Not past the past

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
    and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

- Proverbs 1:8

Our text from this week comes from the beginning of Proverbs. After introducing the value of proverbial learning, this collection of wisdom writings encourages its readers to pay attention to the wisdom of their ancestors.

We live in a time that’s enraptures with the myth of progress. We think that – by and large – things keep getting better and better. Our cars get more efficient. Our medicines grow more powerful. Our phones get small, more mobile, and more capable of doing more. More, more, more. More better.

In contrast, we look over our shoulder at the past and roll our eyes at their ignorance. Recent journals from one pre-eminent scientist (a man who faced racial discrimination in his life experience) revealed that back in the 1920s, as a young man, he harbored some embarrassingly racist perspectives. We easily criticize our national history of slaveholding and Jim Crow. We can rejoice that we’ve left the “unenlightened past” behind us. 

But we’re constantly in danger of moving into an unenlightened future. We’re in danger of moving past the past without learning from the past. We’re at risk of abandoning the helpful things our forebears picked up before we came on the scene. If we’re not careful, we’ll have to relearn the lessons they paid hefty prices to learn.

CS Lewis call’s this arrogant attitude toward the past: “chronological snobbery.” A humble take on our current era can help us pursue wisdom in healthy ways in our generation.

Try this exercise today …

- On a sheet of paper, write on the left side of the page a list of ways we’ve advanced from the past (maybe look over the last 40 years to keep the circle tight)

- On the other side of the sheet of paper, list ways people who lived 40 years ago might be disappointed or disgusted by the way things are today (i.e. “I thought there would be flying cars” or “You have this ‘internet thing’ and all you use it for is ____?!?”

What does it mean for us that we’re not past the past?

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