day 2528: Responsibilities

“Get the truth and never sell it; also get wisdom, discipline, and good judgment.”

The pace of work and industry is speeding up.  There is no great measurement that tells us this, other than productivity is up, supply chain time has decreased and numbers can be generated with a push of a button. So, what does this do to us?  For one thing, it makes it harder and harder to keep up, listen and to do the digging to know and understand what is and isn’t the truth. Ray Dalia built Bridgewater Capital on seeking the truth in each and every analysis and answer.  He tells people that it has become more difficult than ever to find the real truth.  And, the energy and effort it takes today to dig deeper can be exhausting. But, we have to do so.  If we don’t then the outcomes can be dangerous, if not disastrous.

A very long time ago in 1947, C.S. Lewis wrote a book called Miracles.  My pastor, Terry, gave the book to me last spring for my birthday.  I finished it recently and it was not an easy read.  It is challenging intellectually.  I liked it a lot.  There were many parts of the books that struck me as being as relevant today as it was when he wrote it so long ago. He wrote this about our responsibilities as it relates to seeking and finding the truth:

“In the conditions produced by a century earth or so of naturalism, plain men are being forced to bear burdens which plain men were never expected to bear before. We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it. There may be two explanations for this.  It might be that humanity, in rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly mistake; a mistake which will not be the less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable. On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our species is at the moment carrying out a daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so, our present blundering‘s would be but growing pains. But let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and become humble plain man or being a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her/himself is fatal. A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: A society where all were seers could live even more fully.  But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death.”

Ours is the responsibility to find and live the Truth, which when we do and we live it out, we are living up to our responsibilities.

Reference:  Proverbs 23:23 (New Living Translation)

 

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