“Our deepest fear is not that we
are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is
our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to
be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There
is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure
around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make
manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's
in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.”
“An
immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no
humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too
hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an
effort to win a soul for God.”
- Author Unknown
There is something that tears at the very heart of me
when I see American teens emptying out of their public schools and then rioting
in our streets - teens from public schools leaving their “educational
facilities” and then robbing, looting, destroying property, and all the while
attacking and assaulting police in the process.
What’s happening in this country? Or should the question
rather be: “What’s not happening in this country?” To cut to the chase here,
are these students in Baltimore public schools, or in public schools anywhere
in America, being taught the substance of the Marianne Williamson quote above?
What is that the substance and foundational core of that quote? It is that you
are a child of God made in His image, with a soul therefore of inestimable
value - a soul therefore with power beyond measure because it is capable of
making manifest in this world the Glory of God that is within it.
This is what is not being taught in the public schools of
this country. This is what is not happening in this country. The young today in
the USA do not know their inherent dignity as children of God made in His
image, the inestimable value of a soul that has the power to mirror the divine
in this world. There is no limit to God. So also, there is no limit to a soul
made in His image. There is no limit to how high that soul can reach, no limit
to how far that soul can go on a journey to excellence for love.
When liberal minded educators today remove such teachings
from our public schools because of their biblical basis, tragedy happens. When
they forbid the teaching of such foundational truth, spurn such core values
like a student’s dignity as a child of God made in His image, the stage is set
for societal collapse. It becomes only a matter of time before the disturbing
images from Baltimore begin to spread like a disease throughout our country,
before the moral and spiritual decadence those images represent become the norm
throughout our nation.
But where educators and professors do teach this foundational
truth, the biblical concept of a student’s dignity as a child of God, amazing
events happen, even miracles happen. People’s lives are transformed, elevated
to the heights of the extraordinary, to the heights of excellence. I think of
such real life miracle stories as those captured in films like “Stand and
Deliver”, “Coach Carter”, “Freedom Writers”, “Miracle”, and “Dead Poets
Society”.
In each of these films an educator or a coach dares to
think differently, to think “outside the box” of what the liberal agenda allows
or what a godless curriculum demands. The educators in each of these films
build their teaching efforts upon the biblical truth of human dignity (Gen.
1:26-27): that their students are children of God made in His image. They respect
this inherent dignity of each and every one of their students. Accordingly,
they set goals and expectations that “raise the bar”, that summon their
students to reach for a level of academic and athletic performance representing
nothing less than consummate excellence.
The results are phenomenal. In each of these movies –
save one (“Dead Poets”) - the stories told are based on real life accounts.
Each film narrates a tale of incredible events that unfold in the lives of
students taught their inherent dignity; in the lives of students called to high
expectations – called to reach for dreams, goals, and noble aspirations only
capable of a soul made in the divine image.
In essence, each film simply tells story of students
realizing their innate dignity – of students realizing their “power beyond
measure” in the pursuit of the extraordinary (So Professor Keating’s term in
“Dead Poets”), the “uncommon” (Herb Brooks term in “Miracle”), the outstanding,
the prodigious, the arcane; of realizing the inestimable value of their lives
and their souls in the actual achievement of works indicative of nothing less
than consummate excellence, even genius.
So America, wake up! Our educational efforts with youth
today are doomed as long as our schools exclude from the public forum all
reference to God, His word, and biblical values. That word and those values
have been throughout our history the basis of our law and the bedrock and
foundation upon which our society stands. But now we are building our future on
sand, and as such our posterity will only “inherit the wind”.
Even now, all-pervasive throughout our land is a
generation of youth that no longer understands the power and potential of a
human being made in God’s image. In fact, in our society’s darkness attitudes
toward human life have gone deeper and deeper into the night. Turning from the
Light of God, it is a society sick and blind that sees human life as cheap, not
good enough; that treats the child of God as trash and not treasure, as a piece
of junk and not as the jewel they are in the eyes of Christ, as a piece of
cheap glass and not as the diamond they are in the heart of the Father.
Given the rejection God and Heaven widespread throughout
America today, our society already sees, feels, and experiences what the lost souls
feel in the torment of Dante’s Inferno – that they are “no one”, and therefore
expendable, disposable. How many among us feel nothing less than this today?
How many in fact feel that they are disenfranchised, cast out, forsaken; or,
that their life is cheap, of little worth, easily to be left out or discarded?
What else can one feel in a society that yawns in the face of abortion, in a
society that stands silent in the face of ISIS slaughter, in a society obsessed
with violence in its media, amusements, and movies?
But there is something else among us that one can know
and feel. In schools where the teaching of God and His Christ are honored,
there is something else that people still experience in most dramatic ways. Students
in particular still experience their inestimable value and dignity, the
transforming power of the human soul made in God’s image. It is “power beyond
measure”, a power within every person that impels us to reach for and achieve
brilliance, beauty, wisdom, ethereal truth, love like only God can love. It is
Power, a Spirit within, that exalts each of us to the heights of the divine; a
Power, A Spirit, that like a “wind beneath our wings” enables us to climb the
sky and perch on mountain peaks – all toward the end, the goal, the dream, that
each of us can do what we were born to do: reflect in our own unique way the
Glory of God within us all.
