The Chronicles of a Southern Family Living in the Middle South (Again)

(The following is copied from another blog)

The following quote is from John W. Gardner’s “Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too?” (W.W. Norton & Company, 1961) pages 101-102 (it is still in print):

“We must expect students to strive for excellence in terms of the kind of excellence that is within their reach. Here we must recognize that there may be excellence or shoddiness in every line of human endeavor. We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Humble of course is “low in stature.” This says more about our culture than it does about the skilled trades such as plumbing. I have many friends who are excellent in the crafts. They make a decent living and seem to be happier than most. I think this is because they see and feel the results of their efforts immediately. The most skilled seem to fare better in rough times since the wealthy do appreciate skilled work and are willing and able to pay for such work.

My friends in the trades have told me quite directly and with good humor the things they will allow me to do in my home. They said anything else will waste my time and effort and will have to be redone. They prefer to do work right the first time, rather than resolve a mess made worse.

An apropos quote on obtaining excellence from Will Durant, page 61, The Story of Philosophy (also in print)

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly; ‘these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions’ [1]; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit: ‘the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life; … for as it is not one swallow of one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.’ [2]”

[1] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, ii, 4

[2] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, i, 7

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

~G. K. Chesterson

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’).”

The Gospel of Christ is simply this: Every person has broken God’s law, condemning themselves to eternal spiritual death. Because ‘doing good’ is not something God accepts as a substitute for our sin, we can’t be “good enough” to compensate God for our wrongdoing. Only a perfect sacrifice is acceptable to God (per the Old Testament Law).

God determined before even creating us to take the part of Himself we know as the Son and at the right time in our history, send Him in the form of a man to live a life in full and perfect compliance to the Law. And at the right time in His earthy life, to sacrifice Him on the cross, only to raise Him to life after three days.

Every man is already condemned to eternal spiritual death because of sin. For those who come to recognize this and repent and believe in their heart that Christ is the substitutionary sacrifice for their sin, they will be saved from God’s coming day of wrath. Be sure, this is so much more than just agreeing that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ as true saving belief in Christ will necessarily be followed by the change in character that comes from being in Christ and He being in you!

You have to go no farther than today’s news to see the practical working out of man’s sin. As you (and we) open gifts and share abundant portions of food together today, take time to reflect that the whole reason for Jesus’s birth is our sin. Yes, He is the perfect gift, but we absolutely don’t deserve Him! It’s only because;

“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

If you are in Christ this morning, you have every reason to have a “Merry Christmas.” If you’re not, or are not sure, but the question of Christ has been on your mind, please take time to read the book of John in the Bible and/or seek out someone you know who is a serious student of Christ and ask questions. God loves you and desires you to be reconciled with Him through His son.

And if in so doing you come to a true saving faith in Christ, you, too, will understand the true meaning of Christmas.

Lord bless and keep you this happy Christmas morning!

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

“For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

“But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

~ from Matthew’s Gospel of Christ, Chapter 24