If I Do That... (Soren Kierkegaard)

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Children (Eberhard Arnold)

It is children who lead us to the gospel… We are not worthy to educate them. Our lips are unclean; our dedication is not wholehearted. Our truthfulness is partial; our love divided. Our kindness is not without motives. We ourselves are not yet free of lovelessness, possessiveness, and selfishness… Only wise men and saints, only those who stand as children before God, are really fit to live and work with children.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

To Jesus in the Spring (Jane Tyson Clement)

Oh, break the chrysalis of doubt!
Plough up the clods of thick despair
And split the buds of ignorance,
And cleanse the winter-heavy air.

Create a tumult in our hearts!
Drive us to seek what we have lost,
Until the flame of faith again
Has seared us with Thy Pentecost.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Reconciliation (J. A. Comenius [1592-1670])

Strife - in philosophy, religion, and politics - has certainly gained so much ground that it is impossible for us to reconcile with one another. But it is possible to find reconciliation...by means of the foundation of all things, which is God. For he does not cease to be the same for all men irrespective of our differences, and his earth bears us all, even if we preferred to see that the ground would cleave asunder beneath our enemies.

The sun sends his rays upon us directly, paying no heed that we look askance at one another. The rose smells sweetly to both the Jew and the Christian - and to the Muslim too. And so God is God of all, and whatever he says, he says in the same manner to all that are ready to listen. If then we look to our own rules, books, and works, which we have made ourselves and which differ in many thousands of ways, we are irreconcilable. But if with due attention and honor we accept God’s ideas regarding our lives... reconciliation is easy.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

The Universal Struggle (C. F. Blumhardt)

Every individual who seeks the truth faces a struggle. Each of us has some sort of devil raging within, wanting to deaden and destroy something in us. We are all in danger of thinking we are doing God a service, when in fact we are just following our own will. That is why, over and again, we must tell ourselves: “Keep a tight rein on yourself! Stand by the truth when it dawns on you, even if it hurts, even when it denies everything the world has accepted as true until now!”

God’s kingdom comes through struggle and tribulation, the defiant challenging of the whole age. It is advancing, and people have no taste for it. But in the end Jesus Christ—the Truth, the Life, and the Way—will win. So let us be comforted; for the will of the Almighty shall prevail in our own time, as surely as in the time of the apostles.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Like Fire (Peter Riedemann)

A fire goes out before it really ignites if one puts too much wood on it, as those who work with it know. But once it really flares, the more wood one puts on it, the better it burns, so that even houses and whole forests are burned. When there is no more wood, however, it dies and grows cold. It is the same with love. When it is first kindled in a person, small troubles and temptations smother and hinder it. But when it really burns, having kindled the person's eagerness for God, the more temptations and tribulation meet it, the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes all injustice and wickedness.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

A Great Tide of Joy and Peace (Malcolm Muggeridge)

Dr. Christiaan Barnard's first heart-transplant operations, which caused so much excitement at the time, seemed to hold out the hope of replacing our parts as they wore out, and thus of keeping us on the road indefinitely, like old vintage cars. New hearts, kidneys, genitals, brain-boxes even, installed as and when required...

The resultant immortal beings would have no occasion to be raised from the dead as Lazarus was. Nor would Jesus' wonderful words about being the resurrection and the life have any significance. For them, there was no dying, and therefore no rising from the dead. Nor will those who dream of living without dying be attracted by, or even comprehend, the notion of dying in order to live.

Yet as I approach my own end, I find Jesus' outrageous claim to be, himself, the resurrection and the life, ever more captivating and meaningful. Quite often, waking up in the night as the old do, and feeling myself to be half out of my body, I have been vouchsafed a glimpse of what lies ahead. So placed, I hear those words: I am the resurrection and the life - and feel myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and peace.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

A Palpable Being (Louis Simpson)

I could never lose myself in the contemplation of an impersonal universe… Reality, eternity, is here and now. As for the future, there appears to me not a mist, not the vault of heaven, but a palpable living being with flesh and blood—the figure of a man who died two thousand years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem. There is nothing this man said that I do not believe…



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

The Son (Jane Kenyon)

The God of curved space, the dry
God is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother’s robe.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

A Revolution of Values (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world...

Yet it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities.

If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers around the world wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? That the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Voluntary Work (Che Guevara)

Our goal is that the individual feels the need to perform voluntary labor out of internal motivation, as well as because of the social atmosphere that exists. The two must go hand in hand. The atmosphere should help the individual feel the need to do voluntary work. But if it is simply the atmosphere, if it is simply moral pressure, then this just perpetuates what is known, for better or worse, as the alienation of man. Because then voluntary work is no longer something that comes from within oneself, something new, something done freely and no longer as a slave to work.

