Legacies
August 2026 - Bruce Fairbairn, Elder
I’ve lately been thinking about the major and minor impacts people have on those around them and in the larger community. It led me also to ponder about my impacts on family and friends and what my personal legacy might look like after I depart this world. History records the great impacts for good or for ill that well-known figures have made on their own times. Two who made important and lasting impacts for good came to mind: Abraham Lincoln and Johnny Appleseed. Lincoln is a personal hero of mine and Johnny has long held a particular interest for me.
Nearly every American (and many around the globe) knows the tremendous and continuing impacts Abraham Lincoln had on our country and, indeed, the world. What many do not know is that he suffered from major spells of depression during his lifetime, probably never worse than in his early thirties. Lincoln’s hoped-for political career was in shambles, his legal business on a downward slide and his engagement to the vivacious Mary Todd was broken.
Friends feared he may commit suicide and he confided to one “I am now the most miserable man living. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.” He told his friend that he was willing to die but had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had ever lived. He therefore wanted to live, fueled by a personal desire to leave the world a better place for his having lived in it. Lincoln overcame his depression and, as they say, ‘the rest is history.’
Johnny Appleseed (nee John Chapman) is not just an image from American folklore, but a real person who traveled the American frontier in the early 1800s. He planted numerous apple orchards and distributed thousands of seeds to people living far from civilization. He was widely recognized as a good and friendly spirit spouting the Gospel on occasion and moving easily between the pioneer settlements and the Indian tribes still prevalent on the frontier. In a quiet and simple manner, Johnny Appleseed is credited with significantly improving the diet and health of those on the frontier. Many statues and markers commemorate his tireless journeys on foot through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, including a fanciful modernistic sculpture in our own Spring Grove cemetery.
At grad school, I met a descendant of his who related stories from family folklore about this eccentric, kind and gentle-hearted man. Soon thereafter, I was hiking off-trail in the wilds of southern Indiana and came across an abandoned apple orchard literally in the middle of nowhere. The fences were fallen down and decayed, but you could see that they were split rails laid out in the old-fashioned zig-zag, cross-hatch pattern popular on the early frontier. The grass was more than knee high around dozens of beautiful tall apple trees. They had evidently not been tended for many years, but continued to yield a bumper crop of large bright red apples. I picked one off the ground and it was delicious. Although the odds are against it, I still like to think that the fore-bearers of those trees originated from Johnny’s bag of seeds!
The Bible is replete with the histories of real people that impacted their times and places, leaving personal legacies for good or for ill. The apostle Paul left a huge and continuing legacy through his letters and church-planting efforts. In those letters, Paul cited numerous church workers like Timothy, Priscilla, Aquila, Phoebe and Epaphras who contributed to the growth of the early church and whose efforts still resonate in the Church today. What about us, the people of Crestview and our personal legacies in this time and place where God planted us? Scripture tells us we each have God-given
purposes and good plans to prosper us and give us hope and a future. Lincoln’s desire to leave the world in a better place seems a most worthy ambition.
Of all those who have walked the earth, Jesus undeniably had, and continues to have, the greatest, enduring and eternal impact. Consider the words about Jesus in Reverend Dr. James Francis’ essay One Solitary Life: “I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.” In a sense, the communion we share every month is a continuing legacy availed to us through Christ’s love and grace. When we gather around the Lord’s Table, we celebrate the free gift of salvation through His sacrifice and are energized to continue the good work through the Spirit.
Bruce Fairbairn – Elder
