Ending the Beginning

What a summary is this text (repeated several times in Pages) for life to death, and it applied to a person who lived six thousand years ago when the harshness of living conditions was far in excess of what we encounter today. We can become quite graphic about personal life of that time, a time when meals were cooked on open fires; when there was a bartering system and little for purchase of food or clothing; when there was no bathroom tissue or napkins; when there were only a few practitioners knowing far less about diseases than today’s layman; when there were no security or protective forces like police and firemen; when there was no public education or public facilities, including recreation; when transportation was gained by recalcitrant animals like camels and donkeys; and, the story can be lengthened. We would feel terribly reduced by a regimen of that time. Abraham found his life fulfilled and pleasant, through thick and thin, because he was a person of faith in God, and related well to his family, not only to Sarah and Isaac, wife and son, but to others in the family including the servants attached to his household. Fulfillment was found in relationships and designs. Failure and disappointment came when relationships broke down to warfares/denials, as was the case for his nephew, Lot. It has ever been so, and continues in our time. I feel fulfilled and satisfied with life because of the relationships I have known. Those relationships have been gained through the main one, experience with God, and the sense that (rightness/correctness) with love carries the other relationships, with my near and far family members, with students who have related to me, with colleagues sharing ideals of professional and personal values, and so the story continues. The back door (negative motive turned for good) concept of Jesus ultimately comes into play: Love your enemies, do good to those who despitefully use you. Will Rogers expressed the principle in the humanistic context: I never met a man I didn’t like. I learned the application. Those who were dislikable we can feel sorry for, so to displace dislike. Dislike is negative. Sorry for is affirmative, and may lead to beneficial change. I will never forget the shock to me when in a fit of anger at her correction of me I told my mother: I don’t love you anymore. In a calm demeanor, but hurt by my response, she said: That’s alright son, I have enough love for both of us. What a life changing experience for me. I devoted time ‘til her death showing her how much I loved her. This is referred to in another Page in this series. I want to repeat it as a key to life fulfillment. Life is not fulfilled in accumulating wealth; in gaining large influence in the world; in knowing more than those around you; or in achieving eminence/celebrity in some other way, but in relationships with God and others. God is with us in the effort especially when love accompanies us.

When we advance in years a sense of loneliness may arise. It may be turned into memories of those who meant so much to our lives, perhaps to those who did not return good will in our affairs, or ought to have in living out human life that carries something of the image of God in it. Any person evading relationships violates his or her meaning to life. God created mankind for relationship with him made practical in our relationships with others of our kind. Tune to the news. The miseries and sorrows of the world’s population are found in broken relationships: divorce between two persons once joined in unity; termination between employer and employee once joined in mutual benefit; terrorism between individuals and nations knowing that benefit is found in cooperative relationships; and, breakdown of ideals between neighbors, sellers and buyers. So the story goes. Some of the ugliest are the persons using their beliefs in God to cultivate ugly conducts with those of others beliefs – sometimes to the point of murder. The worst of all breakdowns leads to bloody warfare. What a loss of meaning was the conflict of sorrows when, unable to maintain relationships of unity, the north and south of the United States went to war, and in the break of relationship, caused the shedding of blood in war – between the same citizen persons, language, even the identity of God in the majority of the people. Effective society uses love to fulfill relationships. It can be used for great service to mankind if adequate contenders arise for human relationships guided of God, as was the situation with Christ and the disciples. On Jesus’ ascension they went to world work.