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The Swine Principle
January 2, 2000 AD
Dear Cousin Christopher,
Salutations:
I commend you for your diligence of duty in defining and defending the doctrines of Eternal Sovereignty.
Rudyard Kipling penned these lines:
ALL I know of Freedom,
ALL I need to know,
THIS my Fathers won for me
Long... Long ago.
In your quest of knowledge and with the assistance of what almost amounts to a common man’s Urim and Thummim... the INTERNET, you have discovered documents and deeds of our FATHERS that have been hidden in the dark wallows of ignorance. Kipling alludes to the great motivating condition of the soul... GRATITUDE. And of course, we must ask, how can one be grateful if one is unaware.
Let me remind you of a little drama in the life of your own family that demonstrates the point. You remember the little patch of land your brother Dan purchased that was located off the beaten path in a secluded finger of Spanish Springs Valley near Pyramid Lake, Nevada. There wasn’t a tree in sight... only sagebrush. The land was dry and parched with no surface water, was populated by jackrabbits, coyotes, horny toads, bull snakes, meandering cattle and visited occasionally by a cowboy on horseback. There was no road, only trails leading to the land.
In fact, Dan purchased the land from a map.
The land had to be later surveyed, right-of-ways obtained, a road built, a power line on poles constructed, a well sunk, the land cleared, fences built. ALL this and more had to be done step by step, year by year, dollar by dollar, and with a mortgage on the land to be paid by Dan who was earning his living as a brick layer and had also the privilege and responsibilities to provide for a large family of young children.
Dan said later, he had two things going for him in his youth... ignorance and confidence. Had he understood what he was up against when he purchased his dream he would have logically concluded it couldn’t have been accomplished. But, with sweat of the brow, prayer and family help... the plot of land became a little farm or ranchette with a beautiful orchard of fruit trees and distinguished with scores of shade trees, literally becoming an oasis in the desert.
You know this story, Christopher, you were there helping in the beginning, you saw the transformation. What you don’t know is that your wonderful grandmother Caroline Bendixsen Hansen passed on and left a few thousand dollars to her only son Oliver F. Hansen. At a crucial point when the mortgage was due Uncle Oliver, unaware of Dan’s plight, said he was prompted from beyond the veil to give that money to Dan. The payment was made and Grandma Hansen’s contribution became a hidden part of the farm’s legacy and blessing to her posterity beginning immediately for her “baby boy” Oliver. Oliver loved horses, as a very good judge of horse flesh and a good rider. In his retirement years, often frustrated with the carks and cares of this old world, he found “recreational therapy” enjoying the horses and the surrounding mountains with family and friends at the farm. He lived long enough to enjoy the harvest festivity of gathering apples by the wheel barrow and savoring the taste of juice, hand pressed, from apples plucked freshly from the trees.
Dan built a home on the property and his eldest son moved in and is raising a new generation of Hansens on the farm. Part of their training involved 4-H. A little piglet was brought to the farm. He ran loose in the apple orchard never wanting for abundance of fallen apples. He swam in the stream of water, supplied from the reservoir, with the great grandchildren. The children rode on piglet’s back, combed and curried and groomed this little swine... In short this little pig, that had no ability to appreciate the heritage of the farm, lived in HOGHEAVEN... right up and until he was butchered. I call that the swine principle.
Magnify that story a million or even a trillion times (considering the national debt) and you have the story of modern America with it’s great legacy but, populated by inhabitants that consume the fruits of freedom while confusing comfort and abundance for liberty... and sadly, seem to lack the ability to truly appreciate their heritage.
Dear Cousin, keep up the good work.
I close this epistle with a quotation from Rudyard Kipling:
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since social progress began—
That the dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
My appreciation,
Ian McGavin
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