Wednesday, May 30, 2012

My Hatfields & McCoys Nightmare



Thank you, Hatfields and McCoys, for interrupting my fantastical dreams and replacing them with a nightmare.

I’ve heard that dreams are a way for our subconscious to work out problems we couldn’t deal with while awake. I’m beginning to think that is true.  Often times, when there are things that stress me out in the light, I struggle with in the night.  Thanks to Fox, and their insatiable need to cancel every good show that airs on their network, I’ve spent a night or two trying to reconcile the answers to the cliffhangers that will never be resolved.  I wish networks, who decide to cancel a show, would at least provide an ending and not leave us frustrated without a resolution.  I’m now very reluctant to follow another Fox show for this very reason.  I fear I’ll be trying to ‘find’ the ending to Finder in my nightmares for months to come. Okay, time to get off that rant and back to my point.  This is part of ‘the’ point, but I’ll move on.

Monday, I began watching the new mini-series, Hatfields & McCoys on the History Channel, and I’m so frustrated at the situation, based on a real story, that could have been avoided if not for the pride of mankind. It would have taken two-word phrases by each man (I’m Sorry and Forgive Me) to have prevented a mini-civil war between West Virginia and Kentucky.  Granted, it seems the escalation of the tension between these two families were inflamed by instigators on both sides, not primarily by the two patriarchs, but their examples and a lack of humility and leadership, fueled the flames.  There was a lot of talk about God, but no evidence of His character in either; all judgment and wrath, but no mercy or forgiveness.
 
Needless to say, my dreams were plagued with trying to work out a resolution between the two families, which included desperate appeals from a distant relative (distant –as in a generational great-great-great granddaughter, traveling through time to bring a passionate plea for peace between her two grandfathers, ending with one killing the other).  

Perhaps there’s some part of me, recently discovering on Ancestry.com a lineal connection to the Civil War, and my family coming from the same area, which reacts to this story on a personal level.  Who knows?  I have learned one thing: I’m so thankful to have been born in this generation.  I don’t think I would have done well in that particular time period of our history.  I can’t imagine the nightmares that would constantly plague me in search of solutions. I hope there’s enough resolution in the last part of this mini-series tonight for me to have a restful sleep, but I’m not holding my breath.

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

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