Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God

Reflections on All Saints Day

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Feeling overly emotional today . . . on this November 1st. Perhaps because it’s All Saints Day. Or maybe because neither Roger nor I remembered he was on-call today (third weekend in a row – for the bonus round!) until well after last night’s football game. Imagine how HE felt at learning around midnight that he’d have to work today, starting at 6 a.m.! We’d planned a family work day at home today, beginning with outside winterizing like trimming trees and weeding flower beds, in preparation of “pansy/viola-planting” (my favorite flower b/c they are “happy”). Surely, it can’t be because the most important part of that darn announcement got edited out or that I couldn’t find the timely words (before the mid-term election) yet again for another article about the sad state of affairs in our country!

This is our second year to host the Williams family Thanksgiving gathering and a fair amount of preparation is required (I can’t even think about the inside of the house, yikes!). I agree with Southern Living magazine that Fall IS the South’s best season – I offer today in central Texas as evidence. It’s clear and the air is crisp, ripe with the sights and sounds of autumn. We awoke to temps in the 40s with the high expected near 70 degrees. I’ve always felt more “connected” to the world around me this time of year – likely why I chose to get married in October and honeymoon on the East Coast when fall foliage is in all its glory. My how twenty years flies!

Screen Shot 2014-11-01 at 1.17.07 PMRoger recently texted me this picture of a poster he spotted at work. It’s a quote from Mother Teresa, probably the most-noted of the modern day saints. I love what is says – words to live by – a sort of “how-to” for sainthood or “right-living”; the standard of right being the natural standard or what the Founding Fathers termed “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence. I love what the poster says but I love it more that Roger saw it, knew it would move me, and took the time to forward it.

It also reminds me of something I recently read in my favorite Lincoln book (so far). Lincoln was a “Clay man” – an admirer and follower of Henry Clay, author of the Missouri Comprise, which had as its purpose to phase out slavery by restricting its expansion into the new territories. Clay had known the Founding Fathers personally and he seemed to Lincoln the natural guardian of their great traditions. What Lincoln said of Clay applied also to himself: “He loved his country warmly, because it was his home; but he loved it even more because it was a free country.” Similar sentiments were echoed when Benjamin Franklin said: “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” These early statesmen and model patriots sacrificed and served America because of the higher ideal she embodied and hopefully still does.

Reel Revealing: Were The Founders Surfers?

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Riding the ultimate surf in Point Break movie

Riding the ultimate surf in movie “Point Break”

After a brief trip to the lake to mark my husband’s last day of vacation, we plopped down in our family room and began watching “Point Break”, a movie starring Patrick Swayze as the ringleader of a group of surfers that don masks of ex-American presidents to rob banks. While resisting the obvious urge to draw parallels between the movie’s plot and reality (presidents defrauding an unsuspecting American public) I can’t resist highlighting some notably philosophical lines in the movie. In a dialogue with an undercover FBI agent Swayze’s character criticizes fellow surfers for their ignorance of the “spiritual side of the sea.” He characterizes riding waves as a state of mind, where you both lose and find yourself in the same moment. To achieve this sublime state requires total commitment – “no backing down, a rare quality in this world” – as you paddle out into the unknown sea. Further, the surfer reveals that his whole life has been about experiencing a rare moment when the legendary Fifty Year Storm produces the biggest surf the planet has ever seen off the coast of Australia and the ocean “lets us know how small we really are.” This oneness or accordance with nature Swayze calls the ultimate rush and counsels “if you want the ultimate you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price,” concluding that “it’s not tragic to die doing what you love.”

Uncertain how the surfer achieved this awareness of Natural Law, it is reasonable to conclude his knowledge did not come from modern American public education or Hollywood. More likely, he learned these fixed and discoverable laws – what Jefferson termed the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence – by observing his surroundings and recognizing self evident truths. He witnesses the hierarchal order of the universe – the natural ascension from man to the Divine – and acknowledges that living in accordance with the highest or ultimate things in nature is a very desirable thing – the most desirable state. This natural standard inspired the founding of America and gives rise to her constitutional form. Perhaps a more fitting question is how did the Founders learn about Natural Law? Was it by reading the “elementary books of public right” as Jefferson noted or were they surfers?

Culture: Are You Ennobled?

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While updating TLB’s Facebook page with the latest sales promotion, a familiar face flashed across my screen – the image of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Hot off the press was the news that the award-winning actor was found dead in his NYC apartment at the age of 46 of an apparent drug overdose.  Out of curiosity I “googled” the phrase “actor dies of drug overdose” and stared at the images of seemingly, endless photos of accomplished people – all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors.  Perhaps cliche to say, it’s nevertheless worth noting that talent, fame, and fortune are not guarantees of happiness.  They are fleeting.  And this is self evident.  So what is permanent?

The Founding Fathers had an answer for this.  With knowledge of Old Testament prophets, Ancient Greek Philosophers, and Christianity, they devised a government whose purpose is human happiness – the American Republic.  Carefully divided and arranged powers are based on “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”, in other words, fixed and discoverable laws.  Citizens must “figure out what is true and good and beautiful and conform our lives to those standards that come from nature, do not change, and are not to be voted on”, according to Hillsdale professor Terrence Moore.  Advice worth considering.  And according to the founding claim, it ennobles the individual.

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By Design: Example of Natural Order?

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Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.) The founders favorite expositor of Natural Law

Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.)
The founders favorite expositor of Natural Law

Natural Law interests me as it relates to the founding of America.  References to it recur frequently in the founding documents of our country, perhaps most notably in the Declaration of Independence as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”  Cicero, a favorite political philosopher of the founders, was the first to speak of Natural Law as a moral or political law.  As such, he believed it to be the only reliable basis for good government and just human relations.  Because man shares the gift of reason with his Creator the only rational, common sense approach to governing is through the laws already established by the Creator.  The Creator’s order of things is called Natural Law.

So what then is the natural order of things?  While I can’t efficiently articulate this yet,  I believe I recognized an example of it recently.  During a conversation with Aunt Ginger, who recently lost a grown child, she said that of all the people that she’d loved and lost – husband, parents and friends – the loss of her youngest son was the worst.  “It is just different than the others” she remarked before tearing up.  Confirming what I’ve heard before, the death of a child is the worst loss a human being may experience.  This speaks to the natural order of things.  Regardless of any moral or religious beliefs, it is unnatural for a child to precede his parent in death.  It’s a violation of the Creator’s order of things.