Effectual Appropriation of Human Creativity | Austerity, Posterity, Prosperity

Answering the Question -  What Do We Do, As Creative Beings?

Poignant and Candid Talk.., Austerity, Posterity and Prosperity, simplifys apparent complicated financial terms, but it’s all about economics! Presumed status in seasons and circumstances. Often delineates and perplexes ‘the haves from the have nots.’ So it seems!
This Talk, clarifies the definitive appropriations of these terms, and concepts. Austerity, infers sternness, contraction or restriction. Posterity implies future generations. Prosperity connotes wisdoms of abounding creatively with charity. Each asserts importance of the plights of life and the world, expressed in Psalms 33, (ESV). Each is interdependent upon the effectual enacting of the other, so to be fully accomplished. All encompass the broader spectrum of human existence and world economics, expressed in the profundity of men’s struggles of attaining status, power and wealth, “Let the rich say, I am poor and let the poor say, I am rich.” 

Talk Mentions -  Benjamin Roth’s Journal, “The Great Depression.”  Also, Novel, “The Letters to a Young Creator,” The Steve Jobs Archives; and wife,  Laurene Powell Jobs, contributor of the Introduction; and contributors, Paola Antonelli, Architect, Senior Curator and Author; and Tadao Ando, Architect. Also, the 5th Roman Emperor,  Lucius D. Nero. 

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Transcript

You, Life and God Podcast Radio - Welcome

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 0:45

Hello, you're tuned in to You, Life and God Podcast Radio. And this is Vicki. Thank you for tuning in. You are listening to a pre-recording of a talk that is entitled Austerity, Posterity, and Prosperity. It seems as though my friends said it would appear as though each of these terms are very complicated, but they are not. And again, you are tuned in to U Life and God Podcast Radio. And we are coming in a live recording. And we're so glad that you are listening.

Let’s Have a Talk.., Austerity, Posterity, and Prosperity - History’s Preposition.

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 1:38

We have a very interesting conversation or talk this morning, a little chat. And we're gonna sit casually to discuss some terms again that may appear a little complicated, but they are not. In essence, we're going to uh take some significant stances when it comes to in describing a period of history in which the world was debbed into some extreme circumstances that the world had not yet seen before, though there had been turndowns and wars, not to the significance and the uh substantiveness of a period in which mankind had was taken into the depths of horror. And we are sharing about this, and let's walk a little bit through, and we're sharing about it because our talk entitled Um Austerity, Prosperity and Prosperity. Posterity, not to be confused with prosperity, they seem significant in themselves. However, as we are compelled to share an encouragement and also challenging each listener, as we take us back a little bit, probably a time before you were born, and maybe it was a time of your grandparents or great-grandparents, a real life circumstance, in order to explain these three terms, but also as we say, to allow the Lord our God to walk us to the major points of what He wants to share with us on this day. Picture this: a time of significant economic boom in the world. The world was taken from, uh was being transitioned from world from dominance of uh agriculture or farming across the entire world. The world had entered into what was called the industrial age, and at the point of the industrial age, there was great movement of people around the world, and those seemingly who had taken advantage of certain technologies or certain um machinery when man was depending upon his hands and some animals to bring forth the creativity of farming, producing food and vital sources for mankind. And thus though the machinery, the supposedly ease of making that happen, but it is also, if we look at hindsight, it includes the necessity as humanity moves forward to the moments and times over the centuries to the point even closer to the Lord's second coming. Of course, our talk is based on the scriptures, but then of course, as we have been sharing, it's about life, it's about you and me, and thus us. It's about what we do in this world individually and collectively. I will have to say that we do have several points, and my friends, they are all connected. I will stop there where it says that man, uh, the world was taken from primarily dominance upon the produce, the production of what we planted in the soil by using primarily tools such as animals, such as horses, oxens, and even our hands. And then thus we began to learn that we can mass produce. In order to mass produce effectively, it also brought about new devices or machinery to do so. And thus man began to need different types of minerals in order to produce the machinery so that man's life supposedly would not be so labor-intensive. I'll talk about our ease of looking to devices to make life a little bit simpler, but we have found that it has also exposed us to some complexities of what that new life is. And if we really find ourselves finding time for relaxation with family and friends, I would have to say I'm I'm surprised.

