Ancient Voices
Why I prefer wisdom from the elders rather than the youngers.
Neil Young
April 1, 2006
"All of my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson Leadership recently offered the axiom "to stay current, stay ancient." Right on. Reading very old things is an excellent use of study time. My wife, Kate, asks, "Why don't you read something from this century?" I have found several reasons: The texts tend to be the best, culled by many generations of readers. And few enough people are plowing this ground that it provides the chance to sound innovative and singular. I can say some things and be (sort of) bulletproof. It is an always-fresh thrill to find the dilemmas, conflicts, issues and questions of the Christian today in the Church of long, long ago. Here are a few examples. About Anger
"… the disposition of (rich) men … is turned to raving anger by pride."
—Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, ca. A.D. 590 I had been wondering about this for some time. Why is there so much anger around? Young men knife-fight at parties. Church council members become incoherent at meetings. People stay angry for decades. What is this? We live in an affluent society, and many of the people we deal with are, by most standards, wealthy—though they may not see themselves so. It may be a medieval thought—Dark Ages, really—but wealth breeds pride, and that pride will often show itself in anger. Along with insight, Gregory offers biblically based, practical advice for this and many issues that are startlingly familiar in a text that is 1,400 years old. On Critics
"Would you wish for the praise of one who thrice an hour calls down curses on his own head? Would you please one who cannot even please himself?"
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, ca. A.D. 155 All right, Marcus Aurelius was a pagan, but ...
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