Keep in the Castle

There’s a smattering of forts in North America and a few faux castles. I knew Casa Loma from my Toronto days and grew up with the image of Disney’s Wonderful castle firmly etched on my mind. We visited whatever forts we came near with our children – George, Niagara, Erie, Henry, Michilimackinac, William, Louisburg. But they are, altogether, few and far between.

In Europe it’s another matter. The place is agog with castles and walls, both ruined and restored. We visited only a few last summer, but our tourist information and historical readings showed many more. Even in the bucolic setting of Wedderveer where my mother came of age, there’s a Wedderborg with a moat around it.

I am fascinated by castles, and my Facebook feed somehow knows this, so I am witness to wonderfully romantic (sometimes AI) pictures of castle keeps the world over. None of them serve defensively anymore, except to bolster tourist spending and Facebook’s coffers. It seems I’m not the only one to be be captivated by the castle concept.

Part of my interest comes from being a builder. I appreciate the workmanship and the enormous labour and capital cost of defensive walls, towers and dwellings. There’s a general disdain these days for defense spending — Enlightenment (and now critical theory) has cast a pall over our primitive, warmongering and invasive past. But we’ve hung on to the romantic notions about castles and we’re impressed by the fortitude and ingenuity of their builders.

Build walls to keep out the bad and you have a small garden of Eden — ‘paradeisos’, literally, an enclosed park. Castles and their compounds, cities with walls and even humble homes are meant to be places of peace and well being, protecting us from threatening forces. They are not aggressive by nature (though they might house aggressors). Castles never went to war.

We’ve grown accustomed to being left in peace, with stud walls generally enough to protect us. But for much of history and in much of the world still, there’s a real danger of being attacked and robbed. This might be by as large a force as the Norman Conquest of 1066, or by a single, itinerant, marauding thief.

Prosperity is built into castles and walls, Without it there would be no need to protect and no resources for their construction. That brings with it the problem of equity, for those within generally have more than those without. And that begs the question of whether or not it is even right to build walls around the spoils of prosperity.

I have a fair degree of empathy for have-nots. As much as I enjoyed viewing Castle de Haar last summer, I think it remains an over-the-top display of conspicuous consumption by its Baron owner and his de Rothschild wife. The best I can do is recognize that it is given to a few to build and develop on a scale that is beyond our means, expressing human creativity that matches God’s grander works.

Every home is a keep, and none of us are free from the tension of having and giving. We can be thankful for, and express our blessings. The trick is to guard them from own profligacy as well as from the presumption of those who would take what is not theirs. Let us all together confess that our keep is in the Lord, the maker of knolls and mountains.