“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.” Proverbs 25:2
In Latin, “gloria Dei celare verbum et gloria regum investigare sermonem.”
I was talking with a generation the other day who was expressing how important it was to just stick to those things that come easily to you, naturally and without some horrid exerted effort to acquire some skill or knowledge. The sense I had in our conversation was that growth should be natural and spontaneous, not planned or built on traditions that had gone before.
I thought to myself, “Hmmm. That would render the vast advances in fields that people had a natural passion for, yet had to acquire a skill, knowledge and experience base in order to reach beyond the highest advances in their arena of passion, unneccessary or even undesirable.”
So I said to the generation I was speaking to, “No, I think that to open oneself to the accumulated knowledge of others before us is vital, even if in the end (or the beginning) we give it our own innovative twist.
If applying our energies is, in the end, the very goal we may be after, then this could provide for us a way of living that is always growing, and always being guided by what has gone before. Natural growth is good, but must often be pruned to optimize growth in a certain direction.”
I was just thinking.
4 Comments
Sounds like you were conversing with those who react to a generation that valued hard work for hard works sake. There is a balance in there that is sad if we miss. Good thoughts.
Yes; either “balance” or “rhythm” would be the word. I wouldn’t trade the spontaneity of our generation for anything – our quickness to respond emotionally to the world around us. And yet, I don’t want a brain surgeon operating on me who “sort of learned” his craft via the school of hard knocks, or simply when he “felt so inclined” to learn. Layers of learning and applied effort, over time, yield great things. The danger of course, is that they become an end to the themselves and cloud the possibilities each moment is packed with.
A long obedience in the same direction, coupled with a momentary response under the Spirit’s direction; that’s what I want, and want to build into my children.
Amen Dan. Amen.
i love this conversation! how did i miss it? i think about this stuff all the time while interacting with this generation … AND … they have taught me how to abandon myself, rather than discipline myself into every act, as they have modelled free-falling through life. we really need each other!
Incoming Links
Leave a Reply