It is only the prospect of our own death which purifies and properly orders our priorities for living. Knowing that we must make an accounting for the time we have been given reminds us that we have too little time to be wasting it on frivolous or decadent, much less on sinful, concerns. No one knows how long, or short, our allotted span may be, but we should take counsel on how to relate with God.
It used to be common during the middle ages for churches, and some wealthy homes, to have a mural of skeletons with a motto: "As you are now, so once were we, and as we are now, so shall you also be." It was a not so subtle reminder that the hour of death comes, sooner or later, for each of us, and we should live so as to assure our souls a place in Heaven, according to the will of God.
How shall we fare, and keep our lives in proper order, when we may someday have the promise of a thousand years? It is so hard already to build and maintain self-discipline when we think we may have only a thousand, or fewer, months. Even when we have friends, whose lives were cut drastically short, it is terribly hard to make ourselves think that we may not have many tomorrows, or even any. Only when it seems that the time may be imminent can we force ourselves to really focus on setting our lives in proper, spiritual order.
When we are young, we instinctively feel that our lives stretch so far into the future that we cannot touch the ending. We cannot believe that what we are doing today may be so consuming, or fulfilling, that we may still be doing it when we get old. Only if we feel that we have found our calling, to serve the Lord by doing what we love, can we see ourselves in that work for a lifetime.
It is a pity to realize that our paycheck is dependent on a job which has no spiritual significance. If that is our case, we must seek to begin some new endeavor which may fill that void, so that our lives are not merely dissipation. We can choose to spend our efforts chasing after money, or we can find a way to serve the Lord and use our talents to best effect. If we are very lucky, our job is morally acceptable and sufficient to support us in another more philanthropic endeavor, so that we can shift our focus. But our Lord told us that we cannot serve both God and Money. Our income must be used in his service, if it is not to become an issue. Or we must learn to be satisfied with being "poor" by the world's standards. There is no stigma in this. Christ Himself was poor.
But it was not always like this. The idea of an afterlife which would begin with the judgment of our earthly lives, and thereby determine our eternal happiness or misery, developed slowly. Perhaps it came as an inerrant revelation from God, but we did not get it all at once. Rather we have a very different tradition, on which we used to put a great deal more focus. In ancient times, a good education included the study of good advice for living a wholesome life. These practical admonitions were collected in the Wisdom texts popular in many nations' upper class circles.
King Solomon was renowned for his great wisdom, and his best works were collected in the Bible. These may seem like worldly instructions, but they are humble, and ever conscious of living a godly life. They are presented like a father's advice to beloved children, offering his best wisdom to help them to become wise and content in their own lives. These ideas really do work, and they are not just old-fashioned sayings. They were approved for the edification of all future generations, and they have stood the test of time. Indeed, since they have lasted for 3,000 years, we can feel pretty confident about what they teach.
But even Solomon in all his glory, became world weary eventually. He realized that what the world may value is not the real standard by which we must judge what is important. There is a pattern of the world, and not much changes year after year. So many people chase after meaningless novelties, or personal wealth, or spend their lives going around and around never asking "why." Even Solomon had lost his focus, when he allowed his wives to bring in their foreign idols.
Despite what the world may say, there is only one thing of ultimate importance: our relationship with God. Only God knows what we were put here to accomplish, and we begin to see small parts of his plans as we follow his prompting. Our basic nature is far from what He wants us to become, but He knows how to transform us. We can find some happiness serving others and gaining their approval, and many of us stop there, but that would leave the world the same as always. God wants to raise us up to the higher standards of Heaven. But we don't know what those are. We have to listen to Him, and stay close to Him, so we can know what He wants of us. God does not share his whole plan with anyone. We have to be patient, and stay focused on what we do know, and always trust in his care for us.
And that is our job for a lifetime. God alone knows what is best for us, and what will make us happy for eternity. It is our task to stay aware of his perspective on our lives. We may have already made a total mess of it so far, but He knows how to make the best of it from here. If you know that what you are doing is not pleasing to God, then stop doing that. You can apologize, and ask Him to forgive you. He will. And He will help you to find something better to do, which will put you in a right relationship with Him, and give you a part in his plan. And if you have to clean up your act one step at a time, He can help you to do that too. His mercy will give you strength.
