02/07/2025
I have always believed that a business should stay away from politics at all times. And so I still believe. However, there comes a time when a response must be made to a political statement that, at least theoretically, could undermine the cornerstone of one’s business.
When President Trump claimed that the Palestinian people remain in Palestine solely because they had nowhere else to go, he made an assumption that is common, sadly enough, amongst most Americans. Americans are generally a very mercenary people, willing to sell practically everything, including the ground under our feet, for a quick and easy buck, the future and past be damned.
Family farms, after hundreds of years of providing for a single family, are sold off and the recipients run off to live out a lazy and useless existence far from the old home. The fields and wood lots become dense residential housing and the old family fades away into the oblivious rootlessness of suburban life. Like dead leaves fallen from the tree, they eventually blow to the gutter and rot away to nothing.
I am a traditional Catholic, making me extremely conservative. My feet are firmly planted in a reality that was formed by a deep connection to the natural world. For many years, I lived a semi-outdoor life in which extremes of temperature could not be overcome by the simple press of a button or the turning of a k**b. Timber kept me from freezing and kept me from starving. Stones turned to bread in my hand as I built walls and perfected my craft.
For eighty years, my family lived across the crick after losing our little farm here in the early ‘40’s. It was there I stayed, thanks to the hard work of my grandfather and great-grandfather, never having to face the grim realities of homelessness when the economy collapsed in ‘08. Of course, I had to sweat and toil more than ever before but I never had any doubts as to where home was.
But it was for here that I waited. My grandfather had planted the seed in my mind when I was about ten years old. He had no living memory of actually living here but he knew the room in which he was born. He made it clear that our family, in one way or another, should return to our ancestral soil if the opportunity ever arose.
I am blessed to have a fiancée who understands the depth of my devotion. I can say, wholeheartedly, if someone burned down our home, poisoned our well, and tried to run us out, she would be right there beside me, camped in the ruins, rebuilding on what to me is sacred soil.
He’ll never see this. Why should he? I am of no importance beyond my own hard labor. But Mr. President, if I was a Palestinian, I would not leave. The bones of my ancestors would not be buried under golf courses and high rises. The security that only comes from generations of occupying a single piece of ground would not be sold for an easy but empty life in some soulless condominium.
There are two types of inheritance if we but only thought about it. The first and most obvious is financial. I’ve heard countless stories of an aged family member dying and the children going in and taking everything with even the smallest monetary value. Meanwhile, family photos and keepsakes are left scattered on the floor, trodden upon by muddy feet with no appreciation for such worthless trinkets.
The second type is by far the more valuable in its long term value. The stone walls on our property, the hewn timbers we salvaged from the barn, and every bit of cracked plaster in our house is a representative of this inheritance. It has no or little financial value. However, they are all priceless. They represent life, a moment in time when one of my distant ancestors worked hard to make this property a little bit better for himself and his family which, of course, includes me even centuries later. From then, this built environment took on a deeper value as each successive generation was born, loved, lived, and died surrounded by these same stones and timbers. We have resumed the story eighty years later and, I hope, will be here for a good long while.
Land owned by everyone is cherished and protected by no one. Land owned by the same family for generations can and will sustain that family for a thousand years if fully appreciated. It will often entail a difficult life and hard labor but it secures a measure of freedom that can never be understood by someone who lives on a postage stamp. My eggs cost practically nothing and they can’t squeeze me with prices. And if the power company continues with its games, I’ll reopen the old chimney, get a proper liner installed, and never use electric heat again. Plenty of trees here for wood.
And so, I suspect, it is for many Palestinians. I would never leave here even if it meant my bones would be left, bleached by the sun, among the rubble. If they are even half as connected to their native soil as I am to mine, the President is making a grave miscalculation. Not everyone can be bought.
Fortunately, I have Katherine and the boy to keep me in line. Otherwise, I’d be finishing up outstanding projects and heading to Gaza to help my Christian brothers(6% of Palestinians in Gaza) rebuild their shattered churches. She’d never tolerate that and the boy, well, he needs me to kick him around a bit.
Besides, my duty lies here, helping others restore and preserve their own historic treasures in the face of our own hyper-commercialized society.
Alright, alright. I shouldn’t say so much. I have shingles to split. May as well put a picture of them on this post, too. Real beauties they are, too!
Facebook home for Hiraeth Restorations, recreating the past one piece at a time. Working in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and, soon, Maryland.
