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Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Cumberland, Sweet William, and more ANOTHER ANGLE: the occasional musings of a Kentucky pastor. Previously posted on ColumbiaMagazine.com on April 29, 2007 By Rev. Joey N. Welsh How will your name be remembered How often do people in our age take the long view of life decisions and their consequences? How often do we look beyond our current needs, or even our current desires and cravings? I fear the answer is that many people give little heed to what the immediate costs of their decisions might be, let alone how the consequences can continue to echo even beyond the bounds of their mortal lives.Every time I read a tragic story of personal or family destruction related to addiction to methamphetamines or Oxycontin, I wonder how the folks involved could ever have imagined that chapter in their lives ending happily. And when I read about people blown to bits in meth lab explosions, I wonder if they ever thought about the name they would leave behind for any kids lucky enough to survive the trauma. An elementary school teacher of mine, Iva Dillingham, once challenged my classmates and me to take the long view of things, and she asked us to imagine the kind of life we wanted for ourselves. "What kind of name do you want to leave on this earth?" she asked, "Will people think you were like a flower - or more like a weed? You know, it's all up to you." I remembered those questions when I looked on the historic events calendar and noticed that April 27 is the anniversary of the day in 1746 when the English Prince William Augustus defeated the rebel forces led by Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) on the battlefield at Culloden, Scotland. William Augustus was a son of King George II and uncle to King George III, the British monarch during the American Revolution who was son to William's older brother. William Augustus made quite a name for himself, but his fame was a double-edged sword. He was adored by many in London because his victory made the Bonnie Prince a fugitive and suppressed the rebellion led by the Stuart royal line. However, people who were familiar with his army's actions after the victory soon took to calling him "William the Butcher." William's forces roamed the Scottish Highlands for weeks after their victory; they killed any Scots who had been wounded in battle or who carried arms or showed any hostility to the British. The army burned farmhouses, seized cattle, and left Scotland starving, ravaged and bitter. The resulting enmity has lasted for hundreds of years, living on in Scottish lore, song and politics. That same kind of bitterness can flourish any time in any place when victorious forces act without taking the long view and fail to proceed with common decency toward conquered peoples. The name William Augustus left behind lives on, even in Kentucky, because the man also bore a title, Duke of Cumberland. When British settlers moved into Kentucky and Tennessee in the two decades after the Battle of Culloden they used his title to honor the Duke by naming for him the Cumberland Mountains, the Cumberland Gap, the Cumberland River (with its large 20th century lake of the same name), and also counties and cities in a dozen states. The name lives on, but so do both sides of the man's reputation. He lent his name to a flower (Sweet William) and a poisonous Scottish weed (Stinking Willie). That is a real achievement for one life, though not necessarily a laudable one. I don't think Mrs. Dillingham hoped we would set out to be thought of both as a weed and as a flower. No doubt she hoped we would choose the better way and bloom in life in a positive manner. The alternatives she lined out for us still remain for everyone in every generation: to be a flower or to be a weed. Have you taken the long view of life and made your choice? If not, perhaps the time is now. This article is a Reprint of April 24, 2006 article. which has appeared previously in the Hart County Herald, Munfordville, KY, and on ColumbiaMagazine.com on April 29, 2007. "Rev. Joey N. Welsh" is the pen name for a former Horse Cave, KY pastor. To read other essays by the author, enter "Welsh" or "Angle" in the searchbox. This story was posted on 2011-01-30 10:13:44
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