{"id":4099,"date":"2024-10-16T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T11:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4099"},"modified":"2024-10-16T07:06:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T11:06:00","slug":"the-legacy-of-a-world-changer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/16\/the-legacy-of-a-world-changer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legacy of a World Changer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Pinky<\/em>: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain:\u00a0 <\/em>The same thing we do every night, Pinky.\u00a0Try and take over the world!

That was the opening exchange of every episode of Pinky and the Brain<\/em>, the iconic 1990s animated series about a pair of genetically enhanced laboratory mice.

Every now and then, somebody\u2019s maniacal dreams of total domination almost come about in the real world.

There\u2019s Alexander the Great.\u00a0And Genghis Kan.\u00a0And Napoleon.\u00a0And Hitler and Stalin and Mao and the current unhinged regime of North Korea.

But for sheer audacity, it\u2019s hard to top Saparmurat Niyazov, a name that barely registers here in the United States. Niyazov ruled Turkmenistan, one of the satellite nations under the jurisdiction of the former Soviet Union, from its liberation in 1990 until his death in 2006.\u00a0

To say he put an indelible personal stamp on his homeland would be an understatement.\u00a0

Niyazov changed his last name to Turkmenbasy, which means \u201cFather of All the Turkmens.\u201d\u00a0He imagined himself the benevolent Father Figure for his five million fellow citizens.\u00a0Turkmenistan was soon awash with statues and portraits of the supreme leader, whose face likewise appeared on every denomination of money.

He renamed the days of the week and the months of the year.\u00a0April was actually renamed after his mother.\u00a0While he was on a roll, Niyazov eliminated the word \u201cbread\u201d from the Turkmen language and substituted his mother\u2019s name instead \u2013 a not-so-subtle reminder that by giving him life, she now fed the nation.

Niyazov didn\u2019t care for algebra and physics, so he banned them from schools.\u00a0He also outlawed the internet, libraries, and freedom of the press.

The dictator furthermore banned beards, smoking, recorded music, ballet, chewing tobacco, the circus, opera, symphonies, and the National Academy of Science.\u00a0He summarily ordered the arrest of artists who had lip synced their own music at a concert.\u00a0Now that\u2019s a law we can all get behind.

Niyazov, not wanting to be left out of the music scene, wrote a new national anthem to be sung at all major national events.\u00a0The song is a hymn of praise to Saparmurat Niyazov.\u00a0

He ordered the construction of a 250-foot tall \u201cNeutrality Arch,\u201d a towering marble structure topped by a $12 million golden statue of himself. The statue is affixed to a mechanical axis that rotates 360 degrees every day so its face is always looking toward the sun.\u00a0

Niyazov wrote a rambling \u201creligious book\u201d called Ruhnama <\/em>(for which he renamed the month of September).\u00a0He was so pleased with the result that he awarded himself the National Award for Literature, and ordered that approximately one third of every child\u2019s public education should focus on the study of his words.\u00a0

The great ruler then insisted on adding a few questions about Ruhnama <\/em>to the driver\u2019s license exam, and announced for good measure that anyone who read his book cover-to-cover three times would automatically be granted entrance to heaven \u2013 as if Peter had handed him the keys to the kingdom and said, \u201cI\u2019ll let you take things from here.\u201d

There\u2019s nothing like a healthy dose of self-confidence.

Given the chance to be like Pinky and the Brain and take over the world, some leaders simply can\u2019t resist.

Which is what makes the behavior of the real King of the Cosmos so remarkable.

Jesus arrived on earth without so much as a carry-on bag.\u00a0There was no smoke, no fire, no pomp, and no circumstance.\u00a0His life and ministry can be described as \u201chumble,\u201d a word rarely attributed to supreme leaders.

When the apostle Paul was searching for a way to answer the all-important question, \u201cHow exactly are people supposed to live?\u201d he reached for what many Bible scholars identify as a pre-existing Christian creed or hymn. Paul himself may have written it. We read in Philippians 2:5-8:

\u201cThink of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn\u2019t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became\u00a0human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn\u2019t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death\u2014and the worst kind of death at that\u2014a crucifixion.\u201d<\/em>

Jesus did indeed plan to take over the world. His revolution, however, would not be driven by raw power but by unconditional love. He didn\u2019t leave behind a radicalized school curriculum, a self-serving autobiography, or a slew of golden statues. His most tangible contribution would be the changed hearts of his followers.

His legacy, in other words, turns out to be us.<\/em>

Which, when you think about it, is a pretty risky strategy for trying to take over the world.

And the most amazing thing of all?

He insists that it\u2019s really going to work \u2013 and that we\u2019re just the ones to make it happen.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?Brain:\u00a0 The same thing we do every night, Pinky.\u00a0Try and take over the world! That was the opening exchange of every episode of Pinky and the Brain, the iconic 1990s animated series about a pair of genetically enhanced laboratory mice. Every now and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[825,824],"class_list":["post-4099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-humillity","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4101,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions\/4101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}