Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1934-02-08
Growing Life
BY Henry Nelson Wefman.
Dealing With Common Things.


There are two kinds of knowledge
| that every man needs to have. All
the rest he can cast out. One of these
| is specialized knowledge. Every man
needs to know the things that pertain
to his own special kind of work If
| he is a garage man he must know
about all the different kinds of cars.
But if he is not a garage man he has
no business knowing about all the diff
ferent cars. If he is movie director
| he needs to know about all the great
movie stars. But if he is not a di-
rector he has no business knowing.
Every man must have a specially and
be master in that field. That is one
kind of knowledge.
The other kind is very different but
is just as important. Perhaps it is
even more important. There are GER
tain great summit facts pertaining
to every historic culture. Amy man
whose life is nourished by that cul-
ture must have knowledge Of these
summit facts or at least some of them.
Not only does he, need to know these
facts; he needs to contemplate them.
He needs to bare his heart and mind
and sensitivity to the radiance and
lure and Transforming power of them.
But he cannot do this when his vision
is dimmed with the dust clouds of
worthless knowledge and unorganized
interests.
James Stuart Mill once said that
this old world needs to be reminded
occasionally that once there trod on
this planet a man by the name Of
Socrates. The life and work of So
our Western culture. :. 1t would be
sad indeed if the time should come
when only philosophers and foolish
dreamers know what man once trod
in Galilee weary time ago.
The fostering and nouriShing of an
organized personality and integrating
purpose by exposure to summit facts
is the method of excluding worthless
things. What things are worthless
depends upon mans capacity to in
tegrate diversified and multitudinous
Experiences. How much he can inte-
CRATE depends upon what kind Of pur-
pose rules his life. What would de-
stroy the integrity of one mans life
would be only the needed sustenance
for another. But every man needs
from time to time to turn away from
his specialized field of knowledge and
all other interests and yield himself
up to profound appreciation of certain
summit facts. The summit fact above
all is God, the integrating process
of the universe.
By the time a man is forty or fifty
he should have discovered something
in life to live for which is more pas
sionate than love because inclusive
of it, more compelling than sex, more
relentless than hunger, something as
inevitable as death, and something
which will cast sunset splendor
over the darkness of death. Such a
life grows through the years by pro-
gressive indignation of common things.
To achieve such a life under the
conditions which prevail in Europe
and America today, one must know
| how to use his solitude in such a way
that his native endowment, his ac-
cumulated experience, his particular
present problems and the migrating
process of God can grow into that
unity which makes up his own indi-
vfduality. Also, such an organization
of life releases maximum personal
energy. Little things unorganized
wear us down to exhaustion. But
when these little things are intimate
ly integrated with an organized total
ity of interests, the same labor ex-
pended upon the same things leaves
us still Astounding in energy.