As we enter a new society, work cannot be considered the dark side of life but rather the opposite. Our educational task in the coming years is to transform work into a moral necessity, an internal necessity. We have to rid ourselves of the erroneous view—appropriate only to a society based on exploitation—that work is a disagreeable human necessity. We have to bring out work’s other aspect, as a human necessity within each individual.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Your Actions Here (Maureen Burn)

Why do people talk so much about heaven and hell? It’s unhealthy. Everything depends on your actions here: they can be one way or the other. You can help people, work for others, and be very joyous because of it. If you let the spirit of Jesus into your heart, then the kingdom of heaven is within you. But if you are out for yourself, you will be grumpy. You will never be satisfied, because you will always be wanting more.

It is the way we live now that should concern us. Certainly I don’t think one should fear. The old Persian Zoroaster says that ultimately Good will triumph over all. He will win over the Liar, the Evil One. So I think one should be joyful. And Teresa of Avila, the Spanish mystic, said, “Always be joyful. That is the only truly saintly state.”



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Only Then (Romano Guardini)

Thomas appears to have been a realist - reserved, cool, perhaps a little obstinate. He wanted proofs, wanted to see and touch. Then again, it might have been rebellion deep within him, the vainglory of an intelligence that would not surrender, a sluggishness and coldness of heart. In any case, he got what he asked for…in that state of unbelief which cuts itself off from everything, that insists on human evidence to become convinced. But nothing that comes from God can be proven like 2 x 2=4. It must touch one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit purged of self. Only then can it awaken faith.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Unless We Too Have Risen (C. F. Blumhardt)

So many people claim to believe in the Resurrection, and yet it means so little to them. It has no effect in their lives. It is not enough to celebrate Easter and say “Christ is risen!” Indeed, it is useless to proclaim it at all, unless at the same time we can say that we too have risen.

The long passage of time has brought with it a temptation to keep on speaking about Good Friday without being moved by it. We hear about Christ’s death, and we sit there bored, as if we were reading a newspaper. In fact, we would find a newspaper a good deal more interesting.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Christ on the Gallows (Elie Wiesel)

The SS hung two Jewish men and a boy before the assembled inhabitants of the camp. The men died quickly but the death struggle of the boy lasted half an hour. "Where is God? Where is he?" a man behind me asked. As the boy, after a long time, was still in agony on the rope, I heard the man cry again, "Where is God now?" and I heard a voice within me answer, "Here he is - he is hanging here on this gallows..."



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

It Could Cost Your Life (Edith Stein)

In the childhood of the spiritual life, when we have just begun to allow ourselves to be directed by God, we feel his guiding hand quite firmly and surely. But it doesn't always stay that way. Whoever belongs to Christ must go the whole way with him. He must mature to adulthood: he must one day or other walk the way of the cross to Gethsemane and Golgotha.

Will you remain faithful to the Crucified One? The world is in flames, the battle between Christ and the Antichrist has broken into the open. If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life. Carefully consider what you promise.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

A Question (Martin Buber)

“Where is the dwelling of God?” This was the question with which the Rabbi of Kotzk surprised a number of learned men who happened to be visiting him. They laughed at him: “What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?” Then he answered his own question: “God dwells wherever people let him in.”



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Whose Will Should Prevail? (Johann Christoph Arnold)

Terri Schiavo’s mother has taken care of her as only a true mother could. My heart also goes out to Terry’s husband. One can understand both of their opposing points of view. But I find it frightening when the State intervenes in such a personal and intimate issue. God is left completely out of the picture, and we are left with legal hair-splitting over a disabled person’s “constitutional right to live.”

That an intensified struggle over Terri’s life is occurring right at Easter highlights the message of Good Friday, and the death of Jesus. His crucifixion remains the supreme example of suffering that was not in vain.

In Terri’s case, there will be suffering on both sides, no matter how the controversy is resolved. All the more, shouldn’t each of us lay aside our opinions and agendas and ask what Jesus asked – that God’s will alone be done?



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Drowsing, Half-Faithful (Geoffrey Hill)

What is there in my heart that you should sue
so fiercely for its love? What kind of care
brings you as though a stranger to my door
through the long night and in the icy dew

seeking the heart that will not harbour you,
that keeps itself religiously secure?
At this dark solstice filled with frost and fire
your passion's ancient wounds much bleed anew.

So many nights the angel of my house
has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,
whispered "your lord is coming, he is close"

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time
bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse:
"tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him."



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Spring Cleaning (Meister Eckhart)

Jesus went into the temple and boldly drove out those that bought and sold. And when all was cleared, there was nobody left but Jesus. Observe this, for it is the same with us: when he is alone he is able to speak in the temple of the soul.

If anyone else is speaking in the temple of your soul, Jesus will keep still, as if he were not at home. And he is not at home wherever there are strange guests - guests with whom the soul holds conversation, guests who are seeking to bargain. If Jesus is to speak and be heard, the soul must be alone and quiet.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Roles with Our Names on Them (Barbara Brown Taylor)

The story of Good Friday is one that can happen anywhere at any time, and we are as likely to be the perpetrators as the victims. I doubt that many of us will end up playing Caiaphas or Pilate. They may have given Jesus the death sentence, but what about Judas, Peter, and all those who fled? Those are the roles with our names on them.

