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There is a question that haunts every human being, and it is “Who am 1?” Sometimes it wears other faces like, " Am I competent? Am I loved? Am I worthwhile?" But it rarely disappears altogether. And it is a question we each ask as life brings us our varied situations.
To some extent, what Charles Dickens concluded about his time in the Tale of Two Cities, is also true about the present age. These too, may be construed by some, to be “the best of times...” and “the worst of times”.1
Despite rumors to the contrary, there has been an upsurge in recent years. More and more couples—both young and old—are entering matrimony. And an increasing number of these weddings are being performed by the clergy. These are good signs of a healthy society; they are encouraging, hopeful signs in the face of many signals that would have us think marriage is becoming unpopular. Hopefully it never will.
Speak to one another of love. We all have feelings of love, of being loved, of being in love. Why is it that this means so much to us? It is because it is the essence of the human experience. Oh yes, love is fickle, and some think love is blind. But we will do for love that which we would never consider for any other purpose.
"There is such a thing as taking ourselves and the world too seriously, or at any rate too anxiously,"1 observed Henry Van Dyke. The song says, "We find them happy which endure in patience." Yet enduring to the end gives us a lot of worry. It seems, in fact, that worry is one of the great human pastimes. Indeed, we hardly consider ourselves fully responsible if we aren't worried about something. There is the constant anxiety about our performance, if we can measure up in what sometimes seems like an endless contest.
Someone has said that the optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears that this is true.
That which appears simple in theory is sometimes complex in its application. The principles of flight, for instance, were expounded decades before they were finally applied in that first manned flight at Kitty-Hawk. And Einstein's theories on spatial relativity may not find full application for years or even centuries.
More than 500 years ago, Thomas A Kempis remarked, “Who has a fiercer struggle than he who strives to conquer himself? Yet this must be our chief concern—to conquer self.”1
Philosophers have argued that change is impossible. How can a person be what he is not? How can he become something other than he is?
It is the human tendency to believe that the louder an event is heralded, the more important it must be. Christ's birth teaches us differently. For like a winter snow that falls silently, transforming the earth, so came the Lord, into a quiet stable, born beneath silent stars.
For almost two thousand years men have told the story of the Christ child's birth. The shepherds, the wisemen, the angels, Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus are all familiar figures to us. They are people we have seen through the eyes and hands of the artists, composers and writers through the centuries. But suppose for a moment our situations were reversed and those familiar figures in the nativity scene that have been painted so many times looked out at us. What, do you suppose, would they see? What would they say?
The cultural and religious climate of Judea at the time of Christ's birth was one of diversity. There were the Sadducees, who were the aristocracy and devoted students of ancient scripture. And there were the Pharisees, strict observers of Jewish religious ceremony and tradition. There was also the affluent political party of Judea, of which Herod was a member, the Maccabees.
It takes a lot of trust in the Lord as we go through life. There are many myths about growing old. Some fear old age. They fear it as a time when they will be alone, bored, useless and ill. But old age is not that way for most people. The majority of persons beyond retirement age consider life satisfying and definitely worth living.
Recently, a small girl was playing with her cat, dangling yarn in front of its face and pulling it away as the tabby pawed. As might have been expected, the cat's efforts to snag the yarn and the child's glee in pulling it away led to the inevitable mistake of the cat snagging the child instead of the yarn.
Some of the things we value most in life—though we might not always realize it—are the most common. It prompted one author to observe, "Genius is recognizing the uniqueness in the unimpressive. It is looking at a homely caterpillar, an ordinary egg and a selfish infant, and seeing a butterfly, an eagle and a saint."1
From the beginning of time, man has debated the issue of faith vs. science—which is right.
Thoreau reminded us that “men were born to succeed, not to fail,”1 but the line between success and failure may be so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it. Often, we throw up our hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. Persistence can […]
In a very real sense, the world is too much with us. Most of us lay waste our powers here in an endless round of tasks and misdirected goals. With earthly eyes, we learn to regard certain things that do not merit our regard. We begin to yearn for things that do not correspond with our deepest yearnings.
Seeing what love God has bestowed on us, His children, should create in us a sense of obligation, a duty to return in kind the divine and personal affection we receive from our Father in Heaven.
"The only real differences in the world are made by one person—the right person in the right place at the right time." So wrote Sydney Harris. "It is one person," he continued, "who makes the difference everywhere." And he added that these makers of history don't have to be famous or important in the world. "John Wilkes Booth, a fanatical failure, changed history quite as much as Lincoln did."1
Above the entrance to the ancient Greek shrine at Delphi were inscribed these two words: "Know Thyself." The message contained in this short injunction still merits our consideration. For while science has given us the telescope to scan the far reaches of the stellar universe and the microscope to probe the unseen microcosms, the greatest frontier is still the uncharted regions of self.
Once again, in most communities in this country, the learning process is underway in the schools—from kindergarten through college and on into adult education. It is a life-giving source of enrichment, not only in professional preparation, but in the overall enjoyment of life here upon the earth.
All of us make mistakes. Sometimes we fall short of our best intentions. We are occasionally short tempered and irritable when we meant to be calm and kind, stingy when we meant to be generous. In fact, life teaches us that to be human is to blunder, having a marvelous set of ideals in our mind and living somewhere beneath them.
There is a hunger in each of us. It is a hunger of the heart, but it is no less real and compelling than hunger of the stomach. It is the need for appreciation and praise. William James said, "...we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind."1
Future historians might well call our time the age of the unnatural high. At least it seems that the primary motivation of many individuals is to get high, to remain in a constant condition of mental euphoria, a state induced by continuous dependence on mind-altering substances.
If spring is identified with youth and winter with the senior years, then summer must surely be the time of midlife.
A newsmagazine noted that the question most people once evaluated themselves by was, "Am I doing right?" Then that question was replaced by "Am I getting ahead?" But today many of us hear from a slightly tinny inner voice, " Am I having fun?"1
During recent decades, our society has become increasingly sensitive to the various forms of life with whom we share the earth. Laws have been enacted to protect the habitats of numerous types of animal life. Endangered species lists have been established. Here are recorded the names of those animals which face certain extinction unless they are afforded protection and special consideration.
Most of us have either participated in or viewed in the movies the reading of a last will and testament—where anxious relatives and friends await the distribution of money, properties, and other material acquisitions gathered during someone's lifetime.
Wherever did modern man get the idea that more was better? Unhappy is the corporate executive who cannot report that his company grew bigger during the year. Chambers of commerce urge their towns to constant growth. And individually, we hurry to acquire more and more possessions, to cram more and more into each day until our lives become like stuffed suitcases that cannot close and bulge and break with their load.