We are instructed that every person desires a place in the Sun. There is so much activity, singular or group oriented, to gain recognition, usually, but not always, to gratify that thing in the human being that wants to be more than a cipher. Who will know a century from now that we lived or accomplished anything? The adventuresome spirit makes us go for this or that, so to raise us a bit above our ordinary neighbors, the regulars of society. I am often intrigued with the stories of the first in anything. Men who wanted to say they were first at either the North or South Pole are illustrative of what I mean to convey here. One follows the efforts of Perry and Cook to get to the North Pole, perhaps to find the Northwest Passage in the process. Amundsen was made a celebrity in 1927 just for a first fly over of the pole, and claiming to be the first human to relate to so great an achievement. In the same year, Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic Ocean from west to east, and was proclaimed as one of the all-time heroes. He was the first successfully to achieve this goal of modern cavaliers. Not long after another man did the same thing, and no one remembers him. Some students of the Lindbergh saga call his flight a stunt. Wrong Way Corrigan made a stunt on doing it. Case may be made for this or that view. There is a lot of game playing. My implications here do not degrade what some of these persons did in advancing the course of mankind in nature.
I was less than five years old when Lindbergh made his flight. When his son was kidnapped five years later, I put together three scrapbooks on the event. The news covered the story from the night of the kidnapping until the execution of Bruno Hauptman about four years later for the crime. I don’t know what happened to my scrapbooks. I believe my mother may have tossed them in a move from the home I remember in growing up years. Up the road from where I am now his hometown maintains the museum home of Lindbergh’s childhood. His name adorns airports. Not an ordinary man, he is remembered.
Since the above events, only a few decades later, mankind has reached the moon, and probed outer space with gadgets. In the meantime, one can buy a ticket, take the trip with a crowd of passengers in a Russian icebreaker and have lunch at the North Pole, even take a dip in the frigid waters – a stunt. Climate warming may, indeed, offer a Northwest Passage with the only problem related to which nation owns the area. Ultimately, who will own the Poles, or even the moon? Since the sites may not be important for navigation, with air travel fast and easy, nations are cooperating in experiments. While mankind plays games, some serious, God calls for even greater exploits. Find the journey, accomplishment, rewards far more lasting, far more meaningful than the fly over of a pole or an ocean. This is really the burden for us aided by prayer, Scripture and experience. Unless we know ourselves, and make the corrections for life meaning, everything is, as Solomon put it, vanity (vapor). God assists in personal life meaning effort.
Research offering greatness to researchers is most to be sought in doing what is most needed by mankind. There is a kind of inwardness about it. Those who explore space, a worthy effort, are objectively recognized when they seek what is in space that makes our lives better. Recognition is not in bravery, but in purpose that accomplishes improvement for life. Bravery can be found in many ways. Likely there are more brave persons than we need. Recognition belongs to accomplishment, the demonstration of the results of values; the best uses of nature’s resources; and, the pressing forward in knowledge that can be applied to the benefit of the human race. God recognizes the faithful to this purpose, the parent giving time/wisdom to parenting, the missionary/pastor who ministers to the people, the business person serving society, and the leader truly leading for right. Greatness in God’s evaluation is what the Christian looks for. It is found in the humility of self, necessary for doing what another person needs and prefers above my own preference. Doing what I want to do may mean I will be listed with the firsts in something, perhaps to visit Mars. God’s greatness is found in lifting the fallen, in giving a cup of water to a thirsty person, in the care of a family, in working through his people for the good of all. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020