There is an interesting phenomena that takes place among people with breath in their nostrils. The scripture/Bible/writings (pick according to your faith or lack thereof) of ancient Semites describe it as the pride of life.
1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Though universal in its practice, in operation it is difficult to describe in application.
In short, the living always believe they know better than those who have gone before.
Those made static in death we imagine, are easily apprehended. We can observe them like bugs pinned to a blotter, add up the apparent sum of influences upon them, deduce their motives, and bracket them according to some dots assigned on a time line.
It is impossible for us to consider, apart from an epiphany, that perhaps they have measured us in their own eye, better than we have measured them.
The mistake we commonly make is often in accord with a derivation of this aphorism: "Life is for the living". For taking it past a simple instruction to make the most of one's time above ground we easily imagine that those of us so engaged are, by that very (temporary) location, heirs and privy to all the understanding of life that the dead, by their very decease, did not apprehend. For the living, death is always a metaphor, it speaks of the failure of those gone by.
Again, in simpler terms that experience has probably taught many of us, consider your first taste of love. Did you not imagine that no one, be it Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Bacall and Bogart had ever experienced the true and deep longings, joys, and bittersweet torments of love that were ignited in your soul? (Forget even mentioning mom and pop, for they couldn't remotely understand in their "stodgy" familiarity and comfort that simply smiled on what was, for you, the discovery of the new world.)
Even those of us who imagine ourselves devoutly devoted to the icons of our faith often find ourselves engaged in an inner dialogue when presented with instruction from those who have gone before. Is there any christian that has not, in the inner recesses of his heart cradled that vanity that it was a lot easier for Jesus to die for the truth of his own word than it is for us? (and please bear with me, as I do not wish to make this into a sectarian posting, but simply seek to offer some example, to either be dismissed...or not) We may think, "well, it was easier for Jesus, he just liked suffering...he had a nicer disposition"...or worse, "he didn't have as much to lose...I have a pretty hefty 401k, a decent house, wife and kids... and a boat..."? (After all, he only had a tunic and a pair of sandals...big deal)
Yes, we may say...those in the past may have had some understanding of life...but it was only their own life. Whereas we, inevitably flattering ourselves with a fallacious sort of converse, imagine we know all about LIFE really oblivious to the fact that all we truly know is about our own life.
What prompted this was the recent post about the Constitution. That's why I didn't want to get bogged down in a spiritual discussion except as it relates to the folly of our (perhaps) vainly believing we have evolved past the quaint understandings of government some "old (and dead) white men" had as outlined in that document. We consign them and their insights to a past we may so easily confine to the parameters upon which we decide. We measure them in our own eye, always the enlightened one, and dismiss them as the product of "that time". We are loathe to consider, or admit, they may have known more of life than we, who so easily and casually dismiss them, do.
One may easily accuse me of seeking to deify those framers. Nothing is further from the truth. What I do desire is a fair balance, a true accounting in a just measure of a man's character when weighed in the light of truth.
The truth is these men, for better or for worse, understood what they hazarded in putting pen to paper above their signatures in both the Declaration...and subsequent documents. I sincerely doubt whether the gallows was ever very far removed from their consciousness. And although I cannot and will not categorically endorse any and every product or utterance born of trials (Mein Kampf is not equivalent to Paul's letters to Timothy) I cannot likewise but dismiss any assumed equivalency of the experience of those men with what today passes for leadership.
The recommendation was made in a post of having the "best and brightest" craft a new constitution, which may or may not have been facetious. I would contend that the original framers, based neither on antiquity nor veneration, have and had a far better understanding of life and the character of both man and freedom than any we could, by common assent, assemble today.
Their proximity to the realities of blood and guts and bone, their endurance of temptations I have no doubt they suffered in considering the exposure of their own for their cause, I have yet to see manifest amongst those who may evaluate their work as inferior.
And I also believe they saw those who would be willing to trade liberty as a commodity seen in flux rather than a transcendent truth valued in fact by a precious few, for something more comfortable.
In truth, I believe they see and saw us far better than we imagine we have, again, in our vanity, perceived them.
Keep your lawyers.
I'll always take a man who's willing to write his words in his own blood.