On legacy and memory - what more can we say?

Greetings fellow ATSers.

I intend this short OP to be an encouragement to any of you who are feeling low, perhaps Christmas time after such a devastating & confusing year has kindled feelings of loneliness, isolation, purposelessness & despair. These are terrible feelings to be experiencing, and I sincerely hope that you will take heart from what I have to say.

Many people go through life with sideways & forward-facing blinkers, blindly charging forwards, scrabbling in the dirt, digging up whatever they can, serving their own needs & wants, having very little to do with the needs & desires of others - especially those whom they consider to be inferior through class, race, or religion (etc). Those who instead, feel (or have in the past wrestled with) a sense that life posits huge questions of responsibility, merit, charity & historical significance, may often find themselves despairing when measuring their own lives against the lives of others who seem to be more successful & capable than themselves, despite deep desires to have a positive influence on the world around them.

For myself, I have long wrestled with my desire to be productive, to generate some sort of body of work which can ultimately amount to a legacy based on a sense of charitable, altruistic drive deep generated from within my self-refective thought processes. I wasn't a naturally 'good' person - in my adolescence I was a total wastrel who squandered what should have been an exceptional educational start to my professional life, at a private school in the North of England which was financed by my parents & grandparents. Rather than using this as an excellent foundation for a productive & happy life, I fell into drugs & kicked around with a crew of total wastrels like myself, none of whom valued education, none of whom fostered plans for a positive & productive future. I would steal from my parents, from my friends, and my brother - my whole focus was the next way to get high, or drunk, and this went on for seven years. Ultimately the natural progression of such a lifestyle caught up with me. I was kicked out, nobody wanted to put me up with accommodation, I had no work & thus had to rely on government welfare. I travelled the country, homeless & lost, gradually sinking into mental health problems which were deep, dark & twisted. I despaired, knowing that it was entirely my fault, and I uttered a simple 'prayer' which consisted of a cry of help to the God whom I wasn't sure existed (while totally wasted on stolen booze), having rejected Christianity at an early age due to the impossibility of the Genesis tale of Adam & Eve, being a literate & scientifically curious child from a very early age.

Incredibly, the very next day, as I was sat in a shop doorway, drinking again, a lady who had just walked past me without even seeming to notice me suddenly turned, looked directly at me & said: "You've been praying.. God answers prayer - come with me". I was astounded, and couldn't refuse this mysterious proposal. I went with her & she introduced me to the pastor of a local church. We spoke for a long time & he ultimately shared the gospel message with me, and I accepted it with a flood of relief & amazement. Between them they shared different scriptures which God had placed on their hearts, as they explained, which were to be taken as a promise & assurance from the God who loved me, despite my utterly disgraceful slide into lawlessness, who wanted to rebuild me as a new person, a rebirth & re-education, to give me a future & a hope. They arranged accommodation for me, I rested in the peace which had seemed to spark a fire in my heart, to follow this mysterious adventure which was now mapped out before me. I soon moved to London & joined a community church where my spiritual & practical, social & professional education continued apace.

I was hooked on the amazing, beautiful, deeply spiritual atmosphere of the church community & the novel, lively services which I could never have imagined, based on my traditional Anglican contact with a rather cold & dusty, traditional English Protestant church, which had held zero appeal as I was growing up - it had seemed lifeless & boring in the extreme. But now, I really was a new person, and within a fairly short period of time I had met & got engaged to a beautiful Christian girl who shared my passion for my newfound faith. We married, and began a life together in London, and then later in the Northern English town where I had grown up. My mental health issues receded into nothingness - I barely realised it had happened until quite a while after I had stopped experiencing the troubling symptoms which had dominated my life only a couple of years prior. Life wasn't perfect, but we were travelling together - we loved & forgave each other when arguments arose, and we slowly developed our relationship based on the values we had experienced in the outset of our mutual faith journeys. We ended up having two sons, who are now 16 & 12 years respectively.

