Sunday 5 April 2009

Sunday 5 April

Looking up a Machiavelli quotation yesterday, I found another author - have you heard of Bruce Barton? His ‘Quote of the Day’ (I think that should be ‘Quotation of the Day’ - but that’s another matter) was ‘When you are through changing, you are through.’ As I was looking for The Prince’s quotation on change, I thought I’d follow this up. I found Barton’s entry in Wikipedia which was fascinating - have a look at it here. He spent much of his youth in the Chicago suburb Oak Park, Illinois: the home of Frank Lloyd Wright and location of many of his designs including the Unity Temple: google it to see pictures of this wonderful early example of modern architecture.

Barton’s quotations are fascinating. He formed and ran a successful ad agency in the US - which probably says a lot about him. He is credited with naming General Motors and General Electric. He was a prolific writer of articles in magazines and newspapers on the theme of optimism and success - we could do with some of this now.

The Wikipedia entry for Bruce Barton quotes a letter he wrote to 24 rich Americans in 1925 asking them to match his $1000 to support ten students at the college he was connected with; ten students who would otherwise not get the education they deserved. All 24 replied with at least $1000 each.

In his 1925 book ‘The man nobody knows’ Barton retells the gospel story, recasting Jesus as a successful business executive. ‘Jesus picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organisation that conquered the world.’ I imagine this caught the spirit of the times, particularly in the US. There were critics of the book but it topped the best-seller list for two years. It is still available from Amazon. I wonder how Jesus would operate were he to return in today’s high-pressure environment.

1 comment:

Helen said...

DAY 40 – SUNDAY 5 APRIL:
Wendy and I attended the Evensong service - which was just perfect!(Thanks!) Sunday's action was to pray for those already being affected by climate change through floods, droughts and changes to harvest patterns. My prayers during the service usually follow the same theme(sorry!) and I have to admit it was a PS moment at the end of the service, when I remembered! I really must do this as a matter of course.
It was good to see you all last night - Come on Neta, dip your toe in the world of blogging, you never know you may like it!!
Hope you all have a good week?