It takes a lot of prayer, either way. But that, really, is the most important part: just being willing to pray, and listen for Him to answer. He may answer through the Bible at first, or through his church pastors, or you may hear directly from "the still, small voice within" that you just know speaks from the single best hope within you. But you have to listen, and sometimes you have to talk to someone you can trust, just to make sure that you are hearing right. But God will answer, if you ask. "Seek and you shall find; ask and you shall receive; knock and the door shall be opened to you."
And when you have found your own right relationship to God, you won't have to fear the last days of your life. The words of the skeletons on the wall won't trouble you, because you will know that you have not wasted your life. The whole point of this life is to find that right relationship, and to walk with God by the path that He shows us, one day at at time, or as far ahead as He chooses to reveal it to our limited point of view. God wants you to be happy (He calls it "blessed"), and He wants you to have a meaningful part in his plan. Now really, what more could you want?
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Friday, March 20, 2020
Project Consensus: A Vision for Unity
Today, when I take a long, broad look at the world, from the highest perspective I can manage, I see a world in trouble. We are not living out of our deepest Truth, knowing that we are all related, brothers and sisters of one interconnected family. We seem unwilling to allow each other the Freedom to live our own lives, asking only that we may also be allowed the same. And if we can find it in our hearts to really try to Love one another, we will also see that everyone must be allowed the basic resources needed for health and well being. Then, God willing, we may find the Wisdom to save the ecology of our planet, and to build long term health and sustainability into our economies. But these hopeful ideals won't just emerge by themselves. We first need something that we can all agree on, to bring us together in peace.
Humanity needs a shared vision, and a common purpose, for today, we have too much distrust of one another. We seem to think that each nation cares only for it's own self-aggrandizement, and its own power to impose its dominance and agenda on the whole world, and will stop at nothing to achieve that purpose. Of course, for our own sanity, we must hope and assume that reason will prevail, and prevent us from throwing ourselves into the dark chasm of war and mutual annihilation. For what aim should we be so irretrievably stupid?
But there still lies ahead of us the potential for greatness. We can hope that what is wonderful about Humanity may yet shine through the clouds of cynicism and inspire us to each lift up another, until we can stand together upon the mountaintops and share the beautiful vista revealing at once where we have been, and where we can choose to go next. There can be amazing opportunities spread out before our feet, golden choices to live following our most cherished dreams.
But first, we have to recognize that we all share the same heart, and its beating pulse is a cadence chanting the same prayers over and over. Unfortunately, our prayers seem to be out of step, because we are so intent on hearing our own voices that we try to drown out the songs of others. We need to take a deep breath and just listen.
And what do we hear? We hear a yearning for safety and security, because the world today is a dangerous place. The armies of neighboring nations crowd around our borders, as if waiting for the signal to attack. But why? They claim to have their own paranoid worries about us. Let's just be honest with ourselves. If we can both carefully lower our weapons, and leave a token guard in place, promising that what is yours is yours so long as what is mine will still be mine, we may see that we can all go home. We should have learned by now to "trust, but verify." Agreeing to allow everyone their safety and security is the first step toward peace. It is probably too soon to have a world without weapons, but there is no need for offensive readiness or threats of devastating retaliation.
But that is not the only prayer that we hear. We hear the nearly silent pleas of poor desperate people begging for some relief from suffering. Refugees wander in search of a place to settle down and try to put their lives back together. They need our compassion, and guiding support until they can find their own niches in a new society. But we can't just open our borders to anyone who wants to come. If we are inundated by floods of strangers, we will soon find that we are living in a strange land, where we don't speak the language.
If we are going to remain true to ourselves and our families, past and future, we have to maintain the core identity of our own communities. While it may be true that we are stronger with some diversity, we have to resist giving too much. We must insist that those who come must be willing to assimilate and learn to be like us, and not complain of being offended by our ways and customs. If you can't be happy to blend in with the people who are trying to help you, then move on. You left your old country behind, so don't expect to rebuild it in your new one. If your faith can't rest comfortably amidst the unbelievers, then this place is not for you. You could always change your religion too, you know. Our faith encourages us to welcome the stranger to come and worship beside us.
Indeed, it is the center of our faith that tells us that we all share the same prayers and desires for a good life. Our hopes and dreams depend upon the same ideals, even when the emphasis is different. Every culture has its own focus, and its own concerns to address, but we recognize that the foundations of civilization are the same everywhere. We can not build our human spirituality without acknowledging the need for the four ideals of Truth, Freedom, Love and Wisdom. More than any strength for security, these ideals tell us who we are, what we stand for, and what we must defend.
