Relearning the Learned

In a here today gone tomorrow world, it seems we forget the great things we knew. Then a generation or two later we have a class to teach this new thing smart people found out. I enjoy psychology, the study of humanity and the things that make us tick. I imagine the good folk like my great-grandparents above could teach the class in a profound way from street (prairie) knowledge.

Solomon had it right when he said, “All streams run into the sea and yet the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they will flow again. All things are filled with weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done, is what will be done and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Old lessons become the new lessons as if the old lessons were never taught. In the end, regardless of the age you live, all we really want to know is questions surrounding…

1.Importance. 2. Belonging 3. Love

Importance

Growing up we all have delusions of grandeur right. I’m going to be a movie star, music star, sports legend. Kids don’t grow up dreaming to get to middle management in a medium sized local (not regional, national, international)company. And yet, at some time you come to the truthful understanding that my great-grandchildren will barely remember my name and any generation past that will see you picture and ask, who’s that and the usual response will be, mom told me but I forget. The vast majority of us will never end up in a history book. The question becomes, why does it seem to matter to us?

Belonging

We’ve all known the joy of belonging. A group of friends, a team, a marriage. The joy of including and bringing people in; watching confidence, joy and a full heart settle in to being one of the group. We’ve all also known the heartache of being picked last, terminated, cast aside, replaced and the gut wrenching experience that provides. Why does it feel so wrong when it’s wrong and why does it feel so right when it’s right?

Love

What do you see in someone who is loved? Confident, generous, sound, willing to take calculated risk, and resistant to the chaotic world around them. People who aren’t loved sadden me. I see over and over again the desperation for attention, rejectable behaviors asking you to reject me because I’ve already rejected myself, shame, self-destruction, and little to no resources to deal with the day by day trials that come.

This reminds me of a Rich Mullins song titled First Family…

“My folks they were always the first family to arrive
With seven people jammed into a car that seated five
There was one bathroom to bathe and shave in
Six of us stood in line
And hot water for only three
But we all did just fine

Talk about your miracles
Talk about your faith
My dad he could make things grow
Out of Indiana clay
Mom could make a gourmet meal
Out of just cornbread and beans
And they worked to give faith hands and feet
And somehow gave it wings

I can still hear my dad cussin’
He’s working late out in the barn
The spring planting is coming
And the tractors just won’t run
Mom she’s done the laundry
I can see it waving on the line
Now they’ve stayed together
Through the pain and the strain of those times

And now they’ve raised five children
One winter they lost a son
But the pain didn’t leave them crippled
And the scars have made them strong
Never picture perfect
Just a plain man and his wife
Who somehow knew the value
Of hard work good love and real life.

An old truth in a new day. There is importance, belonging and a true selfless love offered to us by Jesus, and if we are blessed to be rooted in a family that knows Him, then like me, you get to say thanks Mom and Dad for not only giving faith hands and feet, but wings as well. If you weren’t blessed in that way, then a new journey could be you living in something old, and making something new!!

In our national time of pause, I pray we aren’t into a rush for a new thing(except in the world of medicine), but that we would rush back to an old thing that’s always been of infinite value.