Austerity, Posterity, Prosperity - What We Do, As Creative Beings.

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 7:48

Besides the connectivity to one another. But thus it ends with what do we do with how we are created? This is a significant point. And this talk about austerity, posterity, and prosperity says we don't know what to do with ourselves. However, God created man in his own image, and though we have there are many, many, many discussions over thousands of years and many centuries amongst ourselves and debated amongst theologians and philosophers about what does that really mean? In essence, simply put, for all of us to grasp, we are creative beings. When God had said to the man, be fruitful and multiply in the first book of the Bible. It was not just to produce of himself, it was also to produce out of himself ideologies and concepts, and I believe, which God gives them, and then entrusts to bring it forth. And we were uh led to uh peruse a recent publishing, a book that is entitled Letters to a Young Creator. That means you and me. And it's interesting because it spans across these letters, they are written by individuals that span across the world, and each one touches upon an aspect of what it is that we're supposed to do here in God's creation, beings that God created, with an enormous task to take care of, as God spoke to Adam, of the herbs, which Adam named each plant, substantially, and it ended up being also the flowers, etc. But um, so a huge task, and eventually the productivity or the creativity included offspring. But this talk is about austerity, posterity, and prosperity, things we don't probably think we'd think about, but we do live it out, and unbeknownst to us, I believe, over the years in the advancement of all of our intelligence, from labor being labor driven to mine thinkers. We've gotten that a little bit confused if I can be candid. And I'm going to let's talk about the basic definitions in austerity is simply put leanness or sternness, strictness or constriction, posterity is an essence future generations, and prosperity is not the abundance, and that's a key point, but what we do in abundance reminds us of a psalm, and see we've connected really this entire talk, and then we will expanse upon it. Psalms number thirty three. When man finds himself in one place or another, however, the influence is no matter where the world is at any particular time, the Psalms have a devotion, a praise, a contemplation, a reflection, a consideration of what God actually intends. When we put all these things together, ourselves, our future generation, and what do we do when God blesses us and we are bound? So in the letters to the creators, to a young creator that speaks to you and I, Steve Jobs, wife, indicated that really it begins with a question. Our questions. For when God plants a seed, our minds begin to peruse thinkings or concepts. It begins with a question. The output or the beginning of a seed being planted. That's being fruitful, my friends, and scripturally that's exactly what we are. And uh as a matter of fact, Jesus comes, his teaching speaks about being trees and how some will produce the number of a hundredfold. Is it when he spoke of that in the creativity? Was he speaking of things that we give to ourselves, individuals that we bring towards the Lord, or being used to dream, being drawn to the Lord, or does it mean something else? But in essence, the foundation is that we are creative beings to produce, to be used to draw, to be used to carry forth ideals, to be used to carry forth in an abundance to it overflows and touches and springs forth through others. It begins with the questions that one of the letter writers by the name of Laurene Jobs. We have others that are very significant, but this is gonna tie in a little bit more. This time in the world, we say picture this. We've made the three points, we've given three definitions, we spoke about Psalms 33, deep reflection on all three things, if one were to go and read and study, and ask God to expound upon it and with understanding. It's about what we do in this life. And then, my friends, we're gonna say hello. I am smiling as you are smiling, because this talk is about us, not us and them, but us, and also about what we do collectively and what we don't do collectively, how we respond collectively, and what happens in the response when one uh enters into a new age. But we're gonna use and continue to use the example as we walk through to the place of fully grasping what God is saying

