaching for positive acts on behalf of others, only by showing courage when hope of victory is gone, only by being generous when poverty overwhelms us – only in those acts can our lives become part of that fellowship of contentment which overcomes all evil.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me