Hinge

We are all familiar with the hinge, hinges on house and vehicles of every kind. Usually, the common hinge is divided into two types: strap hinge and T-hinge. The midpoint of a hinge is called the pivot. For the purpose of this article, I want to call one side of this hinge - the past, the pivot – the present, and the other side of the hinge – the future. In the now, we are all in the pivot, the past is history, the future is a mystery.

I was a hardworking, inquisitive student in 1953 when the Watson and Crick book, The Double Helix, was published, and the discovery of DNA was announced. I still consider this the greatest discovery of the 20th century. Here we see the very beginnings of life, in each of the billions of cells in an organism, plant or animal, yielding thousands of pages of history regarding all living organisms, with the exception of some viruses.

Books can be written about the pros and cons of this knowledge: genetic engineering, cloning, and certainly the solving of many mysteries, one of the greatest, knowledge about your ancestry. From the time the mother's egg is fertilized by the father's sperm (conception), a new life is formed. With the genus homo, chosen, elected, no other person in the world like you, different facial characteristics: voice, flex of your iris, hand and foot prints. You are the possessor of your own soul, your own mental facilities, no other personality in the world like yours. We either believe in the soul, or not at all. We either believe in the sinful state of man, or not at all. We either believe in world corruption or not at all. We either believe in decency or not at all.

We live in a profane, not a holy world. Vulgarity has taken over, we live in a fallen world. I do not believe there were any more sinful conditions before the Great Flood of 5000 BC than you find today. I do not believe there was more sin in Sodom and Gomorrah at 3000 BC than there is today. Young people should have enough sense to know that the world cannot continue in the direction in which it is going. The counterfeit always looks like the real, you study the real to discover the counterfeit. Your greatest blessing is to have the history side of the hinge on which you can cling: resolute parentage, resolved patriotism. You have little else on which to hang, wealth is easily lost, looks fade with age.

Pew Research polling tells us that 78% of all Americans consider themselves Christian. Look around you and you will determine that most of these people are deceived, the tares have taken over the church. Compare yourself with scripture, not the so called Christians. God would not recognize, nor would many of our ancestors identify with those in our culture who call themselves Christians.

50% of all marriages end in divorce, 70% of all black children are reared in single family homes. Many children do not know what their father looks like, do not know his name, know nothing about their ancestry. It has been a long time since I've had anyone around me who could tell me about their grandparents or great-grandparents. Members of my own family know nothing about their ancestors. Of importance to them, today, is what is happening today, a big house, a big car, acceptance by the world, the flesh, the devil. They know much more about the pedigree of their pets.

Over and over, through the years, as an antiquarian book collector, I have found records, photographs, memorabilia that some family should have prized. I have the photograph of General Eisenhower pinning a silver star on one military colonel. I had a book from the Indian wars, in which one thoughtful mother had put pages in the book, (evidently she did not have a family Bible) comprising a complete family record, with births, deaths, records of several generations.

I have in my possession, records of my own ancestors arriving in America, those who died crossing the Atlantic, what they went through in their early years. I have a survey map of the first farm in Morristown, New Jersey (signed by the first surveyor A. Peacock), I have the fireplace cooking pot on which they depended for nutrition. If it were not for me, these things would have disappeared long ago.

My aunt Sarah died at age 98 (her husband was my grandfather's brother). She was born two years before her father left to fight as an officer in the Civil War (1861). My aunt Mary, my father's sister, and I went out to our family country church to aunt Sarah's funeral. Her husband had died 50 years before, and was buried in a family graveyard. Most of my uppity relatives are buried in town, it is rare for one to be buried in that graveyard. Leaving the graveyard, my aunt said, “I have a taped conversation of her talking with me about her youth.” She was from a family of prominence and wealth (Bagley), still loved the country church...always sat on the front row, a small woman who always wore a hat. All of her grandchildren, well-educated, prominent, have moved on. They were much better than the rest of us, never went to the old family church, or family reunions.

My aunt played this tape of aunt Sarah talking at a family reunion, I still remember it, tragic that none of her family have this valuable information and the sound of her voice. I have no idea what has happened to it. She said, “on the day my father returned from the war, I walked down the road with my dog Tag. Uncle Ben, the family black man who worked around the house, always followed from a distance to make sure nothing happened to me. I heard horses come galloping down the road. I didn't remember my father very well, but I knew it was him...we had heard that the war had ended. He knew me, stopped, scooped me up on his horse, kissing me as he rode toward the house. He said, over and over, 'I have dreamed of this day'. My mother came out on the porch, laughing and crying. He took off his sword and laid it on the porch. He would grab my mother, kiss her and then grab her again.” I remember seeing that sword hanging over her fireplace, she later married my uncle, uncle Perry, who died at 56. They had 5 children, all prominent, and aunt Sarah was known throughout eastern North Carolina.

My own grandmother, that farm home, like all the other farm homes, a place of ancestral tranquility. I remember my grandmother's very large handwoven basket with a handle in which she took food to the church. My own mother inherited that basket and used it for the same purpose.

Recently I gave two large, covered bowls to a college where I had given the money for a heritage room (A room in the library where ancestral records are kept pertaining to families and churches of eastern North Carolina). I told them, “I know these two relics were brought over from England when my family first arrived, they should be in that collection.”

I was thrilled, as a student at the state university at Chapel Hill, to find historical records of my colonial ancestry (North Carolina Room, Wilson Library). So often, in the daily beat of life's demands, the routine of survival, we forget the importance of our inheritance. A young man sat across the table from me and my secretary, my secretary said she had never seen such hurt and hatred in his eyes when he said to me, “I have nothing, my mother gave me away.”

It is so important at the pivot point of our life, to pass on this knowledge, to those on the other side of the hinge. Those who must face life and living in the future, they are going to need the sanity of the past, in order to capture the possibilities of the future. With their knowledge, I hope they will have the wisdom to be anchored on the firm foundation of God's redeeming love.

If you were to ask someone, “what have you been doing with your life?” and the person would say, “I was hit in the highway while chasing my hat, by a log truck”, you would know that the person was lying or pretending. If anyone had been hit by a log truck, he would be changed forever, when you are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), you are changed forever. The world, and the things of the world no longer have any attraction for you. You can live in the world without being part of it, different, most of us do not want to be different, we want to be accepted by everyone. In 21st century America, it is the vulgar, the decadent, the profane that is acceptable, popular. When our ancestors were alive, to be Christian, to uphold Christian principles, was expected. In today's world of abortion, same-sex marriage, rush towards anti-Christ, Christianity is the most unpopular thing in the world, witchcraft is the fastest growing religion in America.

21st century America has no shame. We do not mirror our ancestors, God's nature is not in us. The things we love, God hates, if you are saved, God will not let you dress like the world, God will not let you love the music of the world, God will not let you love the addictions of the world, and when you get tainted by the world, God will make you miserable because he will remind you of your ancestors, what they expected of your country, and what it has a right to expect from you. You are the pivotal point, there is no escape from your inheritance of the past or your responsibilities for the future.