Legitimacy and Custom

Father Jonathan's description of "Conservative" is more specific and resonates with me quite well. I haven't read Peggy Noonan's article yet, but I want to jot down a few thoughts first.

The word that Mr Bramwell highlights to pinpoint Conservatism is "legitimacy" (there's a follow up article that I plan on reading too), and the one that glows at me from Father Jonathan is "custom". As I lose faith in politics and politicians and even capitalism and democracy as the way to act out our faith, and transfer my faith to the physically present Orthodox Church, I begin to understand legitimacy and custom, but not well enough to explain them in that context at this time.

I used to believe in Manifest Destiny (in spite of my Native American sympathies), and that the best, most legitimate man always Calvinistically won (see Mr. Bramwell's article linked in my last post for scholarly examples of people claiming legitimacy), though I don't think I'd ever really narrowed down a traditional custom that I deeply identified with except the rituals of horse management. Not that I ever had the opportunity to make managing horses a habit. I love the smell of the leather and hay mixed with the warm sweetness of the horse and the right amount of manure. I love barns.

I like that there are customs, and I like to participate in an eclectic array of them, such as high tea at Butchard Gardens, formal dining on a cruise ship, Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparent's house as a child, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, Indian, or any other ethnic restaurant, hot dogs from a street vendor in New York, and funnel cake and corn dogs from the Texas State Fair. In the customary dining category, the steak and baked potato at our local Mesquite Pit is closer to my innate natural orientation*. "Cowboy Day" at school or camp was always when I felt the most myself. But I think I'd like a nun's habit too. It is also a custom of mine to climb to views of cities from observation towers, or of countrysides from old fort towers and other geographic prominences, but I've never been in a deer stand, I'm too loyal to Bambi and his mother. But I sort of see their point about managing deer populations so they don't starve or eat from agrarians' crops. My hermit intuition says make the people's habitat smaller and let the animals rove free, but I'm not allowed to put animals before people, so I visit them in zoos. Born Free came out when I was born, and it has been a theme song of mine. I loved the first scene in Last of the Mohicans where after they've slain the deer they reverently pray to it, thanking it for giving its life for their sustenance. That's the way to kill a deer.

*I've enjoyed the discussions about Natural Law from Gabriel's Going Along, Energetic Procession, Father Jonathan in the above Second Terrace article, and it is also mentioned in the Who Are We article. Self evidence is an interesting concept. I think it takes a pure heart for the natural thing to become evident. In our court experiences I found the judges, our lawyer and the psychologist to rule from their hearts for the welfare of our kids instead of the letter of the law, but there are perhaps subtleties to the law that I'm not aware of, and perhaps I was paranoid in my expectations. But for their compassion, I'm thankful to the grace of God. As far as revelation of the Trinity, I've heard tell that prophetic visions were sent to some Native Americans about the Trinity and Christ. But I think if one continues in one's pure hearted quest for truth and the ways of God, he will be lead eventually to the Orthodox Church, and hopefully the State will let such a Church grow and remain in peace for which we pray during our Church services.