Unfortunately, a short time after marrying, I was injured at work, and this led into years & years of a slide into a complex neurological disability, which persists to this day & is presently incurable. Constant, severe neuropathic, arthralgic & fibromyalgic pain consumes my entire body, and I spend 90% of my time stuck in bed, as even to sit in a normal chair causes unbearable breakthrough pain which can only be addressed by a complex interplay of opiate, tricyclic & anti-epileptic medications, at the highest permissible doses.

Despite this horrible & debilitating condition, and the burden of care laid upon my wife, despite sometimes great difficulties of various types, we have remained strong & our sons have grown to be wonderful young men. We haven't forced our faith on them, but they take some comfort in simple understandings of the faith, and incredibly they have never suffered a single nightmare between them, which has been an amazing evidence of God's grace & blessing. I'm not going to go into complex theological explanations of good & evil, God's hand in the universal creation, my understandings based on an a scientifically sound education & belief system - I see no contradictions between a correct understanding of the faith & evolutionary biology, for example, just to give you an idea of where I stand.

Continued below...

My disability has led me to wrestle with the desire to be productive, to develop an ability to bless others in the community if there is any possible way for me to develop financial independence & finally own a home of our own, for example, as we have been stuck in rental accommodation our whole lives to this point. Thankfully now there are signs that some of my entrepreneurial thoughts are capable of bearing fruit, and I'm blessed to have received support from mentors who work with charities designed to enable disabled people to create & operate their own companies, to seek independence & develop opportunities for ourselves & others. I have held the desire to leave a legacy to future generations of my family & members of the community, which has caused me to entertain complex thoughts on the ethical, moral, historical & humanitarian efforts of men & women who desire to shape history in a positive way, leaving the world slightly better than when they entered it at birth. I have realised that our independent earthly lives will leave barely any trace to future generations, our posterity is soon lost to the next generations, unless we are privileged to be involved in world-shaping events. Such persons as Winston Churchill & Abraham Lincoln will long be remembered, but we ourselves will likely fade from memory in two generations, or even less.

However, this is not cause for despair, and neither is it cause for us to simply "...eat, drink & be merry, for tomorrow we die..."

My faith has offered me ample evidence that despite worldly appearances of loss & forgetfulness, the slow fade from memory, the apparent purposelessness of whatever meager evidence & giftings we are able to leave for the next generations to remember us by, the truth about our heritage & posterity is that absolutely everything we live out, whatever we say & the best of our creative activity IS remembered, not by men & women, but by the incredible, mysterious, glorious & ineffable God who is above all things, the Alpha & Omega, the beginning & end. Our reward for whatever we may have accomplished is richer than any mind has ever imagined, being the very knowledge of God & relationship with Him. This reward is not given for anything we have done, in the normal way of thinking about how work/reward systems function, because it is available EQUALLY to both the man who built cities, the woman who cured cancer, the politician who prevented a war - and the humble, lonely old man who has gradually withdrawn from the world after a life in which he practiced simple human kindness, until he became too old to do so any more.

Your efforts on Earth are rewarded in special & unique ways, both while we live, and after we depart this world of shadows & moonlight, a darkened mirror in which we see dimly reflected the Reality of a loving, glorious, divine Creator. I want you to know - to REALLY know, that God is real, changing lives with rebirth, supporting by constant grace & the living presence of the Spirit dwelling within you & enabling all manner of wonderful things while you live out the remainder of your years on the Earth. The entire purpose of God for Mankind is summed up with a few simple scriptures. The first summarises the complex mega-thread of the Old Testament:

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

The second & third are from the New Testament, quotes of Jesus, summarising His message and the new covenant of grace, as follows:

John 13:34-35

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Matthew 22: 38-40

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

These are all that is required of us when we make a commitment to Christ, to a new life in God, living with the intention of sensible & holy lifestyles, yet knowing that we will always fall short in some way, knowing that forgiveness is indeed divine, and it is always available. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, if you will only turn your hearts to the possibility that God exists. Honest, open inquiry, personally, without need to be all formal & adopt an endless rulebook, without the need to give up simple pleasures such as wine & beers with friends, will reveal that God is not a punisher of wrongs, but a giver of blessing, when we trust, when we cease striving for perfection & instead live in simple love & humility before the ineffable & infinite, wondrous power of God, whom we can never fully understand, but whom knows & understands us fully, having accounted for every hair on your head, every aspect of your soul.