It is no longer an imperative to "make the world safe for democracy." That was the 20th century. Now we must make it safe for all of us to live by our ideals. The particular form of government must be a response to the wishes of the people it shelters, even if they choose to serve a dictatorship. A truly benevolent dictator would know how to lead by example, and observe what is best for everyone, while he points his people toward the future. But that is what the people of a democracy would trust that God will be doing for them. If any individual feels that the way people must live under the kind of government they have is really not suitable for him, he should have the right to emigrate, and to try to find where he might fit in.
Even if you have enthusiastically agreed with all I have said so far, you must admit that it lacks the detail or focus from which we can draw any unified vision. We need a long term project that would benefit from a spectrum of inspiration and a coordinated collaboration. Something on which we can each add our creativity, a painting to realize a larger, epic mural depicting a shared aim would be best. And it must be something to demand an effort commensurate with the grand intent to reshape our swords into plowshares, and to illuminate the glory of our human spirit. It needs to be something that will make us all proud, and allow the leaders to lead us into a brighter future, while they showcase the quality of their work.
Of course, the project we choose has to be one that a large majority of people can get behind, and one, preferably, that we have already begun. And yes, we do have one that will fill all of these requirements, and it has been chosen to help us defuse our military and political tensions. By now, you surely must have seen what I'm talking about. The Reach for Space! What began as a race, to try to prove which ideology was superior, has become an international project.
The space program is a huge project, far larger than any one nation can comfortably afford to take on alone. But it is enough of a prestige claimer that any nation who wants to be recognized as a superpower wants to prove that they can be a major player. Space can be the place where we can show off our power, our brains and our vision for tomorrow. And if we can work together, sharing our plans and designs, we can go farther and faster than anyone trying to go it alone. But what the various space programs today still lack is the long view, not decades but centuries, and the cooperative spirit to collaborate and delegate pieces of the puzzle to those most likely to be able to do them well. There is no need for the duplication of efforts to replay things we have already achieved.
We only need to make sure that the links and interfaces between hardwares built by different nations will fit together, and that spare parts will be interchangeable when necessary. And our computers need shared programming, and secure operating systems. Standardization and modularity are key aspects for cooperation, while separate short term goals fitting into a larger effort are things for collaboration. All we need now is a consensus that we share the big vision and that we should work together.
If our great and powerful nations can agree that we all want to go into space, and that leadership is more worthy of prestige than competition, then the way is open to a future that we can share in peace. And in space we can find, or even build places for people who have trouble finding a place to fit in. A frontier is a way for people to seek out new lives, try out new ways to live together, to go out in quest of fame and fortune, or just to leave their troubles behind.
We can still compete to be the best at creating works of quality, efficiency and affordability, but true leadership is about who can imagine and project the best future for everyone. Let it be a future that values our shared ideals, where we respect the whole Truth, allow each one his or her Freedom, remember to Love our neighbors as family, and consider the Wisdom of sustainability and harmony.
Humanity needs a shared vision, and a common purpose, for today, we have too much distrust of one another. We seem to think that each nation cares only for it's own self-aggrandizement, and its own power to impose its dominance and agenda on the whole world, and will stop at nothing to achieve that purpose. Of course, for our own sanity, we must hope and assume that reason will prevail, and prevent us from throwing ourselves into the dark chasm of war and mutual annihilation. For what aim should we be so irretrievably stupid?
But there still lies ahead of us the potential for greatness. We can hope that what is wonderful about Humanity may yet shine through the clouds of cynicism and inspire us to each lift up another, until we can stand together upon the mountaintops and share the beautiful vista revealing at once where we have been, and where we can choose to go next. There can be amazing opportunities spread out before our feet, golden choices to live following our most cherished dreams.
But first, we have to recognize that we all share the same heart, and its beating pulse is a cadence chanting the same prayers over and over. Unfortunately, our prayers seem to be out of step, because we are so intent on hearing our own voices that we try to drown out the songs of others. We need to take a deep breath and just listen.
And what do we hear? We hear a yearning for safety and security, because the world today is a dangerous place. The armies of neighboring nations crowd around our borders, as if waiting for the signal to attack. But why? They claim to have their own paranoid worries about us. Let's just be honest with ourselves. If we can both carefully lower our weapons, and leave a token guard in place, promising that what is yours is yours so long as what is mine will still be mine, we may see that we can all go home. We should have learned by now to "trust, but verify." Agreeing to allow everyone their safety and security is the first step toward peace. It is probably too soon to have a world without weapons, but there is no need for offensive readiness or threats of devastating retaliation.
