A leaf in the frozen snow speaks of a season unseen.
Glass Half Empty [click to read], Paul Beston in City Journal.
As one who regularly gives form and color to the dreams of others, the subjects of optomism, pessimism and reality are far more than abstract terms to me. Many a lovely picture has been created of a concept that is painful to look at for its unsustainability. Many a concept has passed through my hands where missed opportunity is painfully obvious. Imagination has been subdued by the mandate to produce as much leasable space as one can for as little money as possible.
Paul Beston is commenting on the book Glass Half Empty by Barbara Ehrenreich, an interesting commentary on how the positive thinking mantra has infected our culture in the material and spiritual realms. She takes a swipe at the 'motivational' culture in the workplace where attitude has become a commodity to be infused by high powered [and highly paid] speakers. Posters of men standing on mountaintops abound with bits of inspiration in the "believe, achieve" mindset.
My son and I were building an architectural model together and we decided our studio lacked "motivational" posters so a picture of the Bridge over the River Kwai went up with the phrase "Be Happy in Your Work." Surely we know the need for forward vision but the popular culture's hopeful message lacks the substance of something our f orefathers knew. As highly paid as the motivators are, they are no match for the union mindset that actually prevails more often than not.
Indeed, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine possessed something stronger. Beston hints that the religious influence of the day was more honest in its depiction of the human condition. Here's where this article grabbed my attention. Realism is descriptive, yet there is something more -- the Faith described in the eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews in the Bible. The passage begins with the statement: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
On the surface that might fit right on to another motivational poster in modern psychology but read on.
If you read the entire chapter you see some places where circumstances were changed and others where faith led to the choosing of a much more difficult path, even death and deprivation.
"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the words of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
There is far more to the order of this world than that which we can see. There is far more to reality that exists than that which we can concieve in our heads. No amount of believing will allow me to run a marathon as fast as the Kenyan, yet without the will to run I will not allow the abilities I have to prosper.
Perhaps it is more reasonable to emulate Eric Liddell, the 'Flying Scottsman,' who ran to feel G-d's pleasure. Perhaps our true joy will be found when we realize we're not going to make any olympic team but we'll contibute to the development of our sons.
Faith allows us to see a purpose and a motivation even when we do not always reap the rewards that culture would suggest are worthy. It is the stuff fifty years devotion to the same woman is made of. It is bedrock, the unseen foundation of so much we would long for.
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