I hope that this thread may encourage you to become more rested & that it may help to reduce your burdens of anxiety, removing all traces of despair, knowing that God has promised to wipe every tear from our eye, a perfect & loving father who adjures us to come boldly before the throne of grace, in the perfect & complete knowledge that NOTHING can snatch you out of His love & care. This year has been horrendous, but we can establish hope for our future, individually & as one community worldwide, if we are willing to take up the promises which have been given to anyone who seeks with an honest & straightforward curiosity, with faith to hope & believe that the promises are true, and that they stand for all time & into eternity.

God bless you all, I pray that the legacy of 2020 is not that of pain & anxiety - instead, that a beautiful & uncomplicated understanding of grace, leading to faith, for your benefit & for that of all those around you, whether family, friend, even your enemies, may arise within us. Let's draw together & build somthing positive - without despair, instead with the expectation that God has planned to give each one of us "..a future & a hope".

Happy New Year 2021..!


FITO.

While I do not share your bible-based Faith I do respect it and I do believe in a higher power and the power of prayer. I am glad this connection happened to you and I wish you all the best in your endeavors and in the pursuit of your faith.

a reply to: Never Despise

Thank you for those words of encouragement - I greatly respect & appreciate your tolerant & thoughtful attitude!

All the best for 2021.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I know Christians are meant to sacrifice the ego in order to become one with God (to become all in all) and seeking legacy for honor is egotism (one would think) but what if the proper way to translate the spirit of honor in legacy, its true purpose, is to leave an honorable name for descendants to prosper from? If that is the purpose of the honor in legacy then it's not self-seeking. Think of all the prosperity some kids of famous people receive because of their names. If someone carries on with your will/spirit should they not use your name? Isn't that the purpose of doing something in someone else's names? So leaving an honorable name can't be purely self-seeking, I think.

a reply to: Bleeeeep

Christian or non-Christian, there is something that stands beyond "honor for posterity:" It's called "Doing the right thing."

a reply to: Never Despise

In Jesus' name I pray? (i.e. We use Jesus' name when we seek favor with God.) Honor seeks prosperity. To do the right thing is to honor bonds or the will/spirit(s) that create them.

a reply to: Bleeeeep

I do largely agree with you, with the caveat that the children should receive the majority, but not the total sum of our worldly possessions when we shuffle off this mortal coil.. I believe that we should raise & trust our children well enough that they should receive a significant portion of any wealth we have been able to accrue & utilise for good works during our lifetimes*, and I would only add that in terms of that financial overspill arising from our life's work, we should leave a significant financial gift/s for causes that were dear to our heart while we were alive. They will then hopefully carry on the good works that we have started, which they have seen as their example from me & my wife. I am already certain that both of them would do so, and thus I have no concerns on this point.

* As per the parable of the 'talents' (the name for ingots of silver in Biblical times), Jesus made it absolutely clear that financial wealth must be invested wisely, in order to generate a return that can be used to honour God (& it is clearly implied, to use as aid for people in need). Simply saving up our money is pragmatic, and we can potentially do some good here & there - but the ideal state of affairs is that we utilise wisdom to invest in funds that can delivver a return which is in excess of the original amount invested, on an ongoing basis so that we're able to give regularly & consistently throughout our time as people of means.

Going back to the eventual aim for which our financial legacy is intended, for example, I have already decided that if I am blessed with wealth in my time here, I will leave a significant gift to a charity which helps teenagers affected by homelessness, who need someone to back them & help to propel them into stable, productive living. As another example, my wife is a true animal lover, and she has decided that a modest gift to aid in setting up or running an animal sanctuary is on her list of causes to support in a financial legacy, if we are able to do so.

