Rewriting History

As a student of history, I took courses on history and the writing of history. These course were called historiography. In them, I learned that it is very difficult to know what real history is. It seems that “to the victors go the spoil.” Also to the victors, go the history.

Imagine, if you will, what our history books would look like if the South had won the Civil War. What would they have looked like if the Third Reich and Japan had won the Second World War.

If you read text books coming out of Communist Russia or Communist China and used in their schools it would be a primer in rewriting history for political purposes.

The rewriting of history is not just an exercise for the past it is one of our favorite contemporaneous past times.

A most interesting instance of a historical rewrite occurred right here in Outer Ozarklandia.

There was a man who was quite a rascal. He ran around on his wife and family and was generally up to no good. However, a few years before he died, he began to worry about his final destination. Now this individual was fairly wealthy and so he endowed (Paid for) a small country church where he began to attend. After a few years the man died. The two daughters stayed in the church and over the years told all the new members what a man of God their father was and now the people that attend that church believe that it was founded by this great man of God.

I think that those two daughters told the story because that is what they wanted to be true. Therefore, they rewrote their personal history.

We are all much like the two daughters. We constantly rewrite history. We justify our actions, we make ourselves look better than we are.

We all seem to have our own Public Relations Firm inside, our own Spin Doctor that is constantly working, constantly putting a positive spin on our own actions.

Truth is tough. It takes courage to see ourselves in the harsh light of reality.

God sees the reality of the heart. Sometimes, that reality is much worse than we project to the world. However, fortunately sometimes that reality is also much better than the world chooses to see.

One of my prayers is to see as God sees. To have the eyes of God. To see reality. Lately, it seems that I have been seeing that there are many people with great qualities and great strengths who have buried these gifts deeply in their lives.

HarleyDad feels like one of these metal detectors that are used to find treasure. There is treasure in many lives that is waiting to be unearthed.

It is time to make true history, honest history.

HarleyDad