Intentionality

It is rather clear that successful people in life are largely intentional persons – they develop purpose, small or large, as time rolls along.  The purpose is personal and usually unrelated to celebrity status, financial benefits, or protection from failure.  These factors, and others, may appear later in the scenario, but they may be undetected or deliberate at the outset, even if carried through to accomplishment of the purpose of the seeker.  It wasn’t until Edison that inventors thought in terms relating their discoveries and inventions to business and profits.  One can almost sense the objectivity of purpose in reviewing the words of great achievers during their search and at the point of success.  It is present in Edison (electricity), the Wright Brothers (airplanes), Morse (electric code and art), Lindberg (flight), Pasteur (microbe hunter), Bell (telephone), Curie (radiation), Beethoven (music), and the list lengthens.  These and many others were driven to go for their goal, perhaps a dream that captured them.  Only when he had succeeded did Edison seize upon the personal economic benefit of his inventions.  He may have been the first of the creative persons to do so, and he has not been joined to the degree he related to marketing by many creative persons to engage as he did in the business field.  This factor of relating creativity to business, not the original purpose of each, may have been the magnet that drew Ford, Firestone and Edison into close friendship. The complexity of modern life/society tends to direct creative people into teams to accomplish dreams.  Space exploration, for example, could never have occurred without teamwork.  The future for social advance will relate to the ability of persons to share themselves with others for success even in personal ventures. Jesus, from God, had a team, called disciples (Apostles) from which the largest institution (church) emerged.

The concept of teamwork has a sacred meaning.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the Persons of the God-head.  They are one in the larger singular context of God.  It is impossible for them to differ, a factor that is meaningful in holy and perfect God.  (God is more than personality.)  The analogy of God in nature is the family of mankind, and that family is best, most loving, most caring, most fulfilling in roles, most successful when functioning as a team of equals benefitting from the participation of each other.  When one leads the others lead with followership.  The Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the Holy Spirit.  The nature, the work, the accomplishment of the vision of God with mankind was equal in the teamwork of God.  If the human family functioned according to the godly model we would not need so large government or programs of costly care for children, elders and vast organizations to meet emerging efforts in society.  Family solidarity (unity) if followed would greatly reduce the programs related to charity, crime, divorce, debt, national protection, and that list also extends.

Our problems in society are often faced with the matter of leadership analysis.  We think in the terms of finding charismatic leaders as the solution to nagging problems.  Often the problem is found in the followers who little understand that they became leaders in their following of leaders.  Marriages fail because the unity concept of leading/following is broken in the independence of the individual, so to minimize, even obliterate the fact that we need each other – the well care for the sick, the stronger care for the weaker, the suppliers care for the consumer, and that pattern can also be extended in the full story.  There have been many proposals I have reviewed for achieving this or that in some context that would work if leaders and followers functioned together.  We choose instead to politicize, making our views the measure of right and wrong rather than make affirmatives of life practical and satisfying in achievements.  It is admitted that the inferences here may appear idealistic for faulty mankind, but they are on the horizon toward which we want to move.  We as individuals and society can do better in trying for more unity and life responsibility than we are getting.  If the social context of massive populations, so easily and quickly changed when offended, and cast into laws because of fleeting opinions, added and subtracted from popular opinions we can be sure that the body politic will be divided, perhaps unhappy in all.  Education and prayer ought to include the matter of corporate life in our service and appropriate acceptance of one another.