We Are Not Cold Atoms - 14
We are meant to be people in relation to one another.
I will answer these questions in reverse. God made us relational people. He did not make us to be isolated. We are not individual atoms knocking coldly against each other. We are made to be connected to each other.
This relational arrangement starts with the family. God made the family to be the bedrock upon which His kingdom and earthly society gets built. Families are the building blocks of human activity. He made fathers and mothers to be its governors. Its children are its members. The governors succeed when they love and train and protect and provide for and develop this human capital.1
One families’ human capital might look different from the next. A Gappa, for example, is likely to have a sense of humor which plays off of words. (Eg. “Papa, I’m hungry.” “That’s OK, I’m Czechoslovakia.” or as my dad used to say, “I’m semi-bulimic. I binge but I don’t purge.”)2 I believe he made that one up. He was funny. And it became part of the air I breathed.
A Gappa is also a reader. And we try to be writers. My dad was a reader. He also wrote from his reflections later in life. I can’t tell you if there are Japhetic or Nordic influences at work here.
I did learn that the Christianization of the Vikings3 contributed to the development of medieval literature in the Nordic regions. Christian monks and scholars began to write down and transcribe both Christian religious texts and secular sagas. This resulted in the promotion of literacy and education in Viking societies. Monastic schools and scriptoria4 were established to educate both clergy and secular individuals.
So perhaps the literary heritage of the Vikings had left vestiges in the Gappa spiritual, intellectual, and ethnic expression. Books are important to us. And I strongly support the scriptoria concept. I have a library collection of over 3000 books. Each of my children have also started their own collections.
To continue, a Gappa will most likely be juggling a few things at the same time (not always with success). My dad was this way. He was a teacher, but he also sold shoes at JC Penneys, plus he bartended. And on top, there were five kids in the house and mom. He called me lazy when I was younger. And you know how a father’s words can shape you, for better or worse? His haunted me. I don’t think I’m lazy anymore. I juggle many things too. Like dad.
Maybe, I’m still a little lazy. For sure, you don’t get away from wanting to please your father.
A Gappa is also entrepreneurial, these days. That was not in my dad. He taught for 35 years in the public school system. No business start-ups. Yet, my children are all working members of the family business (a products and services company) that I began in 2006. They also participate in a second business (real estate ownership and management) that we are all growing into with each passing day. We meet annually (and sometimes throughout the year) to discuss potential next business steps.
Most important to the idea of human capital, I hope my children and other descendants will be lovers of God. No matter what else. All human capital is spent and wasted if we live in denial of the Triune God who made us and governs us.
So parents are the governors, and in return children are to respond by honoring their parents through heartfelt obedience. As they grew into adulthood, they should take on mature responsibilities and perhaps get married and have children of their own. As mom and dad age, they should pay them back by providing for their care. Family relational bonds are the glue that holds together most successful multi-generational houses, including their businesses and their wealth.
Family is God’s key covenantal arrangement for taking dominion. It is the family that God has commanded to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And, to rule over it. This is a wonderful arrangement. The Church, alone, is the only covenantal institution that supersedes the family. One’s commitment to the Church takes precedence.5
It makes you wonder about the man who takes his family and up-and-leaves the church over small dissatisfactions. What does it teach his children about relationships? What does it teach them about the importance of Christ’s church? It definitely teaches them that dad is a leaver. It also teaches them that they can be leavers.
Human capital consists of the skills, knowledge, experience, and maturity of character in the members of the people of the family.
Someone struggling with bulimia binge eats (excessive eating) and then purges the food from their system by vomiting.
The Vikings of old are identified with the modern day countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
A scriptorium (plural: scriptoria) is a term used to refer to a specific room or area in a monastery, or convent, or other religious institution where scribes and monks copied, wrote, and illuminated manuscripts.
I base this upon the warnings Jesus gave about the potential that members in your own household could become your opposition when it comes to the things of God. Matthew 10:36-39 reads, “And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”