Must Have Had a Fair Wind

I am mystified. I ordered a box set of Horatio Hornblower DVDs on Friday at 11 p.m., and they arrived today! How is that possible?

Unfortunately I’m already sucking them up way too fast. I could not keep myself from watching the first two today.

I think that if you have any potential inside you for the development of character, you will find it impossible not to be moved by Horatio Hornblower. What wonderful lessons you can learn from his adventures. Don’t whine. Don’t make life hard on those in authority over you. Don’t forget that you have to serve your subordinates more than they serve you. Admit responsibility for your errors. Look for ways to solve problems and improve things, beyond what your duty requires you to do. None of this stuff will get you far in an average workplace; politicking is the way to get ahead. If you want advancement, learn to control others. If you want self-respect, competence, resourcefulness, and satisfaction, learn to control yourself.

How much we are cheated of, when our parents let us raise ourselves. How slim the likelihood that we will find the strength and the inclination to teach ourselves the lessons overlooked by our parents during our formative years. Oddly, the best way to make up for your parents’ mistakes is to refuse to blame them, and to treat the mistakes as though they were your own.

Maybe that’s the true magic from which God wanted us to benefit when He told us to honor our parents. When you choose to stop blaming them, and you put yourself out to compensate for their shortcomings, and you try to help them lead as they should lead, you will find that you become what you wish they had been, and you are likely to improve them, too, by example.

I know Hornblower is a fictional character, but it’s not unrealistic to emulate his virtues. They’re not superhuman.

I enjoy these DVDs for the same reason Christianity is exciting to me. Christianity offers self-improvement. The New Testament doesn’t just say you get eternal life. It says that while you live, provided you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God will build you up from the inside and make you a better person. More disciplined. More courageous. Kinder. More patient.

I only have 8 more DVDs. I know I’m going to burn them up by Friday.

If you have kids, you couldn’t ask for better entertainment to share with them. You could pause the DVDs here and there and explain why Hornblower makes the hard choices he makes. Sure beats Grand Theft Auto and R-rated movies.

Life is beautiful, if you know what kind of beauty to look for and where to look for it. I think that’s one of the lessons of maturity. We think we enjoy our venal pleasures while we’re young, but they always come with a high price, and we don’t even know what enjoyment is until we’re old and we have suffered and learned. Maybe God gives us old age and infirmity to keep us from growing to love life so much we refuse to die. The older you get, the more you are able to see what there is in life to love.

Thoughts like these increase my sadness that we are becoming a nation of degenerates and barbarians. I’m just glad I’m managing to pick up a few clues while I’m still young enough to make use of them.