Book I
Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.
At our new church, New Life Presbyterian Church, during the Sunday School hour, we are studying an overview of Church History. I will confess that on our first real visit to Sunday School, I sat there in prideful disdain wishing the topic be anything other than that and was thinking I didn't really need to listen because I had graduated from Mercer and had sat through my fill of Biblical and Church related history classes and had done well in them. I feel bad about this. I will only say, I am not a good person; even at my very best. But the more times that we've gone and the more I've listened, the more I'm so very thankful that I am there. And I think I've come full circle into the realization of why history as a subject is so important. In every age. In every time. In every subject. For all people. It is only a fool to be involved in anything and not be fully interested in the history of whatever it may be. And the level of importance of the event, club, movement, etc, then the level and need to know it's history should also increase.
In 2015, it may be widespread where you see so many who want to cast off the burden of history and walk free from it, but that couldn't be anymore foolish. As it is known and quoted often, to the fools who refuse to learn and acknowledge history, their punishment is to repeat it again, or worse, have to live through it again. I know so many people who hated their history classes and I know why and get that. Most history classes focus on dates and people, which are important, but miss the opportunity to teach movements, patterns, and thoughts. And this last part is so very important for one major reason, humans from Adam and Eve till now have and will not change and it is so very interesting and vitally important to study the men and women that came before us. Each generation becomes absorbed within itself and the time it lives within and so quickly forgets what came before them and becomes historically egotistical. We all become this. It is all too easy to be. It is easy to look around and say that no time has ever been so progressive, free, burdened, evil, loathsome, critical, etc. and forget that as time moves forward, all times within history have been exactly the same because the main element within human history, humans, have remain unchanged. No, we don't speak exactly the same, or look exactly the same, or for that matter do anything exactly the same, but we are humans and humans have basically remained the same. All I'm really saying is that the thoughts you have today, were had by someone of the same status hundreds of years ago. Yes, that is weird and no, they weren't exactly the same, but they were at their very core the same. I'm in no way making light of those thoughts. They have been thought too many times to think that way about them. They are the very thoughts of humanity. It should be what binds us so wholly and closely together, rather than divide us.
And that is the very importance of history whether you hear it spoken of hundreds of times or for the first time. History is what binds us. The greatest thing that confronts us in this modern age, in my smallest and unimportant opinion, is not weather changes, drought, loss of freedom, governments, economics, extremism, or anything of the sort, but rather it is this ever increasing need for individuality in the face of all circumstances. It is an impossible task and one that is nothing short of a true fools errand. In the heat of battle, there are no individuals. In the middle of the greatest of joys, there are no true individuals. In the greatest of defeats, there are no true and bold individuals. And in the greatest victories, there are no courageous individuals. There are only humans left standing there and either winning or losing, or laughing, or crying. There is only the community. There has always been community and there will always be community.
I know this is starting to sound like a, "one people, one world", post, and that is not the point. The only point is we all need our histories and people's histories are no different than anything else. There are those moments when we rise so very high and become the greatest visions of that part of Creation that was formed within the image of God and then there are the moments where we too would have lost the right to exist within the Garden and become the vilest of human beings. And this is why we must listen and study the history of who we are and what we are involved in. We are slowly, but ever so rapidly becoming what we will be remembered for. And that is true for us as individuals and for us part of larger wholes. And just because we decide we are not part of a certain part of history does not mean that, that is actually true and it is also true that all people are forming history. We cannot exist without it, be removed from it, or act separate from it. There are all those who came before and what they did, they said, how they acted, or didn't act, what they wrote, what they struggled with, what they used their power to do, it all means something and it all effects us in all we do. We are all shapes of what has come before us.
We must not forget what has come before us or we forget who we are. We must not look at those in the past and wonder why and how did they struggle so. We must not look at them in our present lenses of life and history and say how wrong and blind they were. All of those things will be thought about us by those who are coming. We are currently shaping who they will be. That terrifies me.
We must not also join the hordes within the current Church who look back at all the tragedies, fights, schisms, crusades, racism, sexism, etc. and question why and how could they have been so and attempt so hard to distance themselves from the past and try to pretend like they can exist alone in the here and now while all they claim to believe and support came about at the hands of men and women who struggled and fought and disbelieved and had faith in the process of what it takes to make a movement. And these are the same things we are struggling through and amongst. Ask yourself if you'd be willing to believe something or put faith into something that wasn't a struggle. If you were wise, you'd quickly say you wouldn't be interested. This is our history. And a lot of it is ugly, but it is all so very important. There has always been this giant and monumental struggle to attempt to shape an earthly version of God's Kingdom on earth. It has been done wisely at times and it has been done with the most sinful of ambition and motive. We cannot and should not separate those items. There are very valuable lessons to be learned from both and neither side is perfect. There is only one true Kingdom and it is here and it is coming. We the ones who wander and attempt to live in the already and not yet. And we are not alone in this. This has been all humanity that has been and is yet to come.
Augustine of Hippo wrote, The Confessions, sometime between 397 and 400 AD. They were applicable then. They were applicable a thousand years later. And now 1617 years later, they are still a wealth of wisdom that we so badly yearn to hear today because we have not changed. All truth is still God's truth and it is still so very hard to contemplate and think about higher thoughts and it is a struggle to contemplate truth, beauty, goodness, love, etc. within the realm of the constantly changing definitions of a modern world. It was hard for Augustine. It was hard for Luther. It was hard for Spurgeon. It is hard for us. It will be hard for all those who come after us. They shaped us and we are shaping them. May we struggle to do it wisely and carefully.
DAVID
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