- Excitement Exudes at the Cusp of The Industrial Age

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 17:54

now, walking through the point in which there is an industrial age that is on the cusp, many, many technologies being developed, and in its initial stage put into work. For some reason, there is an exciting air around the world from continent to continent, country to country, village, and towns to village and towns. There's a buzz in the air, activity, excitement, one cat. I believe it can't explain it, but I'm sure our four fathers felt it with excitement, light bulbs, electricity. I laughed about even though my father was born in the midst of it, how he identified it, uh, different um I call devices or different um equipment or technologies that were used that he carried it on into the 21st century and ended up taking uh taking something as simple as a phone, where we used to have just the phone in the house or no phone, or a uh phone in the for instance, either in the post office or at the corner, at the grocery store, at the bank, somewhere where we would go and call or the telegraph office. And my father, and this is an example, my father uh saw someone had called and overheard and was very chuckled, and I continue to share because it speaks volume of someone who's had a long life, but it speaks of man's advancement over the centuries from the industrial age to what we call the digital age, which we are in now. And he uh someone called and he was outside and they said, So it was two conversations. They said, Oh, I hear uh noise. Are you in your kitchen? He says, No, I'm speaking to you with the walking phone, and that was he was referring to the remote phone as opposed to the phone that's attached to the wall in the kitchen, and then another time he was speaking to someone, and it as well if you're at home, he says, No, I'm talking to you from my pocket phone, and that lets you know that he was referring to his mobile phone. That lets you know from a um from our perspective, how the mindset of utilization of devices that's how one described it. My father was still in a mindset, however, he was also very, very creative, and um history will share some of his creativity. However, um, it is the same for you and I. There is a buzz, and whenever there's a buzz, I have no idea whether it is a stirring up of God, men begin to move, and men began to move uh uh around the world. There was a lot of migration, man. In the early 20th century, or what we call the 1900s, a lot of migration. It said men moved from country to country to continent to continent, so there was a buzzing around, and then there was a booming, economic booming, because there was a necessity for manpower, there was a necessity to one to utilize the God giving minerals that was in the earth to produce the machinery, and this is again the creative, the young creator who asks the questions and then. His ideas, and even though it may be lonely, when it is brought forth, and the cre young creator is convinced of the concept, and begin to produce it. The concept becomes real, and the concept is now visible. People are stirred up with energy, movement again from one area of the world to another, because there are the necessity for labor to mine and to extract the minerals necessary for the machinery that is necessary to help produce whatever produce or product that these young creators have now become and beginning to bring forth like electricity, like the light, like the train, like the automobile. It was something that was magnificent. And then, and that's what we call, my friends, when man began to benefit not only the laborers, although they ended up being over time, it seemed as though that they were far less than others. It was different than the labor. Initially, they were benefiting as well, and were able to send for mama and papa in those other countries to uh from wherever they were, or they were sending funds to them. I tell you, the telegraph and the money exchange and the wire exchange of money was a big business. Banking and finance became a big business. So it seemed that many people were beginning to prosper. But then in prosperity, one thing that we I believe are still learning, and this is why we have this talk, is not knowing what to do with it. And then what happens is we collect and we consume, and then it becomes visible of a divide of the haves from the have nots. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The simple fact of not knowing what to do when God opens up the landscape and product or technologies or concepts are being manifested or brought forth into the natural or the visible world. Simply put, man begins to put to work that which he has thought of. So the underlying thing in this economic boom, which we seem not to really understand yet, is this thing called prosperity. Prosperity is in the Bible, it's scriptural, and of course everything comes from God, whether we believe it or not. No man is an island. And as a matter of fact, another person, I really liked this one by the name of Paolo Antonelli. He says it's vital for men, it's vital that we produce, it's vital for us to be creative, it helps keep us grounded. But what he says is that it also is vital because of the struggle. It is vital for us to keep our values. When the world begins to struggle, it keeps us grounded. This is actually what he says when we understand that we're creative beings put to work and bring forth what God said initially, be fruitful. But there are consequences and responsibilities. I am learning with this whole thing of prosperity are abounding. It's all God given. There is a man who wrote about an significant event around the world, and we won't be too much longer. Because I believe we understand where we are getting. Picture it. There seems that the world is entering into a new age. There are the rich and there are those who have and those who have not. And in all of the dilemma, what seems to quiet us in this economic boom, which unfortunately is very devastating because one does not know what to do with his riches, a lack of knowledge of what to do and prosperity, because it's taught by God. And Apostle Paul says, I know how to be abased, and I know how to be, how to abound. That also ties in, my friends, for all of those who still are, if that's you, or that's anyone who's listening, still questioning why God is a necessary, why God. And it also stands, not in a debate, but in the truth, to answer those who say God had just created everything and left us to our own creative devices. That is not so. That is not true. And this will say that what happens is that God, as Psalm 33, says, in verse 12, that I believe that God, at verse 14, God looks down from his dwelling, “the Lord looks down from his dwelling place upon all of its inhabitants, or upon mankind,” depending on what verse version you peruse. The following or subsequent verses actually says, because God knows, the Lord knows what we are doing and what we've made of, because He's given it to us. That is the response. And it's in a devotion to God and spending time and speaking of that is the interpretation of the Psalters, the Psalms, the prayers, and the praises, the adoration of God. But then we have, as the one uh um says about um uh man uh being responsible, what's so vital for man, it keeps us grounded, and it keeps us vital, it's very vital for mankind. And his surname was Attinelli Um Paulo, an architect and also a historian, and his advice to the young creator is is very, very grounded in itself to say that there's some responsibilities, you all. But then there was the spine

