Noble Footprint

Peasant Times-Dispatch Issue 34

I do not yearn for a virgin nature, a nature without the peasant’s ennobling footprint and without the palace crowning the hill. But a nature safe from plebian industrialism and irreverent manipulation.

- Don Colacho

Don Colacho

Don Colacho literally wrote the book on aphorisms, and very much formed and influenced the ‘peasantly’ notion explored here at the Times-Dispatch. The last time we explored Don Colacho was in March, in the article “Jesus, Our Cyrenian”. This quote is #989 of his selection of aphorisms.

Managerial Class

I always wanted to be the boss. To me the apotheosis of ‘business’ is ‘management’. Maybe even being an executive! My dad devoted his life to business at the expense of most everything else. When I was an early teen, he gave me books on management and leadership. So my desire to be the boss is wrapped up in ideas of makin’ the old man proud—the ‘point’ of labor is to climb, in this mindset. What good is working a job if you aren’t aimed at running the job.

So many of the success stories and so many people in the contemporary pantheon of heroes are men and women of business. People who climbed the ladder, made it to the top, and ruled the roost. Our contemporary culture admires startups, romanticizes starting a business. I think especially American Individualism includes this notion of being king of your own castle, and defending vigorously your right to administer your castle as you see fit; refusing trespass with violent force.

The saying that wise men don’t seek positions of power¹ was always confronting to me, in this way. I wanted to be a leader, I wanted to even be a good leader. How could I want that, and simultaneously not want it? How could I make the old man proud with this philosophy?

After I graduated college, I floundered. I had three jobs in the four years after I graduated, and the fourth job—a prayer answered—I have been at for eight and a half years. And I’ve been stuck! I’ve tried several times to climb the ladder, I even got a graduate degree thinking it would help me progress (it did not). My frustration began to boil over—why was my career not going the way I wanted it to?

The answer, I have begun to realize, is that I needed a lesson in humility.

The Footprint And The Palace

Don Colacho here is talking about how the peasant ennobles the land, the palace ennobles the peasant. We are social beings, and we are hierarchical beings. Hierarchy exists to help order the world. The worldly wilds are tamed and given purpose and structure by the peasant; the social wilderness of peasants is tamed and given purpose by law-giving leaders.

Don Colacho’s quote emphasizes how a ‘virgin nature’ untouched by human hands is not somehow idyllic or more sacred. Human work can be ennobling²—but he draws a distinction between the peasants ennobling labors and ‘plebian industrialism’, which seeks to mechanize, commodify, and assembly-line the world. Industrialism does not harmonize with nature but steamrolls overtop of it. In other words, Don Colacho seems to be pointing to a ‘virtuous mean’ between an untouched nature, devoid of human touch; and an industrial society, devoid of natures presence.

Unremarked upon in the quote, but which I am focusing on for the purposes of this article, is the implication that everyone must play his or her part for harmonious operation. Not everyone gets to live in the palace on the hill—far and away more people will play the role of peasants. There will always be more sheep than shepherds. Harmony happens when the shepherds love their sheep; when the sheep love their shepherds³; when all work together to create order and bear fruit.

Sheep And Shepherd

My desire to climb the corporate ladder is my desire to be a shepherd at a time when I am called to be a sheep. I did not and could not love my work because I was striving always to oversee my work. If I was given what I sought I would have been unhappy there too, there will always be a manager above me, there will never be an escape from it. Only by approaching my work with humility, only when I accept my boss’ stewardship, can I put my energy and focus into doing my work well and not into trying to climb.

Likewise in the life of the Church, we are the sheep and we are not in the role of shepherds. We are lay folk! That does not mean we have no job, it means our job is to be good at being layfolk.

That’s kind of a bitter pill to swallow. I’m writing about Catholicism—LOTS of people write about Catholicism⁴. There are a handful of people who have gotten famous writing about Catholicism. That can sometimes lead to confusion—they take on the appearance of a shepherd, but their scope and authority is really just that of a layman. We all want respect, we all want authority, we all want expertise. It’s natural to the human condition to want those things. We run into trouble when we forget to abide our shepherds, whose work in helping to order us is ennobling. The Church points us at this virtuous mean, ordered but not industrialized: harmonious.

To restate Don Colacho: I, a sheep, yearn for the shepherd’s ennobling footprint, and the Church crowning the hill.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

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Thank you for reading! God Bless!

AJPM

1. It finally happened, a Dune reference in my Catholic publication.

2. Remember, it was part of our original charge given by God to Adam and Eve to steward creation. This desire—to steward creation—is embedded in our spiritual DNA.

3. If you feel yourself tempted to interject with “WHAT ABOUT—”, let me acknowledge you for a moment. Yes, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Yes there are thieves dressed as shepherds. Humanity is fallen! But let’s acknowledge the ideal here. I am sure the Shepherds wish we were sinless as much as we wish they were sinless. Let’s examine our own beams before we start calling out motes. And let’s set aside all the complicated nuances this footnote raises and focus on the point I’m actually trying to make in this post!

4. If you are Catholic and you don’t write a blog about Catholicism are you really Catholic?