Leaving a legacy

I don't know how much you read about world events, or even if you care about world events.  Certainly the cares of our individual lives leave little room in the modern psyche for in-depth discussion of affairs on the other side of the world.  Yet we can learn much from the world stage, because it is there that the lessons of life are played out "larger than life" (if you'll pardon the pun). 

The Jan 13 edition of Maclean's magazine speaks about a soon to be closed chapter of Afghanistan's history.  You’ve undoubtedly heard the name of Afghanistan’s president, but perhaps you didn’t know that his 12yr term of office is about to expire.  In an article entitled 'King Karzai', Adnan Khan writes that Afghan president Hamid Karzai, obviously concerned more than the rest of us about this ending, has shrewdly and strategically positioned himself as a kingpin between rival groups, the Taliban and the USA in an effort to gain lasting political relevancy.   Khan writes, "No doubt Karzai realizes that once the BSA (Bilateral Security Agreement) is signed, he will quickly become a footnote in Afghanistan, limping to the end of his presidency in April, unless he can raise his status.  Challenging the U.S. plays well on that front, particularly with Pashtuns who have suffered the most over the past three decades of conflict."  (underline mine).

The exact details of what is happening in Afghanistan are not needed to grasp the significance and personal relevance of what is happening.  A country's president is seeking to leave a lasting legacy on the world stage (or at least in his own country) for his own name' sake.  That is a common enough thing that we can all understand it.  Actually we can do more than simply understand it - we can really get it.  It is common to all of us, presidents or not.  Sooner or later as we age we look back on our lives and wonder if we will be remembered at all after our passing, and if so for what.  Maybe that's because age (like money) just makes us more of what we already are.  The increasing individualism awakens within us the old common thirst for legacy.

That thirst for lasting earthly significance might be common to all, but it is not godly.  It is a thirst for glory.  Wiersbe wrote, "The glory of [human mankind] does not last. “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass” (1 Peter 1:24). Great men and women come and go, and yesterday’s heroes are today’s forgotten people. The glory of man is always in the past tense: the glory that was Rome, the glory that was Greece."

There is a famous painting of a 'glorious' Greek legend - Icarus' failed attempt to fly away from captivity. If you remember the story, he took wax and feathers and made himself a set of wings.  With these he was able to leave the tower he was locked in, and he flew from his place of solitude.  But he flew too high, the sun melted the wax of his wings and he crashed to his death in the sea.  The painting (Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus  from 1558) is of an wonderful summer day near the shore, with a farmer working his field, a calm sea and a boat sailing in the distance.  An idyllic scene.  The only thing tying the picture to its title is a very small depiction of two legs sticking out of the sea in the bottom corner, with some feathers floating nearby.  It is a fitting illustration of the best of man's efforts for glory.  In the end, such efforts are far too small to matter in the big picture, and can only end in irony.

Ironically (pun fully intended), before I read Maclean's I had just finished reading a book about a past president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  Dr. Louis King served the church as area secretary for Asia, then as Foreign secretary for all overseas work, then as president.  He's long retired and not many remember his name.   Of course, he never sought for any to remember his name.  But largely because of his influence and prayerful decisions over decades of faithful service, many more thousands of people know the name of Jesus Christ.  King's legacy is not his own, but that of God.  You might say therefore, that though we don't remember his name, his is an eternal and lasting legacy. 

Something Karzai can never attain, no matter how shrewd he plays politics, or how hard he tries to make a lasting name for himself.  A poignant lesson for us all.

  

Who will gain world dominance?

Noah Smith - a writer with quartz.com - recently wrote a thoughtful article, “Why China can’t take over the world.”  A provocative title to be sure, but one that many are considering as China approaches the same GDP as the USA.  As though answering the un-verbalized fear of many Westerners, Noah goes back through history to show that the concern of many in the West about China’s global ambitions may not be grounded in the soundest of judgment in spite of their economic successes.  He points out that while China was always a powerful country geopolitically, it was also almost always turned in on itself – largely because of the number of disparate people/political groups within it, and for reasons of internal strife and power struggles between said groups, never rose to the prominence that it might have.  He concludes that this situation is still valid today and in all likelihood will be valid for the foreseeable future.  “The same thing that often kept China from realizing its potential as the world’s dominant nation—its tremendous, unwieldy size—means that although it will surpass the US in total GDP, its supremacy may well be short-lived and incomplete.”[1]

If Noah’s analysis is correct, then what of the USA?  It is larger than China, and surely has just as many (if not more) people/political groups within?   And what of Canada – even larger?  Certainly we might see that with both Canada and the USA, we simply do not have the time behind us to see if we will be successful where the Chinese have historically not been (that is, in keeping our eyes and efforts beyond our borders instead of inside them).   Two hundred years are but a fraction of the Chinese history.  In fact, if one looks at the same time period, we could conclude that the principle has been proven here even more than in China – for the native north Americans were not united and thus fell from power once European immigration set in.  Noah’s principle (that too large a country will automatically fail to maintain world prominence because of the divergence of the peoples within) has significant merit, and it could be easily argued from world history.  People are people – and that means they each have unique identities.  Countries only exist because of a common identity among peoples, and as soon as that identity is pushed too far by cultural shifts, the fabric of that common identity is shredded.  That means that in order to see a global unity, there must be a global sense of identity. 

Your identity is a complex mix of personality and culture (internal and external influence). So it follows that a working global sense of identity would need to come from both an internal and an external influence in the people it governs.  Countries fail when they try to overcome the gap in internal influence through use of external pressure.   Such a strategy will always fail because it cannot create unity of identity (in fact it always creates the opposite - a sense of ‘us vs them’).  What is needed then is a sense of identity that is just as rooted in people’s minds for what they are, as it is rooted in their culture of who they are.

That idea isn’t new – in fact we have an English word for exact this.  We call it religion.  

Religion has become a bad word in modern society – so much so that many reading this will have stopped at the previous sentence.  In fact, one might argue – as many do – that religion is not a unifying identity so much as it is an agent of separation.   That’s perhaps too big a subject for a short discussion – nevertheless all countries have borders, and those who are not ‘part’ are kept outside, and those who are a ‘part’ are welcomed in.  The struggle is not that religion separates – it is that religion as mankind has made it cannot overcome the internal and external influences on the people it claims.  What we need is an internal identity that lines up with external influence. 

Revelation 7 says;

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” ^[2]

“Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” ¹⁴ I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” ^[3]

Amen.

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[1] http://qz.com/162690/why-china-cant-take-over-the-world/#/

^[2] The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Re 7:9–10). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[3] The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Re 7:13–17). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.