Tap—tap,tap. The struggle was real.  The mayfly continued to try penetrating the double paned glass. He simply must get through it.  Despite having access to the entire outside world, his only desire was to get in, through this seemingly invisible barrier, into this small confined space.  What a tale, that seems to be how sin works.  We are given the freedom of the entire garden, save for one tree, and that is the one we simply must have.  And not that even that tree was not on the menu at some point.  But we wanted it now.  We wanted more.

The Connoisseur. Norman Rockwell. 1961. Oil on Canvas.
Sometimes there is nothing to appreciate, like the work of modernist artists failing to appreciate.

There is a certain aspect to human glory which can be positive.  I think it’s a lot like anger, which rarely works out by proper motives to God glorifying ends.  But it is theoretically possible.  Man is meant to take his place from a little lower than the angels, to ruling over them.  Of course the ultimate fulfillment of this is by the work of Christ.  But like all that we do as Christians, our work should echo his work, as his body today on this earth.

I often see the new not-so-liberal Liberals mocking people for patriotism or taking pride in their nationality or gender.  “You didn’t do anything to become an American, you were just born here.”  But there is always something you can do with all things you have been handed, give thanks, appreciate. In a very real sense this is all any of us can really do, for even the voice you praise with was given to you.  21st century Americans have been given more than any people group in all of  human history.  But all the other men along that path stretching back over time, still have a multitude of things to appreciate; the very breath of life we all take in for every moment however fleeting; the endless beauty and meaning in nature as the choirs of the Psalms proclaim.  And our response ought to be the ‘new songs’ in imitation appreciating what is done for us each day.  Of course anything can be taken too far.  When your sports team loses and you start destroying property or killing people in the streets, that is a major problem.  But the comparison with sports is somehow more understandable.  Team pride is a fine thing.  You don’t wallow in the losses or the weakness of your team as if they prove no team is ever good.  You remember the victories and the accomplishments of the heroes of the past.

This is a rare time, without any heroes.  The myths of the past grew up around men in their finest hours.  Humanity wanted to appreciate and memorialize when great men did great things, despite their faults.  Everyone knows about the faults of humanity, it doesn’t take any skill to tear men down and wallow in the faults.  A people with no great men and no great myths is not great, and so our people is uniquely not great.  Appreciating the past is the only real way to move forward, to grasp rightly at any future glory.  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was often pointing this out for his people.  It’s right there in the title.  What did God do for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Before that men could look back to the salvation through the waters of baptism for Noah.  Before that men could look to the blessings of creation that had been given to them by God.  You are but dust filled with the Spirit of Life, you are fallen man spared in the Garden, you are given to your lust yet brought through the flood, you are a stiff necked people brought out of Egypt and made a great nation. Tell the stories to your children, as you walk, as you sit as you lay down.  Because without that appreciation, mayhem.

This is our problem today.  I think a good definition of a millennial is someone who doesn’t appreciate anything.  Everything has come so easy for them, they don’t realize the struggle and sacrifice that went into making the world they have been handed by their forefathers.  So rather than be inspired to go on and achieve more things, make America great as they say, they sit around and criticize everything.  I mocked the Occupy Wall Street movement for it’s failure to maintain basic sanitation in a city park, while arrogantly proclaiming the solutions to the world’s problems.  And now that movement has been expanded to whole cities in California.  Having not appreciated the hard work required to carve out civilization and maintain it for centuries, they just throw it away to the sub civilizations looking for a piece of the spoil.  Looters don’t appreciate property, owners appreciate property, and inheritors have a choice they can join the looters or they can appreciate what they have and move forward to help everyone achieve similar prosperity.

There is another form of appreciation.  Appreciation of how bad you are.  Today we lament criticism because we don’t want to be criticized but then we hop on any band wagon destroying the rich and famous or the random.  And anyone born before we were, is somehow an open target to be criticized for anything. It shouldn’t be hard to imagine how other men have failed if we would truly face our own failings first.  Keeping in mind a healthy appreciation for the largeness of the world and the blessings of this world should make us humble and repentant.  You may have an advanced degree, but look at the much larger category of things you don’t know, things you can’t do.  “All we are is dust in the wind dude. “  All we are is a little fly trying to get into the glass cage of sin.