I would probably want to give 60% of my wealth to my children (& any grandchildren, who would hopefully thereby receive enough to give them a positive start in their adult lives, in trust for when they turn 17 - it will cover driving lessons, a flat deposit, a humble little car, vehicle insurance for a year, and whatever will be the equivalent at that time of $10,000 to spend in support of their college/ university education..) You will note that my gift to them would be to support their independence & security - all the things that would have helped me to establish myself as a young man, if I weren't affected by the crap psychological upbringing I had, which is partly to blame for some of the destructive choices I made as a teenager. In practical terms I lived in a normal lower middle class home, but I was psychologically affected by my father's failed parenting (my mother had left him when I was 4, so my brother & I lived with him, not with our mother, which is the usual state of arrangements following a divorce in the UK). My brother found direction & male adult support & mentoring through his friends' fathers, who were heavily involved with the local youth soccer/football team, and so he remained on a stable trajectory into adulthood, unlike that of my own disastrous attempt.

Naturally there is no way to foresee whether any of this is possible, but I have thought about it carefully, and my whole 'gestalt' in terms of intended entrepreneurial activity is shaped such that those aims are firmly in mind from the outset.

I didn't have a psychologically healthy upbringing. I have ultimately forgiven my parents some pretty awful things, though I know that I failed in my own accountability as a sovereign person who should have lived by the rules & didn't at the time. When I was 17 my father stated that he wished I would kill myself, to save the family the trouble of being involved with me. Thankfully my wife & I have been able to use the lessons of my childhood & adolescence to ensure that our children have a balanced, healthy outlook, with a strong moral compass & sensible habits in terms of the type of friends they keep, and the activities they choose to focus on as they continue onward towards adulthood.

We are very proud of them, and have confidence that with the sort of practical support outlined above, they will transition into adulthood safely & productively. We have never forced our religion upon them, but they enjoy a simple, pragmatic understanding of the importance of moral conduct, and they look back with nostalgia on the significant church events they have accompanied us in visiting.

So hopefully you can see that I've thought about all this in great detail, and although money is not the be all & end all, I am working with the intent to develop wealth that can be multiplied through investment, and if we are blessed with that wealth, then we will use it wisely both in life & at the time of our death, supporting both our children/grandchildren & other members of the local & global community.

In scripture it is said:

Proverbs 13:22

"A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children"

'Amen to that..'

ETA - I like the way you have described the Christian aim of apotheosis, which most Christians would decry as heresy, if they do not fully understand the messages contained within the Old Testament. As one good example of 'things most of us have not yet been led to understand' (I recently learned this after 20 years as a Christian) - Psalm 82 details the judgment pronounced against certain members of the original divine council of God, suggesting that the pantheon of the ancient 'gods' we are familiar with, were the fallen members of that original council, who would otherwise have had some decision-making authority in universal spiritual affairs (God was never pulling all the levers - His creatures were designed to fulfil useful, purposeful roles within the Kingdom).

In our times we see Jesus as our exemplar, our Lord, and we are supposed to surrender our ego & derive all our substance as sentient beings from His inner & all-encompassing divine love & grace. We fulfil our destiny as miniature 'gods' (as Jesus stated directly) if we do this & receive the gift of ascension to embody the Life of the Holy Spirit living within & through us. It's a depp teaching which I don't fully understand yet, though I trust in what I have learned & been led to understand through intuition tempered by scriptural authority. The clues are scattered throughout the text, and following those clues is the grand adventure of human destiny, becoming the highest possible expression of our God-given & God-sustained nature as a reborn, redeemed child of God. This paragraph can be seen as being the upper limit of my spiritual understandings at this time - I hope to continue to develop that understanding; a process which is entirely enabled by grace.

