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Today, a history lesson of ten thousand years we study; of the species called man we learn; with laws, customs, arts, traditions we become acquainted clusters of peoples, of men and women like us, being born, giving birth, dying; nations of languages and governments traveling their course.
Listening has always been one of the most important aspects of mankind's communication. Even the Savior made reference to it. "He that hath ears to hear, let him listen."1
Poet Robert Browning once wrote, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for."
One of the more interesting and important aspects of the Ten Commandments is that they are as valid today as they were when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. We need to be reminded from time to time of their application today, of the need to still keep the Lord's commandments and observe His teachings.
George Eliot once observed that we would never have loved the earth so much if we had not first been children here. It was then that each season came with the freshness and wonder of first love; each golden leaf that fell was a miracle. Often, even the things we love as adults are dear to us because they carry the nostalgia of some half-remembered past.
Often in life we're concerned with giving or getting the right answer. But we must also be cognizant of the right question.
The burden of modern civilization is not, as many have supposed, that wealth is ill-distributed, or that social welfare has been neglected. It is rather the very real possibility that civilization has become an obstacle to the simple faith of honest souls.
In “The Prayer Perfect,” just sung by the Choir, the supplicant asks the Lord to share with all the needy his own vast treasure of content. We know no more of this person than this. We do not know if he is wealthy or powerful, inhabitant of castle or hovel. It matters not. His sense of well-being flows from some inner spring, deep and consistent and sure, independent of circumstance.
It is not true what some have said: that truth needs no defense, that truth will overcome the false, with power of its own, with none to speak its name or plead its cause. Perhaps when eternity has balanced all that is on time's unerring scales, and future, present, past are one, then truth will stand alone, without the aid of just and fearless men.
All that we are and all that we do is real. We are all part of a living world—part of a world that gives us experience, understanding and growth. Like a valley in which a shepherd seeks refuge for his flock, we live in a world that exists in both space and time. Some philosophers have argued that experience is an illusion—that even our lives are not real. But the world is, and we are.
America's war veterans come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and ages. Their collective experience spans two world wars and several foreign conflicts. They have followed war mules through the mud of Flanders Field, dropped from landing barges onto the beaches of Normandy, faced the icy cold of Porkchop Hill and trudged the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta.
The Bible records that one of the first commandments from God was "Let there be light: and there was light."1 And thus began this great miracle of physics, philosophy and aesthetics which we know as light. We don't know precisely what it is. At times, it behaves like wave lengths of energy; at other times it is more like little packets of power that physicists and photographers measure as photons.
The scriptures speak of faith and the courage that it inspires. Indeed, those who have faith in Christ need fear no final disaster, no ultimate failure. His atoning sacrifice guarantees us that, if we will be faithful, He will overcome the tragedy of the moment. He will deliver us out of trouble into the keeping of His salvation and ultimate peace.
Among the drab and routine days that life often holds for us are a few moments that pierce us with joy. Having known those, we are never quite content until we feel them again, and we wander our days thinking something is missing. Yet, too often, joy eludes us, and we tear at the curtains trying to find where it hides.
Whether it is accomplished early or late in life, eventually we all must learn to discipline ourselves and our desires. Many lives have been ruined by uncontrolled appetites, and they often run rampant in summer, with its relaxed and laid-back pace. There seems to be an increased desire for more thrills, more indulgence, more possession of material things.
One of the most persistent poetic themes is the "Brotherhood of Man," the responsibility we have to love one another. The result of that love is beautifully expressed by the English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in the hymn we have just heard love results in affection that endures, affection that lives after us in the objects of our love.
In a pioneer diary is this story dated July 1858. It seems a Parker family was traveling west in a handcart company. One night as a thunderstorm blew up, they hastily made camp, and it was then the Parkers discovered their six-year-old boy, Arthur, was missing. Robert and Ann Parker spread the alarm to the rest of the camp, and someone remembered seeing the little boy earlier in the day settling down to rest in a wooded area. He was exhausted from the trip.
"Come Follow me." These welcoming words from Jesus brought a better life and a brighter hope to the discouraged and downtrodden of His day, and they have done the same for millions more in the centuries since He spoke that invitation.
Freedom means many things, depending on our age and our circumstance...on our experience and perspective.
Think back on it—back to the time when the only sound here in the American Rockies was the whine of wind through the lordly pines, back to when the waters of the Mississippi saw only teepee and open camps, and the rooftops of Manhattan and Chicago were lower than her trees.
One of the most intriguing paradoxes of human nature is our capacity to encompass virtue and vice, strength and weakness, righteousness and sin in a single soul. Each of us is not merely strong or weak, but strong and weak, depending on the moment and the challenge.
When we were young, most of us were admonished by our parents to eat our vegetables before the dessert. As adults, we are counseled to put business before pleasure. Most of our accomplishments follow this pattern. We put the time, the effort, the expense into a project, and then we reap the rewards and benefits. Those are the rules of life, we are told. But sometimes it seems life doesn't follow its own rules.
The present has an endless feel about it. When it is summer, the sun seems like our natural inheritance, and we can hardly believe that a few months ago we were battling snow. When our children are smaller, running helter skelter through the house until we long for quiet, we can hardly believe that one day that quiet will be ours. Remember when you thought you'd always be a child in your parents' home? Remember when you thought you'd always be in school?
Ours is a dependent society. In fact, we are so specialized that we depend on each other for virtually everything. Some raise the food we eat; others teach our children; our milk is delivered to us each morning by someone who depends on someone else to milk the cows; our very survival is dependent upon others.
As Memorial Day tributes cause us to reflect about those who have passed on, we should remember that all is well with them, that we are experiencing but a brief separation from them, and that the process of life and death has been designed by a loving Father in Heaven.
As we look at society we see not merely individuals, but groups—couples, families, towns, cities, governments, Wherever we find a society, we find people bound together by caring, sacrifice and hope.
What a mistake it is to think that motherhood is outdated or menial, or that being a mother is not prestigious.
It is ironic that at a time when we have technology that probes the expanding edges of our galaxy and the spinning center of an atom, when a world of information is instantly available to us on the evening news, that so many should feel helpless. Perhaps it is because our increased information makes us more aware of the problems we can't solve. What is anyone of us to do about the starvation in West Africa, the war in the Mid-East, the crime in the streets of our cities?
We see today conflicts and clashes in many parts of the world. The battling armies march under various banners and arguments rage under a number of rationalizations.
Today we talk of the inexplicable, of the mysterious and profound, of superstition and fear—today we speak of death.