When it comes to religion, we tend to try to blend the mentality of long, long ago with modern times; we pray with the words of long, long ago about modern things; and we even use the geography of long ago and far away when we think about and pray about the world of today and where and how we live in it.
I guess you could say we’re behaving like “old-timers,” reluctant to shed all the customs, values, and attitudes of long ago and far away—even though they were mostly not places and events of our personal experience.
We still read and meditate about old narrations and customs, and we try to adapt the worldview, values, and behavior of favorite characters in old stories and books.
When we read and study the New Testament, in effect we’re learning about the life, faiths, customs, and politics of the Middle East and the Mediterranean world of about two thousand years ago!
When we study the Old Testament, we’re dealing with local traditions and events older by far!
Those long-ago years have come and gone, for better or for worse. We may be inspired by some aspects of this long ago past, perhaps many—but it’s not our time and place. We have to deal with our contemporary traditions and events. We have to live, love, and serve God in our days and in contemporary ways even though we treasure, esteem, and try to follow some ancient and long practiced ways of life.
We may value every word saved and passed on to us about the people and practices of ancient times—but don’t forget that they were ancient times, not ours.
Some things, some details, some challenges from ancient times are still with us—but many are not, and we barely understand some of them anymore even though we study hard.
If we aspire to talk, behave, and generally act just like admirable people of ancient days did, we’re almost masquerading!
One could say that our contemporary challenge is to distill the essence, the best of past belief and practices, and accommodate them to our contemporary culture, language, and way of thinking.
For example, it’s wonderful to visit the Holy Land and to actually travel to some of the places we had long imagined—but the places aren’t like thousands of years ago. Out treasured historical memories are one thing, and present-day realities are another.
Sometimes we’re bothered by too much change but living things (like you and I) live in a constant process of change, reassessment, and development.
We have to use a lot of imagination for times past, since what was passed on to us from long ago days was only a small part and a particular remembrance of a world just as busy, and fumbling and bumbling, as ours!
A good museum can be fascinating, interesting, stimulating, and helpful to our lives—but we shouldn’t necessarily live with or venerate every value and perspective of ancient times and peoples.
Don’t be distracted and knocked off course by yearning for all of the past, for living means constantly changing to accommodate the past to the present. Today is different from yesterday, and today you’re no longer the person you were yesterday.
What a good museum does is replicate some aspects of the past for present day students and learners—but it’s not about living today.
It isn’t easy, always changing and growing, but that’s what life is about!
13 August 2023