Somehow I ended up on the mailing list, along with 1,200,000 other people, for Imprimis. Normally I am so busy the issues end up in the recycle bin, but this past issue had an abridged speech by David McCullough. I have read his biography of Truman and more recently his work on John Adams. I highly recommend both. In his biography of Adams, I suppose some would criticize his extensive use of quotes, but I appreciated getting the sense of who Adams was [as well as some of his correspondents] in his own words.
In the pamphlet McCullough is quoted as saying: “Nor is there any such creature as a self-made man or woman. We love that expression, we Americans. But every one who’s ever lived has been affected, changed, shaped, helped, hindered by other people.” How true this is—none of us is “self-made,” yet it is so easy in success to take no notice of those who have gone before us. While McCullough does not deal with the spiritual dimension of how Jesus Christ can renew and reshape those who follow him, I believe the truth he speaks of points to the importance of Christianity community and fellowship. We exist, worship, and serve in communities.
McCullough also pointed out that “those who wrote the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia that fateful summer of 1776 were not superhuman by any means. Every single one had his flaws, his failings, his weakness. Some of them ardently disliked others of them. Every one of them did things in his life he regretted. But the fact that they could rise to the occasion as they did, these imperfect human beings, and do what they did is also, of course a testimony to their humanity. We are not just known by our failings, by our weaknesses, by our sins. We are known by being capable of rising to the occasion and exhibiting not just a sense of direction, but strength.” While there is the tendency to deify our Founding Fathers in some circles today, both critics and supporters of these men need to see them as “fallen” creatures, seeking for different reasons to invoke their vision of America. Are we too often today demanding perfection in our leaders, co-workers, family members, ourselves? Will we be known by how we have risen to t
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This issue came up again last night in a short assignment I gave to a class of adult students (over 30 or 35). I asked them to interview someone who experienced the Great Depression. Two students interviewed older relatives and were shocked to find out that the image they had of parents and grandparents was so different from the reality of the real lives of these people. This was the first time they had a "serious" talk about what life was like 50 years ago. Students admitted they had idealized this older generation, but in the interviews, the students discovered their aged relatives had failings and challenges that somehow were not communicated to them as children growing up. These stalwart figures in the church and home who seemed to just "roll" through life had warts just like all of us.
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