My column in the Waco Tribune-Herald this week is inspired by a recent visit to see an exhibit called “Norman Rockwell and the Art of Scouting” at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas.  Here’s an excerpt:

We Americans have always had something of a love/hate relationship with the idea of tradition.  On the one hand, it gives us a sense of community, place, and knowing who we are.  We’re fond of things like holiday traditions that not only bring order out of potential chaos but that provide ways of connecting to good memories—those warm fuzzies that have the power to carry even the most senior of citizens back to the days of innocence and wonder. 

On the other hand, going back to the earliest American settlers we’ve seen tradition as a stifling element of social, political, or ecclesiastical construction, stubbornly incapable of accommodating the ever-changing variety of human tastes, beliefs, and circumstances.  It binds us to practices and assumptions that may no longer be valid.  “Go west, young man,” became a tradition largely to escape other traditions.

Read the whole thing HERE.

Norman Rockwell, Men of Tomorrow, oil on canvas, 1948