My wife and I spent a marvelous morning at Kykuit, the Hudson River home of the Rockefeller family. While the house is magnificent, it is the gardens that take one’s breath away. It is the way everyone should live. But everybody can’t because somebody has to care for all those gardens. If we all lived like that who would we hire to care for our places? The Rose Garden, the fountains, the private nine-hole golf course, the topiaries, the ancient elms and beeches, and the carriage house are all beautiful. The carriage house contains the carriages the family owned prior to the automobile and finally a dozen or so cars from the first Tin-Lizzy to the cars used by Nelson Rockefeller when he was governor of New York.
One of the early cars was electric. Not a favorite of someone who amassed a fortune selling gasoline. As I looked at it I wondered what our world would be like today if all the innovation that was poured into the development of the internal combustion engine had been focused on electric cars. Would we have global warming? Would the Middle East play such a pivotal role in world politics? Would the Rockefellers ever own such a home?
It would be so easy with our hindsight to shake our fingers. But that is unfair. People in different times, with different information, with different insights have little right to condemn those of another era. According to Jesus we really should not judge people that live in our era let alone those of times past. Recently I heard a sermon really condemning the leadership of Israel for crucifying Jesus and I wondered what it must have been like for the High Priest to watch an uneducated carpenter tear away the very reasons for the existence of a priesthood. When Jesus told them to go into their closets and pray to “Our Father” the priests became superfluous.
Written by Roger Bothwell on June 27, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org