- Undercurrent’s Lurkings in Economics Boom

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 32:07

in the halves. Naturally, he was born rich. His name was Benjamin Roth. Benjamin Roth was naturally born in the upper classes, and he was born during the period of the onset of the industrial age. So he's seen from its beginning the effects on the world, and he happened to migrate to the United States, and in the migration to the United States, my understanding, when the world entered into an extreme economic boom, there was an undercurrent. And in the undercurrent there were rises of hatred in groups that foster segregation, foster classism, foster racism, those sorts of things. Fascis dictators began to rise, undercurrents began to be noticed in the economic boom because this term called prosperity, man has yet to know what to do and how to act upon it, besides accumulating it or consuming it. And that, my friends, you will know that is the cusp of our talk. Because prosperity and wrath, I would say prosperity is intertwined with austerity, and austerity is in the strictness of, and most of the time when there is a prosperity, we do not constrict our consumption, and that is the time to store up in prosperity. That is the time to store up, that is the time to remain with liquidity, if we want to think from a financial term, because Roth, in his um uh stance and his understanding, and in his comforts of his uh traditions of being raised and being um part of a family with a legacy of riches, he began to write when the world entered into what is called when the stock market in the United States busted. And that's what's not to do when we don't know what to do with prosperity. Because there, whenever there's a bubble, there is it's only a time in which it would burst. But instead, what happened is the world, particularly this particular new country, began to manipulate uh the actual value of um assets, certain assets, technologies, worth, etc., and began to utilize methods in which to assure up investments. Of course, have since been laws to change all of that, so we believe. But what happened was that the world had entered into some at the same time a significant industrial boom, where more people were becoming the rich. But then there was a greater divide, leaving room for those who did not have to fall under the scheme of wickedness and unrighteousness, of hatred, separatism, fascism, etc., etc. The rise of regimes throughout the whole entire world, including the United States, gained greater membership in almost every major country. There was a rise because we don't, because humanity has yet to know what to do with prosperity. And then Roth begins to write a diary, very interesting, that captured men's reaction. The devastation economically when one country devs into an economic bust because of manipulation of the economy and its produce, its product and monetary value. That's prosperity. What do we do with it? To manipulate, and unfortunately, what happened was the reaction ended up involving the whole entire world. If we ever heard about it, as a matter of fact, there was a film that came out of the Great Depression. It's called The Grapes of Wrath. But many about children falling into labors, child labors, men eating out of soup kitchens, etc., etc. And then the travesty of men who did not know what to do when the concept of perhaps being deemed a failure or having to file bankruptcy ended up looking at an alternative that was not of God, a hopeless alternative, my friends. This is not a talk about disenchantment, is one about encouragement to let us know that these three very seemingly complicated terms are very simple, yet they are connected, and yet they are also intertwined and aligned with the purposes and intent of God for men in this earth. Austerity, unfortunately, is an can also be used and has been used as an economic strategy when there's an economic bust. Unfortunately, it's the wrong timing. In the time of prosperity is the time when we should be exercising a little bit of austerity. And the reason being is because there are generations which are identified as our prosperity. Our prosterity are generations behind us. I mean ahead of us. Generations to come, the impact of what forefathers did at the turn of a new age. When God now begins to plant seeds of new technologies and new concepts begin to meet at the complicated intersections of, as one of the writers' letters to the young creator says, a complicated, very complicated intersection, of not only not only technology, but medical biology, scientific, humanitarian, very complicated intersection. And what do we do with it? Everything that we can ever