201202

201202 Challenge #8 - The Freedom to Make Friends

A wealth of relationships is better than gold -



A soul at peace with God is the treasure of any individual.
A nation at peace with its own soul is a shelter of the generations.
A world at peace with its own nations is the triumph of common humanity.
---<--@

In our last monthly exercise, we began a reflection on wealth by contrasting it with poverty of the spirit.

This second month of 2012, we shall proceed to reflect upon the quality of our earthly relationships as a form of wealth.

Truly, human relationships are the crowning glory of material riches.

For all forms of material riches are ultimately purposed by God to spiritually perfect and eternally fulfill each and every one of these human relationships from least to great until all are consummated in the LORD.

Indeed, when the purpose of our world is fulfilled at the end of the age, it is only the reality of our relationships that shall carry over into the beginning of all things new.

For the ultimate destiny of our common humanity is borne aloft not by any weight of gold but upon the wings of friendships - human, angelic, and Divine.

The vertical (heart to Heart) defines the horizontal and the horizontal complements the vertical (heart to heart).

- selah -

Now, the quality of our national life depends on (1) the order that contains, (2) the institutions that maintain, and (3) the vision that sustains the animating spirit that makes all our generations belong together into one peace, one freedom, one spirit and one heart. In other words, our relationships...

A culture of life is a culture of connection and a culture of connection is a culture of friendships.

No nation upon this earth may hope to prevail on its own.

Neither may any undertaking of Country mature (in its ages in time) in and of itself alone.

I want you to particularly bear into mind in this reflection the times from which we are now striving to emerge from - how we have, as nations, become quite accustomed to false relationships during the last great age of War.

The alliances of the past that fall apart in the absence of a common enemy - these were not the friendships that make our peace allied to the peace of all our kindred nations!

From our kindred peace, we prosper and the greater the peace, the more abundant the prosperity.

Therefore, it is important for each of us to personally reflect upon the relationships we keep (and have kept) as a nation among a family of nations. 

This is our freedom to make friends.

DAILY EXERCISE: Citizen, is our national community served best by alliances of principle or by alliances of convenience?