{"id":8,"date":"2011-05-08T14:48:05","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T18:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=8"},"modified":"2017-06-06T11:02:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T15:02:37","slug":"parenting-civilization-and-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Parenting, Civilization, and God"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Michel Montaigne and Blaise Pascal to David Hume and Edmund Burke, some of Western civilization\u2019s most insightful philosophers have long noted the ease with which people mistake the longevity and stubbornness of habit with nature itself.\u00a0 While the expression \u201csecond nature\u201d as a characterization of habit is common enough, the great difficulty of severing habit from nature gave rise to the less common contention, made by Pascal in the seventeenth century, that nature is second habit<\/em>!<\/p>\n

All of this should be borne in mind as we call our attention to the American habit of annually commemorating mothers and fathers. Precisely because this tradition of reserving two days of the year to celebrate parents is by now so firmly established in our national life, it is to be expected that relatively few people pause to consider that, unlike the givens of nature, the custom of observing these days is not only a choice, <\/em>but a revocable one at that.<\/p>\n

Doubtless, there is no one who doesn\u2019t already know this.\u00a0 Still, it is imperative that we continually remind ourselves of what we know, for nothing less than the fate of civilization itself turns upon our decision to establish the holidays of Mothers\u2019 Day and Fathers\u2019 Day.\u00a0\u00a0 And if the reader thinks that this <\/em>claim exaggerates in the extreme the importance of this practice, he can\u2019t but conclude that my next claim snaps credibility to the breaking point: it isn\u2019t just human civilization that hinges on the honoring of mothers and fathers, but quite possibly, the human person\u2019s eternal relationship with God Himself.<\/p>\n

However, if the reader will just bear with me, he just may come to discern the rhyme of my reasoning.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, all fine and good for individuals to honor their parents on Mothers\u2019 and Fathers\u2019 Days.\u00a0 Ultimately, though, the significance of these occasions hasn\u2019t anything to do with my <\/em>parents or with yours.\u00a0 <\/em>To put this point another way, as a culture or civilization, it isn\u2019t really parents <\/em>that we honor when we celebrate these two days.\u00a0 Rather, it is the enterprise of parenting <\/em>that we celebrate.\u00a0 That this is so is readily born out by the consideration that even those whose parents are deceased or who justifiably hold their parents in low regard can nevertheless understand and appreciate the immeasurable importance of both good parenting as well as collectivized expressions\u2014like national holidays\u2014of this\u00a0recognition.<\/p>\n

We usually speak of the police and the military as constituting the line between civilization and barbarism.\u00a0 While these institutions are obviously indispensable to the preservation of a civil order, most fundamentally, it is the parent who prevents the latter from collapsing into a condition of savagery.\u00a0 To put is simply, parents civilize <\/em>the savage that is every human being upon leaving the womb.<\/p>\n

Parents domesticate the wild animal that is the child by educating it.\u00a0 Through sacrifices small and large, the parent labors indefatigably for years on end to initiate the child into the inheritance that is his or her civilization.\u00a0 Thanks to the parent, the child is able to abandon the state of nature in which he or she began life and avail him or herself of all of the benefits and blessings of culture.<\/p>\n

Since the practice of parenting, considered in isolation from individual parents, is an abstraction, we turn to concrete persons in order to celebrate it.\u00a0 We turn specifically to our own parents, or to those who we know to be good parents.\u00a0 But as a society, it is indeed first and foremost the activity or institution of parenting that we must commemorate.<\/p>\n

Parenting and the honoring of parenting are priceless for another reason.<\/p>\n

I became a father just two years ago.\u00a0 Until then, I literally couldn\u2019t imagine that one human being could love another as much as I love my son.\u00a0 And until then I could never understand\u2014truly <\/em>understand\u2014why Christians and others, but mostly Christians, have insisted for well over two millennia on conceiving God\u2019s love for humanity in terms of parental love.\u00a0 Now, of course, I understand.<\/p>\n

Love\u2014any kind of love\u2014supplies the lover with intimations of God.\u00a0 But parents more so than anyone else achieve an awareness of God\u2019s parental <\/em>nature.\u00a0 On the other hand, through the practice of honoring parenting, even those of a people\u2019s members who have never parented can still achieve more <\/em>of an awareness of this dimension of God\u2019s Person than they otherwise would, for on at least two days of the year, they would be reminded of the central importance of parenting.\u00a0 And in calling this to mind, they would make that much more distance toward grasping why their forbearers saw God as Father.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

On this Mothers\u2019 Day, I thank God, not just for my own mother, but for my wife, for through her mothering of my son, I learn that much more about our Parent in Heaven.<\/p>\n

Happy Mothers Day!<\/p>\n

Jack\u00a0Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Michel Montaigne and Blaise Pascal to David Hume and Edmund Burke, some of Western civilization\u2019s most insightful philosophers have long noted the ease with which people mistake the longevity and stubbornness of habit with nature itself.\u00a0 While the expression \u201csecond nature\u201d as a characterization of habit is common enough, the great difficulty of severing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nParenting, Civilization, and God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parenting, Civilization, and God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Michel Montaigne and Blaise Pascal to David Hume and Edmund Burke, some of Western civilization\u2019s most insightful philosophers have long noted the ease with which people mistake the longevity and stubbornness of habit with nature itself.\u00a0 While the expression \u201csecond nature\u201d as a characterization of habit is common enough, the great difficulty of severing…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-08T18:48:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-06T15:02:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Parenting, Civilization, and God","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Parenting, Civilization, and God","og_description":"From Michel Montaigne and Blaise Pascal to David Hume and Edmund Burke, some of Western civilization\u2019s most insightful philosophers have long noted the ease with which people mistake the longevity and stubbornness of habit with nature itself.\u00a0 While the expression \u201csecond nature\u201d as a characterization of habit is common enough, the great difficulty of severing…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2011-05-08T18:48:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-06-06T15:02:37+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html","name":"Parenting, Civilization, and God","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-08T18:48:05+00:00","dateModified":"2017-06-06T15:02:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/parenting-civilization-and-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Parenting, Civilization, and God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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