“Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.” – Joel, prophet in ancient Israel
When my kids were young and we were living in Asia, we’d visit the US from time to time. Two of our four were born in the US, the other two in Taiwan, but they all grew up in China.
Top priority on trips to the US was connecting with relatives – mine on the East Coast and Kim’s in the Northwest. But we also wanted to expose them to the natural wonders, historic sites, and other special attractions of their country of citizenship. Along the way, we collected fond memories of Yellowstone and Gettysburg, Seattle and the Jersey Shore, Disneyland and the Ozarks.
But we also did a lot of comparing between Asia and the US. One favorite observation we shared was the relative ages of old historic sites.
I’d point out a historic building in the US.
“You know how old that fort is?” I’d ask them with a twinkle in my eye.
“How old, Dad?”
“About 200 years.”
“That’s not old, Dad!” They’d say with mock disdain.
Well, it certainly isn’t when you are growing up in the shadow of the Big Goose Pagoda. Except on the smoggiest of days, we could see the 1,350 year old landmark out our living room window, looming over our neighborhood. The 大雁塔 (Dayan ta), as it’s called in Mandarin, rises 64 meters – or about 209 feet – high.
What the Dayan ta communicated to our family, besides being the sign we were almost home, was permanence. (“Find your way to the Dayan ta and you can find your way home.”) It had weathered endless wars and conflicts, had seen dynasties come and go. And though the city of Xi’an has now overshadowed it with modern 30-story skyscrapers, it still sits proudly where it always has since 652 AD.
“If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday.” – Pearl S. Buck, USA novelist, missionary in China
The pagoda is not the oldest structure in Xi’an, not by a long shot. Far more famous and 900 years older yet are the Terra Cotta Soldiers, dating back more than 200 years before the time of Christ. These thousands of life-sized soldiers guard the tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, born this month in 259 BC. Even hundreds of years before that, Xi’an was already a cultural and political center of China – back when the Israelites were just crowning Saul as their first king.
It’s all in how you look at things. Old really is a relative term. I’m old compared with the majority of people in the world, but much younger than my oldest living friend who is 105 years old.
Among the values of life we wanted to pass on to our kids was a sense of history. As a person of faith, the Christian faith, I am a devoted student of history. Christianity is a historical faith, meaning it is anchored in history.
As is so much else, including my family rootedness and my sense of patriotism.
It really does matter right now what happened 2,100 years ago, 250 hundred years ago, even 70 years ago. 70? That’s when I was born. My own history is very significant to my kids. If I hadn’t been born, they wouldn’t exist.
There are lots of debates about history these days, especially on which narrative to teach. Of bigger concern to me is that these debates are too often carried out by people who really don’t know – or don’t care about – history. Are they really trying to understand the implications of 1609 or 1775 or 1868 or are they just trying to score points?
History isn’t merely about dates and names. True history requires thoughtful interpretation – analyzing the relative value of the various data and their connectivity to you and me today. And historical observation is always open to renewed interpretation as we sift through new data and evaluate earlier biases.
“History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.” – Etienne Gilson, French philosopher
That’s why I love reading biographies and history books. The good ones help me understand the world I live in and help me find my place in that world. The bad ones remind me of how I need to be diligent in my pursuit of truth. See my recent blog on demythologizing an important event in my own faith tradition: Trust but Verify: A case study in research integrity
Two key factors in good history are honesty and humility. Humans being complicated, the data doesn’t always line up neatly. And we are all, every one of us, a mixed bag of good and bad. That’s why hagiographies are so detrimental to our understanding of the world. Whether we’re talking about political leaders or missionaries, we do ourselves and our children much disservice if we gloss over the failings of our leaders and forebears.
Good people do bad things. And bad people do good things.
Deng Xiaoping, who followed Chairman Mao as leader of China, is quoted as saying of Mao that he was 70% good and 30% bad. It’s an old Chinese proverb, so the percentages aren’t some kind of formula.
When I was talking with a loyal party member one day, he knew that my grandparents had been missionaries in China before Communism. So, he commented that missionaries were – and here he quoted the proverb – 70% good and 30% bad.
Without thinking, I said, “Oh like what Deng said about Mao?” Well, that didn’t go over very well, and I regretted the words as they were coming out of my mouth.
Now we can argue the merits or demerits of Mao and missionaries, but my point here is that we all come with a mix. And we need to be honest and humble about that, even with our own heroes.
Hagiographies aside, very human stories, written with humility and honesty with their foibles and their achievements, all have usefulness for us today. History does matter. And it matters greatly.
“Everything is illuminated in the light of the past.” – Alex, in “Everything is Illuminated” (2005)
So what if Emperor Qin Shi Huang had united all the kingdoms of China under one ruler by 221 BC? Believe it or not, that fact has much to teach us about China today. It was not inevitable that, unlike Europe, China would become a united nation millennia ago, But it is a fact of history that has impacted China’s self-understanding, giving rise to Chairman Mao and to how China’s current president, Xi Jinping, relates to rest of the world today.
So what if Jesus hadn’t been born when and where he was born? Well, from both a faith and a historic perspective, it matters a lot.
So what if my ancestors hadn’t left England in the 17th century and eventually settled in the colony of Rhode Island? Well, it may not have had an impact on your life, but it sure has on mine – and on that of my kids’!
History matters. And so does a rigorous evaluation of what we know about history. Bring on the debates, just don’t stop digging and discussing and discerning.
Let me close with a few quotes from writers reflecting on the value of history:
“For history is to the nation as memory is to the individual.” – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., USA historian
“No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.” – Maya Angelou, USA writer
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.” – G. K Chesterton, English novelist, Christian apologist
Remember and reflect.
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Photos: my family in front of the Big Goose Pagoda (with my mother); my family at Appomattox, VA, where General Lee surrendered to General Grant at the end of the US Civil War
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