But that is not the only prayer that we hear. We hear the nearly silent pleas of poor desperate people begging for some relief from suffering. Refugees wander in search of a place to settle down and try to put their lives back together. They need our compassion, and guiding support until they can find their own niches in a new society. But we can't just open our borders to anyone who wants to come. If we are inundated by floods of strangers, we will soon find that we are living in a strange land, where we don't speak the language.
If we are going to remain true to ourselves and our families, past and future, we have to maintain the core identity of our own communities. While it may be true that we are stronger with some diversity, we have to resist giving too much. We must insist that those who come must be willing to assimilate and learn to be like us, and not complain of being offended by our ways and customs. If you can't be happy to blend in with the people who are trying to help you, then move on. You left your old country behind, so don't expect to rebuild it in your new one. If your faith can't rest comfortably amidst the unbelievers, then this place is not for you. You could always change your religion too, you know. Our faith encourages us to welcome the stranger to come and worship beside us.
Indeed, it is the center of our faith that tells us that we all share the same prayers and desires for a good life. Our hopes and dreams depend upon the same ideals, even when the emphasis is different. Every culture has its own focus, and its own concerns to address, but we recognize that the foundations of civilization are the same everywhere. We can not build our human spirituality without acknowledging the need for the four ideals of Truth, Freedom, Love and Wisdom. More than any strength for security, these ideals tell us who we are, what we stand for, and what we must defend.
It is no longer an imperative to "make the world safe for democracy." That was the 20th century. Now we must make it safe for all of us to live by our ideals. The particular form of government must be a response to the wishes of the people it shelters, even if they choose to serve a dictatorship. A truly benevolent dictator would know how to lead by example, and observe what is best for everyone, while he points his people toward the future. But that is what the people of a democracy would trust that God will be doing for them. If any individual feels that the way people must live under the kind of government they have is really not suitable for him, he should have the right to emigrate, and to try to find where he might fit in.
Even if you have enthusiastically agreed with all I have said so far, you must admit that it lacks the detail or focus from which we can draw any unified vision. We need a long term project that would benefit from a spectrum of inspiration and a coordinated collaboration. Something on which we can each add our creativity, a painting to realize a larger, epic mural depicting a shared aim would be best. And it must be something to demand an effort commensurate with the grand intent to reshape our swords into plowshares, and to illuminate the glory of our human spirit. It needs to be something that will make us all proud, and allow the leaders to lead us into a brighter future, while they showcase the quality of their work.
Of course, the project we choose has to be one that a large majority of people can get behind, and one, preferably, that we have already begun. And yes, we do have one that will fill all of these requirements, and it has been chosen to help us defuse our military and political tensions. By now, you surely must have seen what I'm talking about. The Reach for Space! What began as a race, to try to prove which ideology was superior, has become an international project.
The space program is a huge project, far larger than any one nation can comfortably afford to take on alone. But it is enough of a prestige claimer that any nation who wants to be recognized as a superpower wants to prove that they can be a major player. Space can be the place where we can show off our power, our brains and our vision for tomorrow. And if we can work together, sharing our plans and designs, we can go farther and faster than anyone trying to go it alone. But what the various space programs today still lack is the long view, not decades but centuries, and the cooperative spirit to collaborate and delegate pieces of the puzzle to those most likely to be able to do them well. There is no need for the duplication of efforts to replay things we have already achieved.
We only need to make sure that the links and interfaces between hardwares built by different nations will fit together, and that spare parts will be interchangeable when necessary. And our computers need shared programming, and secure operating systems. Standardization and modularity are key aspects for cooperation, while separate short term goals fitting into a larger effort are things for collaboration. All we need now is a consensus that we share the big vision and that we should work together.
If our great and powerful nations can agree that we all want to go into space, and that leadership is more worthy of prestige than competition, then the way is open to a future that we can share in peace. And in space we can find, or even build places for people who have trouble finding a place to fit in. A frontier is a way for people to seek out new lives, try out new ways to live together, to go out in quest of fame and fortune, or just to leave their troubles behind.
We can still compete to be the best at creating works of quality, efficiency and affordability, but true leadership is about who can imagine and project the best future for everyone. Let it be a future that values our shared ideals, where we respect the whole Truth, allow each one his or her Freedom, remember to Love our neighbors as family, and consider the Wisdom of sustainability and harmony.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
