Chronicles of Diversity

25 October 2006; Volume 8, Issue 31

PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/audacity10-25-6.pdf

The Audacity of Reality: A Path to Make Hope Happen.

For those of you familiar with the recent book by Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” you will notice some similarities between the book title and the title of this week’s commentary. I have not read Barack’s book, so anything in this piece that takes the Senator’s book to task, or gives it high marks is merely coincidence.

I do think the title to Audacity of Hope is outstanding, but I just don’t think the senator’s “Thoughts on reclaiming the American Dream,” has much real traction. What this country and the world needs is not thoughtful dreams about hope, but concrete methods to make hope happen. As I wrote last year, Hope is always in the middle (http://www.wondersprings.com/2005pdffiles/hopeinmiddle7-20-5.pdf). What is really needed in the world is not Audacious hope, but audacious completion. Notice I said world, I just don’t want to say America, the problem is much greater than any American hope problem, it is a world hope problem that need some solutions.

In a Post Modern, self relativistic world, the concept seems to be, ”If we just give people hope, then all the good forces of karma, or positive thinking, or self esteem, will bring this into reality and the person will live happily ever after (and I can continue to do my thing and feel smug in my delusive concern for others.)”

For those of us who haven’t been so blessed with the ability of self realization, we are looked upon as “lacking faith, morally inept, just plain losers.” But what the self adept fail to realize is that they had help. When we are talking about economics, we are talking about people with access to capital. You can only carry yourself so far and then you must find someone to help you to that next level. While I have used economics briefly here, that is true in any type of personal achievement. That person may be a business mentor, a coach, a parent, or just someone you met sort of by happenstance.

Primarily however, hope becomes real through leadership. The job, calling, and mandate of leadership is to make hope happen in reality. The fundamental principle of that empowering is not your degrees, money, contacts, or political power. The fundamental principle of leadership is your understanding of reality. We have lost our way because reality has been dumbed down to the point that it is subjectively relative to the individual. There we must begin the rebuilding process.

All politics have lost their sense of reality. As a consequence America is basically without leadership, ergo there goes the rest of the world.

This week we will start with the Democrats. They don’t seem to like anyone very much. Since the election of George W. Bush, the Democratic Party’s mainstream has died of drought. But don’t they ever get tired of bashing everything the Republicans propose? I mean only the true Republicans seem to think that they are the only sinless Americans, especially if that description comes from a self righteous, far left liberal.

The illusion of sinlessness (except for, or in spite of former Congressman Foley) by itself should be grounds to throw the bums out of the majority. With that change of power however, is required the need for an agenda, hopefully well beyond acting like mommy is taking your pacifier and you are going to snivel, cry, moan, and carry on until mommy gives it back.

So back to the Republicans, without fault or blemish. The religious right is doubly right in their own eyes, hence they, not Jesus Christ are the saviors of the world. Well, maybe I need to be a little more graceful. Let’s see they have appointed themselves the moral changers for the Halls of Congress. Couple them with the free market libertarians who really are the money changers for the conservative side of Congress and again reality has departed from the political spectrum.

What we need in this country is not who’s right and left, who’s right and wrong, what we need in this country and around the world are leaders who can at least somewhat understand reality. Really, reality is the first step.

Then the conversation proceeds somewhat like the following, “Well that’s OK for you to say in your worldview, but my worldview is different than yours! Your worldview means reality is centered around the God of the Bible, mine is based upon my understanding evolution. You are an idiot to believe that the world is only six thousand four hundred years old, when the old fossils say differently.”

I was actually told the six thousand four hundred years situation last week, but the point is, by what basis can so called rational people begin to agree on reality?

Well, I might propose that five days in the wild wilderness, alone with just the clothes on your back and 10 pounds of gear to take with you. With that amount of gear, some training, and with the proper view of reality you should be able to survive somewhat comfortably in all but winter extremes. Even with the perfect gear, and knowledge of how to use it, without the proper understanding of this current reality, you might be eliminated from the gene pool in the first night.

Same five days, you and five companions set out to row a Yorkie Batteau about 50 miles, camping along the way. A Yorkie Batteau is a 20 foot rowboat descended from the first Scottish and French boats to come to North America in the 17th and 18th century and served as river and lake transport until the coming of steam vessels. The refined development of this small craft have given us today, the dory and the river drift boat. The most famous of these is the York boat of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Yorkie is about half the York boat’s length and about half the crew.

This trip with pretty much modern equipment is designed to teach basic leaderships skills again in the natural world. Your boat will be in a flotilla of 5 or 6 other boats with rotating group leadership. The goal is for all of you to finish the course, and to make the trip enjoyable for all parties to the extent possible. That enjoyment pretty much will again rest upon your understanding of your current reality and your sense of humor.

Again five days for the old and aging duffers, completely independent of natural age. A nice bed in a somewhat modest log home. A bath down the hall, meals in an adjacent community center. This chalet is located on a hobby farm where you can get a taste of farm life without getting in the way of any serious farm production. Most of your time is free to work in the garden or other tasks, wander the fields and woods, watch the birds and wildlife, maybe go fishing in the local pond, or try your hand in a nearby lake or that reservoir the leadership class is trying to navigate. Some might even enjoy a trip to do the local antique shops, thrift stores, and tourist traps.

No matter what your background or age, all of these will give you an altered sense of the reality of nature or creation. You may differ with those you meet and learn to cherish (or tolerate) on this journey, but you all have shared a reality truly beyond your ability to comprehend in a short time period.

