BILL BENNETT: What I told my sons about their faith, family and America
Editor’s note: The following column is adapted from a personal letter William J. Bennett wrote to his sons in 1990
Dear Boys,
This Letter is being written on a train in the early evening during a very busy week for your Dad, The President’s "Drug Czar." I may not get it all said the way I want to but I thought it better to write some of it down because you can never tell. I hope when you read this we’ll be able to talk about it. I trust we will.
My message is pretty simple. Remember, Revere, Trust and Hold to the best thing, the most important things. And I believe they are your family, your country, and your God – Our family, our country, our God. There are other important and great things – friends, learning, physical well-being. And activity – but the three things I’ve mentioned will over time give more to you of value than anything else. Of course you can do justice by them and have more time for the other things and these 3 will help you make friends, be a friend – learn and have a purpose for learning, even encourage and help you to do your best in sports and competition. But these 3 above all. Why?
Your family is your base. It’s your anchor and your moorings. You are always welcome there. There is nothing you cannot discuss with me or your mother (and in time probably with each other too).
As brothers you will have each other for the rest of your lives; hold to each other, trust each other, stay close and help each other. When you have children – your own families – then you will have the sense of how much your mother and I love you. We love you without qualification, without condition, without limit. We also can be angry at you, disappointed in you, and yes can and will disapprove, no doubt, of some of what you do – but the love doesn’t stop ever. Remember that. You’ll know this joy and feeling some day. Thank you for what you have given us. Because of you boys, your mother and I know both happiness and fulfillment that we cannot get any other way: My fondest wish is for you to know this yourselves someday.
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Your country is the greatest in God’s world. Respect it, hold it in esteem, do not participate in its degradation or trashing. You may disagree with it of course, but when you are its critic, be what Madison called "A loving critic." Remember what it has done for others as well as for you – your freedom, your education, your security, your beliefs, your well-being are due in large part to your country. Be a good citizen and if your country calls on you, be ready to serve willingly for it.
The world now imitates it – everyone knows our institutions are the best. Show in your lives that you know it too. You boys have had the special privilege of meeting Presidents – you have touched the leadership’s hands and have been smiled at, written to, and asked about by Presidents. You have had rare and unique privileges. Turn those privileges to devotion to your country. Your father has had the great privilege of serving America and it has made my life more satisfying than I could have ever dreamed. Count us all lucky. Be that loyal and conscientious servant, be that loving critic, take part in its affairs and debate and teach your children to attend to it as well.
Your God created you in his likeness and your mother and I see the face of God on your faces. Develop your faith and keep it. Your mother and I have tried to give you a sense of religion and of our faith – I could have done better, maybe by the time you read this my track record will be better than it is in 1990, but don’t ignore this. As a teacher of mine said once – "religion is a domain we ignore at our own peril." You will hear people explaining things all your lives about how and why things happen.
Well in my almost 50 years now, I have come to believe that the explanations offered by our faith – Christianity – are the best. Christian realism is realism, Man is created by God but with sin and with his own free will. Human beings are responsible for their actions and life is a psycho-mechia. A struggle between good and evil for a man’s soul. Act as to let the good win but do not be discouraged by the evidence of your own wrongdoing. We all do wrong (even your mother though very rarely, and not for long, and much less often than your Dad) but my point is that categories of modern philosophy, psychology and sociology just don’t do it like the basic Christian approach does. But this is something you boys will learn as you grow up and grow smarter.
