There is a massive feeling and teaching related to life in nature that may curse generations. It is the illusion that all persons should somehow achieve in money-making, in doing something exciting, in travelling for purpose, in offering leadership, in being physically attractive in the light of generational styles, in gaining a collegiate experience – in the life through points of view that if gained in conduct make a person appear and feel successful. Not to gain the American Dream for many persons is to fail, to have been lacking in ambition, to belong to those who have to rely on others, to lack vision for self and family – and the like negatives. What does all this mean? For masses of persons, it means misunderstanding about the real meaning of human life, and several unproductive ways for dealing with the matter of life’s ordinariness. Most persons get up in the morning, do the same things each day, relate in common ways to others as family and neighbors, in having predictable experiences at meals and in community, tend to health and life needs, find some distraction, grow old and die. They give to church and/or other programs, even volunteer for service, follow their favorite teams, cultivate family solidarity, accept disappointments and tragedies as part of human experience, and contribute to the better side of the community in which they live. Michael Horton has written a book entitled: Ordinary. Its sub-title is: Sustaining Faith in a Radical Restless World. His prose fleshes out the points of common life.
Certainly there are a number of ways we can approach the issues related to ordinary life experienced by the masses. After decades of close relationships with ordinary persons of life, I believe I learned the following. We need the high achievers, the creative sort, the driven persons, the wealthy, the well informed, the energetic so to form a leadership that persons may follow and even assist them in their duty and privilege. God has a standard for those privileged persons and holds them to it. Their recompense is found in honor, luxury, gratification. Leading and serving rightly they deserve honors. If there were not persons following them they would not succeed in the ways God plans for them. Jesus gave only little attention to these persons in his ministry because they didn’t want him to inform them about their lives. If they felt virtuous they would not pay much attention to someone telling them about their needs and God. (Luke 5:27-39)
One of the large problems leading to conflict of status divisions in society begins with parenting. Early on the child needs to be indoctrinated in the uniqueness of mankind. There is the image of God that offers the only evidence of hope for immortality. God’s image will not die, when the body dies. That factor of God’s image is all we have that relates to our self-consciousness to which we perceive immortality. Those persons fully satisfied with the good life of earth miss out on the promise that God will form his children from those who find the sacredness meant for the human being. One of the first evidences that a child is missing the meaning is complaint that they are bored. It is a clue for parents to instruct the child about self, so that there is dilution of the tendency to boredom, and to celebration of life. That celebration is found for the masses partly in nature, partly in the arts that include language, and in the search to become, under God, the better persons we can become. The story is long and exciting enough. No need for drugs to escape boredom, or some exotic diversion, or pre-mature experience, or generational demand unrelated to the growing values related to early faith in God. Boredom is like a great barrier that shields the person from the lightness of being, the celebration of life as the only factor we can always keep – always. Boredom leads to depression, and if the depression sustains, we become ill and lose the beauty of life, perhaps of God. Blessed is the ordinary person learning early the joy of the Lord’s life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020