our generational advantage

in this, our generation of microwaves, video games and the ubiquitous party, we are at a slight loss when it comes to buckling down and getting things done. we dont know what it is to work (not really), and responsibility is an archaic term for something our parents used to own. we are free to not have to really learn to develop skills, but if there's some talent we desire, say in basketball or martial arts, or if there's some fantastical place we want to go, instead of doing the work to actively participate in a book, why we just turn on our xbox and ps3. if and the levels are too hard, we use a cheat!

ah, the age of no demands.

but there's a gift in all of this, at least for those of us who have been able to step outside the delusion of laid back, digital escapism. think of it like this--a lot of conservative, evangelical christians claim that our founding fathers were sincere christians with the same viewpoints and theological understandings as the large, mostly white churches of our day. many historians have a different understanding of our founding fathers viewpoints.

the prevailing secular view, from what i understand, is that our founding fathers were deists, that is, they believed in an infinite God, they even may have assented to Jesus Christ, but their God wasn't a God that was interested and involved. Theirs was a God that set things in motion, then stepped back, leaving this world entirely in our hands, without the slightest finger-lifting of assistance or guidance.

another understanding, or at least, assumption, of the people who lived back in those days, is that everyone worked, or at least, everyone knew what living required. save for the few drunkards and bums, the vast majority of people worked either the agricultural or mercantile end of things. everyone took care of their own house, hand washed everything from their clothes to their floors, took the time to draw a bath, grew and prepared all of their own food, even made their own clothes, for crying out loud. to survive was to have been raised doing all of these things. the idea of not doing them wasn't even within the realm of possibility of their thinking, in the same way, i imagine, as video games weren't ('there will one day be little light boxes in nearly every home [if not room!] of every household all over the this great land, where people can sit back and manipulate little buttons to control the actions of "light-drawings", characters and worlds painted into little not-wood, not-cloth, not-metal discs that can be interchanged to introduce different characters in different worlds doing different things').

if the physical world is a shadow of the spiritual, and the physical world requires so much darn work just for basic, hygienic survival, but those in that day didn't know what it was to not live a life of constant upkeep, then of course it was easy for them to think that God could step back from this world once he set it in motion. but for those of us who have to relearn what was common experience, who have to actually discipline ourselves to take care of our own little worlds in the most basic ways, even with our technological advances, well, we have a gift in our hands. we can rest assured, knowing how much work goes into taking care of our own in this, the shadow of the spiritual, how much work God must be putting into our world, and our lives, working in love (i.e., for the highest good of the beloved) to make this the best of all possible worlds.

so let's run with that.