GUEST APPEARANCE: Pillars of the nation

When you hear the word “pillars,” what comes to mind?

Do you envision architectural columns, round, cylindrical shafts with capitals on top and bases below? Do you see them perpendicular to the horizon, looming beneath a superstructure?

Maybe you’re more inclined to words as opposed to imagery, and when you hear “pillars,” phrases like “pillars of the church” or “pillars of the community” come to mind. These pillars, of course, would be flesh and blood, the faithful in society, the chief supporters of what is held dear to them.

In Ken Follett’s extraordinary epic, “The Pillars of the Earth,” it’s said that Follett’s use of the word “Pillars” in the book’s title is meant in the literal sense, massive stone supports for the building of his fictional cathedral. Having read the book, I could argue otherwise.

There’s mention of “pillars of the earth” in the Bible. And like pillars in the church and community, “pillars” here is used metaphorically: “The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world.” These “pillars” are assumedly representative of laws that govern the cosmos, laws pertaining to material nature as well as divine. And, no, you don’t have to believe in God to grasp the concept of “pillars” upholding order in the universe, and upon these “pillars,” these laws, the earth, and every object in space, rests. Opinion changes nothing.

The three-legged stool is a symbol of stability, and it’s used in countless analogies. As long as a stool’s three legs remain strong, there’s balance. But if one leg fails, the stool fails. When pillars in society become frail, society fails.

I believe American society rests on three indispensable pillars working together to maintain stability, and what affects one affects all.

Understandably, everyone has concerns, and I would put health and welfare at the top of our list of concerns. And, no, I haven’t seen the list, but my instincts tell me without health and welfare nothing else matters.

I’m sure my youngest granddaughter’s concerns are mom and dad and school, good grades and friends. Among our concerns are relationships; we do our best to cultivate our relationships. Depending where you live, your concern might be the weather or whether you’ll be moving back into your home now that you’ve had a devastating bout with Mother Nature. Maybe your greatest concern is your golf swing; I wish it were mine.

Our list of concerns is limitless: pro-life and pro-choice is one; black or white, male or female in the Oval Office; global warming, immigration, fracking, electric cars, fossil fuels. So many concerns are carried into the voting booth today that they have become marbles under our feet, an unstable footing on which to cast a vote.

I recall a morose sign in Vietnam: “To Ho Chi Minh Trail, Last Stop for Beans, Bullets and Bandages.” When I think about it today, those truly were the three pillars upon which the mission’s success rested. Without food, we would have starved; without ammunition, we’d have been defenseless; without medical resources, there’d have been more fatalities.

I see the pillars of our nation as economy, military and morality (beans, bullets and bandages). They are frail and mutually dependent. Weakening one weakens the others. To lose one is to bring down the superstructure that is America — our health and welfare.

But we don’t often see it that way. Our concerns are elsewhere. We’re like people on a sinking ship squabbling over linen service, oblivious to our frailty and the dangers around us. There might be a few adults talking in the room, but we listen and carry on like children. We’re a tragedy in the making.

“Hamlet” is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare and most remembered for the line “Frailty, thy name is woman.” When I hear these words today, I’m more inclined to think of our frailty as a nation and the pillars that bear us up. At the risk of committing a literary transgression: “Frailty, thy name is (understanding).”