Only creation presents us all with the reality of not only common beauty that all can see and enjoy, but also a reality of common natural law, which demonstrates itself differently in the three scenarios described above. This reality perception is unlimited by the complexity of the human personality, its education and training, and its willingness to learn new things. Creation unites people like no man designed program can accomplish. All man can do is set up some situations and get out of the way.

That is true whether you believed that you evolved from an amoeba several billion years ago, or whether you believe that God created everything on the evening of October 23rd, 6010 years ago. Notice that both of these worldviews are dependent upon your education. or brainwashing in the case of the other guy. However, none of them trump the reality of creation or nature, and none of your training overrides your bonds to the rest of humanity. Whether that humanity being the slow evolution of humanity over time, or the creation of an infinite God of mankind in His image. We are all on this incredible ball together, taking part in something called a lifetime, whether that be a few years or a century.

This reality is the basis of which I am now calling a Rural Institute. The three scenarios plus a number of others will be run out of this headquarters. In the last few weeks I have come to believe that this should be a farm, with a focus on being somewhat self sustaining so as to be able to feed and care for more people in the case of some stupendous change, either human or natural that may occur in this country.

Over my pilgrimage I have talked with a number of rural people at various times about a current vision for such a facility. I would say that without exception all have agreed with me in at least the need to allow people to slow down and smell the roses, get really dirty, and maybe even to perspire. Many have added greatly to my understanding of our collective human nature.

Today fear has a lot to do with what remains of western culture, both rural and urban. That fear of impending severe trouble is now beginning to be seen in some of my more astute friends. What we are also seeing however, is a sickness of not wanting to face the true reality of the present world. Hope has disappeared because the means to achieve it has vanished.

The truth of the matter is that the Audacity of Hope might be a beginning, but without the real reality to carry it through places, stuff, and things, hope only adds to delusional behavior. Getting America back in touch with creation, natural law and common grace, is the only absolute reality that exists outside our relativistic presuppositions.

As I have said in earlier writings, the true power of Islam does not come alone from its evil nature, it also comes from its worldview of this world as a desert you have to cross to get to the oasis Paradise on the other side. That is just the application of extreme natural law, of the land of Islam’s birth. We in western culture just don’t get it because to us, changing the world through discussions over a spot of afternoon tea, is the way the world really is supposed to work. To think otherwise would be uncivilized, my goodness!

Given the choice I personally would rather become accustomed to existing with that 10 pounds of survival gear than bow to Islamic conversion principles. That is a decision but by the grace of God we may not have to make, but it starts with the fact that afternoon tea, or a pizza party is not going to change human nature, only God’s grace (common and specific) does that.

This Rural Institute requires an irrigation project to bring it into existence. Not tapping the water running from the mountains to irrigate its crops, but tapping the liquidity of urban financial resources to fund an enterprise that can help to begin to irrigate rural America with the crop of realized hope. That is an audacious plan to bring real reality to a few lonely pioneers, who understand the reality of creation, the temporal nature of life, and the common humanity of the human species. These are absolutes by which all culture must function to be sustainable. Very basic absolutes, which post modern culture has discarded.

I personally believe that rural America, it’s people and natural created environment, are the greatest opportunity for continued economic prosperity of this country. That however is a different article. Fundamentally for anything positive to happen in this country, or even in the world, we must begin to look at reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. That must start, as it has over all the time of human existence, not in the university or the halls of government, but out of the absolutes of the dust of the ground, or the ooze of the pond, making us into a people with a destiny.

I can buy a 200 acre farm in NE Washington State for a million bucks. There are other farms in other locations that could be used for this rural institute. You can’t make payments on a million dollar asset with the income you can derive from farming. The goal is not to make it pay for itself by farming the people that you can bring in either, but to train them as members, of a new American infrastructure. A million dollars will not buy a commercial lot in Seattle or Bellevue anymore. That’s probably why you can’t buy a working farm and make it pay for itself, but again that is a different essay.

This million dollars is an investment in human infrastructure. Human infrastructure with their feet on the ground, facing an unsure future. It will take more money to make it truly work, but that is what the future is all about. Within our current world situation, I can not punch the numbers into my financial calculator and get a positive ROI. I suppose in a less fractured world, infrastructure development is supposed to be the place of government. With the chance of our new legislative bodies being more polarized, they more than anyone need an infusion of natural reality.

This farm is different to me than other farms however, this is where my grandfather lived and raised most of his family from sometime in the 1930’s to perhaps the early 1950’s. I don’t know the dates for sure, but I could find out. I don’t recall the place, I have some recollection of an old house, but I don’t know if that is true reality or not. What I do have is a picture of me there, as probably a terrible two year old sitting on Old Duke, the family horse. What this means to investors, and more importantly probably to God, is if things get really difficult I will not cut and run.

If I could buy the place and fund it until I could write enough grants and other proposals to retire the debt I surely would, but that is not possible, I do not have those financial resources. It is my calling to create this type of enterprise, and to develop a team of reality builders, each contributing what they can, some money, some time and talent. The first step is to secure initial (cheap or free) financing, which will allow us to begin to raise the grant money and to begin to train those first leaders in the natural law and common grace of the audacity of reality.

At this time I simply ask for your help to the extent by which you desire to again live in a world that is based on the audacity of reality. That hope is as hard core as it gets around here.

Our Recent Chronicles:

Building sanctification, Part I; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/buildsanctI8-9-6.pdf
Building sanctification, Part II; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/buildsanctII8-16-6.pdf
Welcome shade; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/welcomshade8-23-6.pdf
No Safe Egypt; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/nosafeegypt9-20-6.pdf
Lost in space; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/lostinspace9-27-6.pdf
Beyond the good;PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/beyondgood10-11-6.pdf
What’s up? PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/whatsup10-18-6.pdf