do, including all of those God has created to be scientists and biologists and researchers, etc. Those who are theologians, etc., it is not to be separate from God as a creator. But as the psalmist says, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. It's very significant there because it continues in its adoration and in its reflection of you and me, and our purposes that are God given here, and our need. In essence, our prosperity, austerity, and posterity. When we do what God gives us, what we do in the good times and the lean times, and what we do to make the mark for the generations to come, and then to understand what it is when we look upon or look up or look back and understand. As Paul said, as John says, as David said in one of his writings, all things come from you. All things belong to God, and all things come from God, including you and me. Anything that we ever bring forth, it's not just for you and me. It is for us to be able to understand whatever amount God has given us, to exercise austerity in it, to be strict in it. And it's not for our um generations to follow the strictness of raising them, but the strictness of what we do, for we want also our progeny or our posterity to also be raised up and their God-given talents. What God birthed them herewith to bring forth on this earth, regardless of what it is. I will have to say I admire those who accumulate our junk, because God has given them the great eye to see value in it, things that we discard. Many have become rich. And many have found family heirlooms because someone saw something in a discarded item. So the richness is not necessarily in statue. And that again is a lesson, as Paul explains to us, being able to learn how to abase and how to bound. For God gets glory in both of them once we have taught have been taught by Him. You know, this is Vicky. And my friends, we are entering into a new age. The intersection when things of new technologies, when the invisible bulb becomes visible, like holograms. We speak in terms of AI, but that is just minor right now. That is our entrance. Well, as a matter of fact, uh the algorithms of um the digital age was our entrance. But we are advancing even more so from that. That is like the telephone where you went to the cornerstone store, and then now you are walking and talking with a phone that is not seemingly connected to anything but the air. This is where we are, my friends. We pray that we reflect. We pray that we continue to look and be well informed. Because God wants us to grow up, you all. We pray that there is joy because the Lord is coming soon. We pray that we understand where we are. There are dichotomies, you all, in this thing of abounding or the success. There are responsibilities for those who have not. For we do not want them to lay prey. We have to understand when there's there, there are the have nots, there are great memberships, increased, increases, and things that you don't in um clubs, memberships, and groups, fraternities that you would not think still exist. We want to put them down by being able to allow to the Lord with much prayer to lead in God, whether it is simply helping out to lead us and guide us, for there is much silence and much quietness in this place of uncertainty, we're in difficult and tumultuous times you are. And let us reflect and lean in much prayer for one another, for our leaders around the world. And we know in the Great Depression there was World War II. There were many people who've had fallen towards fallen in the rising of hatred. That's when an economic and a new age had entered. Let us reflect.

- Reflector’s Hindsight Needed in a New Age

Host, Vicki L. Thompson 48:51

Let us respond in much prayer and much calling of the God who is supreme over all, who looks down upon our devices and what we get ourselves into, who hears out of his temple our very cries, who responds as with Sodom and Gomorrah, who came down himself to see the wickedness. That was God presenting himself as the Lord. That is our talk. There is great responsibility and prosperity. And it is a time where we should become auster, we should exercise austerity or become austere in our decisioning and how we utilize the abundance, because it is not for you and me necessarily. It is to be built up, stored up for the lean tides and for our posterity for generations to come. This is Vicki. Thank you for listening. We are so great that God had compelled us to pre-record very complicated but necessary discussion, you all. So in the next time that God has called us to sit down and we have a talk, be extremely, extremely blessed because God has and knows what each of us have need of. Goodbye.