I think that the material world is irrelevant to a strong legacy. The weak glorify the rich and accumulate vast resources to the detriment of real wealth and without realising true worth.
Those who live in faith and die in humility to God leave a worthy legacy, fit for a king.

Look to the lords example, he left a legacy beyond words. That the whole world might be saved.

Money is lies, an accounting tool, that fails to take into account the true worth of things.

Fly. Your a fine example of this principle in action.
Are you happier now then when you were wayward?
Despite your poor physical health?
Because I read words from a man who shows a healthy spirit and a renewed humility.
Poor or rich. You leave a fine shining beacon for those you leave behind, when the great leveler of
Men calls you home to the ancient of days.

God bless you.

Remember, remember.

a reply to: Bleeeeep

a reply to: Dalamax

God bless you for your kind & encouraging words, I'm sure I probably don't deserve them!

In terms of the questions you ask, I must admit that I'm still a bit conflicted.. Having been so overwhelmed with my physical health condition for so long, and not just limited, but literally suffering through immense pain, it is easier for me to be tempted by the comforting thought of increased wealth, which would enable me to trial new methods of healthcare that could hugely improve my circumstances. Added to this as a primary goal (because if my physical health returned after all this time, I feel I could take on almost any challenge to support myself & my family) - the thought of being able to provide my family with the security they need to establish themselves in works of righteousness, brings me a measure of inspiration to be inventive, to develop ideas which might enable us to break out of our current state of being. We are poor, but not destitute - as it happens, the disability welfare I receive enables me to care for my family in a fairly dignified way. We are humble, we try to be satisfied in all circumstances - but there is always this optimism, this hope for the future, this faith that in some way God is going to provide the means to restore what the locusts have eaten.

I feel conflicted even wanting for this at times, wondering aloud if it is not rather my place to simply be thankful for the grace we have, to cease striving - is it wrong to want to better our circumstances, when all around us are people who are faring worse than ourselves?

I often answer these thoughts with the conviction that if our lot were improved, if I were able to develop the means by which to generate income, to generate wealth that can be invested, then I would set apart an amount of it for the communities which intersect with our lives.. I would want to be charitable, I would give to the church, I would donate to or create charitable institutions - but I would also want to invest in the possibility of bringing income & wealth to others, providing opportunities for others to better their own circumstances by establishing & maintaining enterprise, both commercial & in some ways social. I'm certainly not a leftist, but neither am I a blood-from-a-stone capitalist.

I'm almost 100% certain that God has begun to answer my prayers in this direction - I have dreams which seem to point out areas of weakness in my thinking, showing me subtle mistakes I've made in practical matters, not just spiritual ones. I've had visions of success, I've received prophecy which was so directly promising of the material success of my dreams of industry that I look back on it & wonder how I can have anything but faith to move a mountain! In fact, even just writing these past few sentences has caused me to recall that direct & unequivocal prophecy, which was spoken over my intention to start a business a few years ago.. I'm literally sitting here wondering in my thoughts at how on Earth I could have forgotten that promise of blessing. I'm sitting here renewed in my optimism, newly confident that there have been so many signs, that the slightest decisions I've made have seemed to come together in a symphony by which God is arranging all the details.

They say that life can only be understood backwards, but that it must be lived forwards, and indeed they say also that prophecy can only ever be fully interpreted by viewing it through the lens of experience. On this serendipitously brand new day of a brand new year (remarkable too that I came back to this thread today, I had not planned to do so), I am again encouraged by that word of promise, by those prayers of encouragement. I thank you for your words of encouragement, and I assure you that I have taken this to heart in a serious way. I'm refreshed by the way that everything has lined up (and there are details which I've not revealed here which are also remarkable tokens of portent, now that I look again at their possible significance..) I think God is moving upon the face of the deep in the overarching plan for our lives, and I commit myself again in trust to His hand & His Spirit's leading.

Blessings to all ATS on this New Year's Day, 2021.

May it be a grand & glorious year of promise & fulfilment, far above & away from the darkness & fears of 2020.