A version of this post first appeared in Vol. 145 of Light Reading, our weekly email newsletter. If you would like to receive messages like this every Sunday, please send an email to info@christinst.org.
Last Monday was the 214th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, a president who has long interested me. I was always fascinated by his era, the 19th century, particularly as it relates to frontier, innovations in technology and human thought, and conflicts like the American Civil War. As I've matured, I've come to recognize Lincoln as more than a statesman. He was a person of tremendous feeling and hidden strength, both of which were necessary during his turbulent presidency, as was his remarkable talent as a wordsmith. In fact, Lincoln was likely the most skilled writer who ever inhabited the White House.
That is far from an original concept. Lincoln's mastery of words was praised in his time, and his heartfelt letters revealed him to be a leader with a soul, which manifest as humility, kindly wisdom, and a great and terrible vision beyond himself. Further, Lincoln's skills as an orator were legendary then and now, and I imagine it's hard to find any student of speech writing in English who cannot recognize the opening to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
However, out of Lincoln's writing, my favorite piece is the conclusion to his first inaugural address, which reads:
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
With the drums of war already pounding on the continent, Lincoln's first official speech as Commander in Chief was as much a declaration of intent and a reminder of national identity, as it was a plea for peace and unity from an unquiet country. Just as the Gettysburg Address gave us “four score and seven years ago,” the first inaugural gave us “the better angels of our nature,” and that is the phrase I wish to examine today.
When Lincoln made that statement, he was not appealing to the country's history, to patriotic duty or to political logic. He had made those arguments before. This time, he was appealing to the higher identity of every member of his audience, to their better natures—to their ideal selves, the selves who recognized wisdom, compassion and peace, the selves who expressed those values, the selves who were sometimes forgotten or ignored in hotheaded moments. Lincoln clearly believed that such selves existed. He would not have bothered engaging those selves, nor would he have closed to the speech, if he thought otherwise.
Something you might have seen making the pop psychological rounds in the last few years is the phrase “living one's best life.” That can be a harmless, even healthy, concept, when it encourages fitness, wellness and self-actualization; but it can also lead to self-indulgence when used as an excuse for pursuing desire rather true betterment.
Lincoln's concept of a better nature is more spiritually mature than a best life because it is expansion, cohesive and holistic, concerned with others as well as the self, concerned with eternity as well as the present. It is not strictly of the material world, which is why Lincoln likened it to angels, placing it above pure physicality. Our better natures are lighter and loftier than dense material, but that does not mean they are out of reach.
In his letter to the churches of Galatia, Paul noted that through Christ identity we became closer to God. That was why Christ identity superseded the petty differences we saw on earth—Jew and Greek; slave and free; male and female. All were truly one in Christ. God is one. All are one. Lincoln recognized a similar unity through his earlier allusion to mystic chords of memory stretching across time and space, connecting us all to truth, to potential, to something greater than ourselves.
We might not have a responsibility to hold a country together the way that Lincoln had, but we have a similar responsibility to own identities and destinies. Because of its connection to Divinity, it is a sacred duty, and to shirk it is only to hurt ourselves. It is a responsibility to our complete identities, to our future, to our purpose. It is expressed through self-awareness, unfoldment, and a commitment to the Christ values of humility, wisdom, compassion, creativity, peace, infinity and unity. With a vision of its power and purpose, it is ours to attain.
Let us pray:
Dear God,
Thank You for our better selves.
Thank You for those who we see
Pointing the way forward
When we look back.
Thank You for our higher selves,
Transcendent but never beyond reach.
Thank You for the mystic chords that connect us:
One to all;
All to You.
Amen.
“Christ is the Spirit of God animating creation and enriching the soul of the world. We live in Him and He lives in us as our divine and all-pervading self. Through Him God vested in us the perfection and might of being. The kingdom of being is the throne of virtues, and human virtues are the spiritual powers that emanate from the impulse of Christ. God created our eternal virtues, and the Christ Spirit enables and empowers us to live them spontaneously as the glory and radiance of being human.” - Hanna Jacob Doumette, “Psalms For Today”