"Not that I have now attained this ideal, or have already been made perfect,
but I press on to lay hold of and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus
the Messiah has laid hold of me and made me His own.
I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet; but
one thing I do, it is my own aspiration: forgetting what lies behind and straining
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the supreme
and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward."
(Philippians 3:12-14)
The Crocus
(1900)
Lucien Pissarro
(1863-1944)
French Impressionist painter
Did you ever hear anyone say, "I don't know what the world is coming to.";
"People didn't used to do that way"; "Things were different when I was young"
or words to that effect? Is it possible you ever said anything of the kind yourself?
If so, don't be deluded into thinking it's because of your knowledge of life
nor that the idea is at all original with you.
That remark has become a habit with the human race, having been made at least
nine hundred years ago, and I suspect it has been repeated by every generation.
An interesting article in "Asia" (1921) tells of a book of old Japan that is being
translated by the great Japanese scholars Mr. Aston and Mr. Sansome.
The book was written by a lady of the court, during the reign of the Japanese
Emperor Ichijo nearly a thousand years ago. Among other interesting things
in the article, I found this quotation from the old book: "In olden times,"
said one of her Majesty's ladies, 'even the common people had elegant
tastes. You never hear of such things nowadays."
*Asia Magazine
(April 1921)
Image courtesy/Amazon.com
Doesn't that have a familiar sound? One's mind grows dizzy trying
to imagine what things would have been like in the times that were
"olden times" a thousand years ago, but evidently things were
"Going from bad to worse" even then.
"Distance lends enchantment to the view", looking in one direction as
well as in another, and that is why, I think, events of olden times and our
childhood and youth are enveloped in such a rosy cloud, just at the time
the future glowed with bright colors. It all depends on which way we're
looking. Youth ever gazes forward while age is inclined to look back.
And so older persons think things were better when they were young.
Not long ago, I caught myself saying, "When I was a child, children
were more respectful to their parents"; when as a matter of fact, I can
remember children who were not so obedient as some who are with
us today; and I know, when I am truthful with myself, that it always,
as now, has taken all kinds of children to make a world.
Sometimes we are inclined to wish our childhood days might come again,
but I am always rescued from such folly remembering a remark I once
heard a man make: "Wish I were a boy again," he exclaimed, I do not!
When I was a boy I had to hoe my row in the cornfield with father and
the hired man; I must keep up too, and when they rested in the shade
I had to run and get the drinking water."
And so quite often the rather morbid longing for the past will be
dispelled by facing the plain facts. There are abuses in the world,
today, surely; there have always been. Our job is to face those
of our day and correct them.
We have been doing a great deal of howling over the high prices
we have to pay and the comparatively low prices we get ( for farm
produce) and we should do more than cry aloud about it, but we would
have suffered worse in those good old times after the Civil War when
the coarsest of muslin and calico cost fifty cents a yard and banks
failed overnight leaving their worthless money in circulation.
Prices have not been so high after this much greater war (WWI),
and our money has been good. It is a frightful thing that our
civilization should be disgraced by the conditions of the world
today, but in the former Dark Ages of history there was no
Red Cross organization working to help and save.
Abuses there are, to be sure, wrongs to be righted, sorrows to
be comforted; these are obstacles to be met and overcome.
But as far back as I can remember, the old times were good
times; they have been good all down thru the years, full of
love and service, of ideals and achievement-the future is
in our hands to make it what we will.
Love and service, with a belief in the future and expectation
of better things in the tomorrow of the world is a good working
philosophy; much better than, "in olden times- things were so
much better when I was young." For there is no turning back
nor standing still; we must go forward into the future,
generation after generation toward the accomplishment of
the ends that have been set for the human race.
However fleeting and changeable life may appear to be on
the surface, we know that the great underlying values of life
are always the same; no different today than they were
a thousand years ago.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer
Author of the "Little House" series
"Forgetting Those Things Which Are Left Behind"
A Meditation from the book, "Saving Graces
The Inspirational Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder"
Edited by Stephen Hines
(1997)
Broadman & Holman Publishers
Nashville, Tennessee
* Asia Magazine was an American Magazine published
from 1898 to 1946 and featured reporting about Asia
and its people, including the Far East, Southeast Asia,
South Asia, and the Middle East.
