Inside my head one thing leads to another. I borrowed the movie
"Bicentennial Man" from the library and the robot character Andrew, played
by Robin Williams finds a phonograph in the basement. It was made by the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, NJ. I’d seen a few of these in
museums. As I watched the robot with the record player I remembered something from the wall of a local diner. It was a framed ad that Victor
had placed in the April 1909 edition of Theater Magazine.
The ad lamented that other than a note written by Jenny Lind in
June of 1851 we have no audible record of the amazing solo voice of the
opera singer. A year before P.T. Barnum had launched her career with great advertising skill. 40,000 people greeted the ship carrying the
"Swedish Nightingale" to New York harbor. Even though "Lindomania" only lasted 2 years, she set the fashions not just for women artists, but most
women" throughout the 1850s.
The phonograph company ad alleges that they could have preserved
her voice. We don’t doubt it. Yet the ad goes too far. They pretend that
they could have preserved her fame – just as they were doing that of the great singer Tamagno. Tamagno? Yes, my point exactly! Fame is fleeting.
Some people go to great lengths to impress their world, only to find that tomorrow brings the rise of a new candidate for stardom.
Victor was wrong and now with modern sound technology even their
name is receding from our memories. They became RCA-Victor and were later enveloped by Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Their famous logo – the dog
listening to the horn of the phonograph – some remember it as "His
Master’s Voice", was purchased by EMI. Black vinyl records, 78s, 45 singles, long playing records, 8 tracks – all these have been and gone.
How do you feel when a teenager asks you about "those big black CDs you used to have in your youth"?
English hymn writer Isaac Watts touched on this temporary nature of
the present when he wrote: "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all
its sons away. They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day." I believe you are not an adult until you have come to terms with the
brevity of this sojourn on earth. You are here for only a moment in the life of the universe. This being the case you may want to pay attention
to the last verse of Watts’ poem. It’s a prayer: "O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be Thou our Guard while life shall last
and our eternal home." Perhaps you haven’t prayed in a while. Recently through the power of video I was able to observe the daily
life of some of the soldiers in Dog Company of the US 7th Cavalry. The documentary covered operations to pacify Southern Bagdad. Unashamedly
they gather for prayer before every mission. The possible brevity of life is known to soldiers and they need no prompting to pray.
Many of us live at ease. How easily the provision of health or
sufficient to eat causes us to take our eyes off the eternity that awaits
us. Despite this we still fritter away mental energy on what has only small returns. Fretting about enough money for a vacation or worrying
that the roof might leak next year, obsessing that the kids dance, ride or swim well enough to be famous, clamoring for peer recognition, does
this sound like you?
Your fame and mine is likely to decline. Your savings might outlast
your life-time, but no promises! The number of people at your funeral
will be directly proportional to the state of the weather that day. None of these things matter when you live with eternity in mind. Jesus told a
story of a prosperous farmer who could retire early after spending all his energies on temporal advancement. In the tale God calls the man a
fool because he’d spent no time and effort on his soul and besides, in his case an early death awaited him.
Lay up treasure for yourself in heaven where moth and rust can’t corrupt it and where thieves can’t steal it.