When Are We?
The Modern Wisdom Crisis and The Mission of Lakelight
Mike Woodruff | Est. 3-4 minutes
When are we? I am not asking, “Where are we?” or “Who are we?” Those are also important questions. I am asking something slightly different, equally important and far less discussed. When are we?
When are you?
What is unique about this moment? In what ways are the forces and factors that are shaping you meaningfully different from those that shaped people in the 2nd century? How about those living in the 13th century? In what ways is your life today different than your life ten years ago? Two years ago? Has anything happened in the last month that materially changes how you should think and live?
In their efforts to get our attention, the news media is increasingly loud, lurid and angry. Does that change your world? Does it change your soul? How about your smartphone? Is it affecting your heart? What about the other interruption technologies? Do they change how you think or what you think about?
When are you?
I am raising the “when” question because it shapes the work of Lakelight Institute. We are trying to figure out how to live God-honoring lives in this rapidly changing world. Our tag line is: “timeless wisdom for a modern life.”
There are four issues informing our efforts:
First: We Believe the West is Suffering from a Wisdom Crisis. You’ve likely heard that “common sense is not very common.” The phrase has been around for a while. I raise it here because it seems more appropriate than ever. From where we stand, a growing number of people are adopting positions that are doomed to fail because they are divorced from reality and disparaging of history. We are drowning in information but shy of insight. We are long on data but short on sanity. What we lack is wisdom. Given this, we believe the way forward must include a foundation of the time-tested truths of the past. In a world that is addicted to “fast and new,” we want to champion “thoughtful and timeless.”
Second: We Believe the Past Shines a Light on the Future. I hated history until a college professor helped me see its relevance. Now I can’t get enough. In fact, one of the principal reasons I set out to develop a podcast on the one hundred most important people, events and ideas of the last three thousand years, is because I wanted to better understand today. It was increasingly obvious that the way to live thoughtfully and faithfully in the future involved a better understanding of the past.
Third: We believe the Modern World has Much to Offer: Because some who embrace history are dismissive of the present, we want to go on record in favor of the many upsides of modern life. We are not only thinking about things like antibiotics and anesthesia, we are also thinking about open markets and growing literacy. Does 21st century life have downsides? Yes! Things have been going wrong since Genesis 3, and there are ways in which science and technology have not only allowed us to grow more food, they have also allowed us to build bigger bombs. We are not offering Modernism a blank check. We are simply noting that there are many aspects of today’s world worth embracing.
Fourth: All of this leads us to state our goal: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life: In I Chronicles 12, we read about a group of people from Issachar, “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Our goal is to follow in their path. We are not the first people to do so. But it is worth stating that they are a model.
Moreover, our goal is not just to grow in understanding. James 3:13 warns against wanting to be counted wise – i.e., of building a reputation for wisdom. Instead it instructs us to, “Live well, live wisely, live humbly” because, “It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” (MSG)
Our prayer is that the work of Lakelight helps all of us live more faithfully to the glory of God.
© Mike Woodruff | This article was first published in Lakelight Monthly, December 2022 Edition
