Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Things That Are More Excellent

The grace of friendship-mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind;
The gains of science, gifts of art;
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand-
A large and liberal discontent;
These are the goods in life's rich hand,
The things that are more excellent.

Excerpt from "The Things That Are More Excellent" by William Watson

But You Do Not Realize

But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire.... Rev 3:15-16



Have you seen any individuals, communities, institutions, systems, countries that look like this lately? Civil unrest percolates throughout the globe, economic systems are in decline or arrest, communities are dysfunctional, and individuals are angry and frustrated. All want success, yet each is perplexed as to how to properly achieve it. Any actions taken seem to have a negative outcome, causing further damage. What are the answers?

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. This is not an original thought, it has been echoed throughout the ages, starting with the Alpha and the Omega, and in this case, Albert Einstein. The important thing, no matter who said it or how, is that fresh thinking is required. A new creation.

Resolved only to be irresolute, in the words of Winston Churchill, we blindly run from here to there trying old strategies to fix problems. These blind and naked attempts only exacerbate, or at best band-aid the situation. The times demand that we look to the wisdom of the ages for solutions, and not to the temporal wisdom of those who steered the ship into the rocks. Let us resolve to buy the gold refined by fire, that gold being wisdom and true knowledge.