The Contented Man

#683

The Contented Man

At one time, I was supposed to be the most traveled man in America, eight trips around the world, covering every continent, past port stamped in 157 countries. In all this travel, more so in American than anywhere else, it is almost impossible to find a contented man. The drivers of my car tell me constantly how bad the traffic. Everyone rushing to get somewhere. Most traffic palatalizes occur just a few miles from destination. Most men, and I suppose most women, rush to get home in order to sit and do nothing. I find that most employees are more intent on “days off, then work days”. It is rare anyone who enjoys his work. I tell young people all the time to decide on a vocation or occupation which they enjoy. I can think of nothing worse than spending life in a job you do not enjoy regardless of the financial gain involved. Much more often, I hear the words, “I despise my job”, instead of the words, “I love my job”. The contented man is hard to find.
“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians: 4 11-12) This is my own philosophy, the contented man, the happy man, goes to bed at night, thanking God for a good days work, anxious to get up in the morning and start all over again.

A man had an ant hill in his back yard. Scripture tells us to watch the ants (Proverbs 30). One day a neighbor came over and said, “what are you watching? I see you here staring at the ground often and then you bend down low?” the man said, “I'm watching these ants,” One smaller than the others comes up to the opening with a straw which he cannot get into the whole. I want to reach down and help him. The neighbor said, “ You cannot do anything to help him unless you are another ant”.

Another man, living on a farm, did not care for the CHURCH. One night, his wife and daughter went to church although the weather was threatening. After they had left, he heard ice hitting the windows, an ice storm had hit. He began to worry about his family getting home. About that time, a gaggle of geese, alarmed and scared by the ice, landed in his field. He thought, “these birds will freeze in the field, I will open my barn doors so they can go in the barn.” He went into the field and tried to wave and challenge the birds into the barn. He could not communicate with them. He thought to himself, “I would have to be a bird in order to lead the other birds into the barn.” It suddenly dawned on his putrid brain, as his automobile containing his family came into the driveway, that this is what CHURCH, SALVATION PROVIDED BY GOD, HUMAN RESOURCES ARE ALL ABOUT “CHRIST SENDING HIS ONLY SON, ENCARNATE, CHRIST PUTTING ON A TENT OF HUMAN FLESH, TO LIVE, DWELL AMONG US, SHOWING US THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE” (JOHN 14:6)

In traveling the world, I have found that mankind is very much the same all over the world. Skin color, cultural traditions, regimens of behavior, native regalia, language, and other forms of communication may differ but the inner man, the caressed should responds the same whether on the sandy beaches of a south pacific island, the vegetated jungle of Africa, or the bricked streets of a European timeless village.

In the south pacific New Hebrides, I thought of James Meissner & Dr. Samuel Johnson The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, (1786) as I met men who tried so hard to communicate with me. On all these islands, Fig i, Tahiti, Samoa the world had discovered them, western technology had changed their lives. But they still possess the same human qualities and intrinsic native cultural practices that gave their lives contentment. I do hope that these victors over “indulgence” will never get caught up in the “Rat Race” of “opulence.”

Walking through acres of sweet potato fields, crossing streams on logs, my guide and I, visited New Genie settlements where the natives, wearing “Bird of Paradise” feathers, still had time to sing, play games, nurture children, and show affection toward everyone, including their visitors. In remoteness, whether South Pacific Islands, villages in Africa, Mayan ruins in the Indies, you still find contented men who have time to look at the stars, to actually appreciate the basics of living...looking at flowers that they may or may not have planted.

I own a office plaza. There are many trees on the grounds. I am convinced, as I told my cousin recently, that every time I go over to the buildings to check on things the many birds in the trees greet me with a symphony. I think they want to show their appreciation for my owning the trees by just “showing off” with much singing. How important it is to appreciate these mysteries of God...trees, flowers, birds. Those of you with sight should UN-busy yourselves long enough to watch the splendider around you. The British poet Francis Thompson, said “love is a many splendor thing”. I found his tombstone in a cemetery in London. He learned late in life to appreciate life around him, including young children. Helen Keller, born deaf and blind in her 1905 biography said, “I can not understand how people with their senses can go through life not appreciating natures sites and sounds around them. How often at a traffic light a car will pull up blasting horrendous music. People enveloped in an artificial environment of rapped beat, rapped sounds, rapped lifestyle...most assuredly, leading to a rapid demise.

Reared in the poverty, openness basic quantities and qualities of Eastern North Carolina, with all the connotations and denotations pertaining to basic farm life, I knew people, “the salt of the earth, contented to live the simple life not molested by wannabes or government regulations. It was nice to have things but contentment was more important. These people had never heard a great symphony, great choir, but their neurology was satisfied by the singing of old hymns of the faith. These people had never seen great wealth, great works of art, tasted gourmet food, but their taste buds enjoyed the wild berries, fruits and vegetables grown from unpolluted solid “soils throughout the central areas of America have become so polluted with chemical weed control, that now super weeds, like super microbes, undaunted by antibiotics, are taking over in this world of genetically engineered science”. These contented men and the women which they loved and loved them. Were content to have a cursory knowledge of world activities. To know that well behaved children were being educated not indoctrinated. Contentment lay at the end of a fishing pole, a child's laughter in learning to ride a bicycle, neighbors cheering at a community ball game. These contented men and women could follow a casket to a open grave knowing the celebration of home going, graduation of a soul from a life of toil. To celebrate its splendor in a heavenly home, because they believed in contentment...both in life and death.

Dr. Thomas R. Morris