Whenever someone famous gets in trouble, the press focuses on his friends. Do they support him or do they say that they had seen trouble coming? One of the worst things a friend can say is what Peter said: We weren't friends, exactly. Acquaintances might be a better word. Actually, we just worked together. Not really even together. Just near each other. I didn't know him well.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

The Cry of the Deer (Patrick of Ireland)

also known as The Rune of St. Patrick

I arise today:
in vast might,
invocation of the Trinity;
belief in a threeness;
confession of oneness;
meeting in the Creator.
I arise today:
in the mightof Christ’s birth and his baptism;
in the mightof his crucifixion and burial;
in the mightof his resurrection and ascension;
in the mightof his descent to the judgment of doom.

I arise today:
in the might of cherubim;
in obedience of angels;
in ministrations of archangels;
in hope of resurrection...
in prayers of patriarchs;
in predictions of prophets;
in preachings of apostles;
in faith of confessors;
in innocence of holy virgins.

I arise today:
in the might of heaven;
splendor of the sun;
whiteness of snow;
irresistibleness of fire;
swiftness of lightning;
speed of wind;
absoluteness of the deep;
rock’s durability.

I arise today:
in the might of God for my piloting;
power of God for my stability;
wisdom of God for my guidance;
eye of God for my foresight;
ear of God for my hearing;
word of God for my word;
hand of God for my guard;
path of God for my prevention;
shield of God for my protection;
host of God for my salvation;
against any demon’s snare;
against all vice’s lure;
against concupiscence;
against ill-wishes far and near.

I invoke all these forces:
between me and every savage force
that may come upon me, body or soul;
against incantations of false prophets;
against black lairs of paganism;
against false laws of heresy;
against idolatry, spells of women, and druids;
against all knowledge that should not be known.

Christ for my guard today:
against poison, against burning;
against drowning, against wounding;
that there may come to me merit:
Christ with me, Christ before me;
Christ behind me, Christ in me;
Christ under me, Christ over me;
Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me;
Christ in lying down, in sitting, in rising up;
Christ in all who may think of me!
Christ in the mouth of all who may speak to me!
Christ in the eye that may look on me!
Christ in the ear that may hear me!

I arise today:
in vast might, invocation of the Trinity
believing in a threeness;
confessing a oneness;
meeting in the Creator;
From the Lord is salvation; in the Lord is safety;
Be thy right way, Lord, ever with us!

Translated by Oliver St. John Gogarty, revised by Dick Whitty



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Giving - from the Heart (Dag Hammarskjoeld)

The “great” commitment is so much easier than the ordinary, everyday one - and can all too easily shut our hearts to the latter. A willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice can be associated with, and even produce, a great hardness of heart. You thought you were indifferent to praise for achievements which you would not yourself have counted to your credit, or that, if you should be tempted to feel flattered, you would always remember that the praise far exceeded what the events justified. You thought yourself indifferent - until you felt your jealousy flare up at his naive attempts to “make himself important,” and your self-conceit stood exposed. Concerning the hardness of the heart - and its littleness - let me read with open eyes the book my days are writing, and learn.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Unless You Become a Child (Johann Christoph Arnold)

Children meant everything to Jesus. When his disciples quarreled as to who was the greatest, he put a child in their midst and said, “Unless you become like one of these little ones you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” And Isaiah, speaking of that same kingdom, said, “The lion and the lamb shall lie down peacefully together, and a little child shall lead them.”



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

However Hidden (Annemarie Wächter)

What I am looking for is a life lived in the spirit of the kingdom of God. And that kingdom is not a vague, faraway ideal; it must be lived and fulfilled now, today... There will never be social justice as long as we merely give up a small part of our possessions and keep the greater share for ourselves. Doesn’t every person have the right to such a life? Is there not in every one a longing for light, for God, however hidden?

Obviously it will demand a struggle against one’s selfish human nature; against the comforts of self-satisfied tranquility. Such a life requires the readiness for sacrifice, privation, and even martyrdom. Christ died on a cross, and his death did not relieve us of the necessity of going the same way. It was an example for us to follow.

I am so tired of today's sweetly gushing Christianity; of false enthusiasm and empty phrases! But I am also thankful to have found a knowledge of the burden and bitterness of Christ’s way. It is a way of conviction and faith and therefore of action, and that is what makes all the difference.



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

What Christ Asks (Soren Kierkegaard)

If you have any knowledge at all of human nature, you know that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors. The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness; but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Admiring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be changed into exactly the opposite, to hate, jealousy, and revenge. Christ, however, never asked for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. He consistently spoke of "followers" and "disciples."



Peace Forever,
Firacub.

Keeping Watch (Philip Berrigan)

“May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” - Mark 13:36

As I ponder this passage from Mark, my thoughts return to the winter of 1943, to a nineteen-year-old draftee at Camp Gordon, now Fort Gordon, Georgia. The old Springfield rifle is heavy, the Georgia winters are damp and cold and dark and - Lord, Gawd! - I've gotta walk guard for four hours. And do I ever watch! I watch for the officer of the guard. If he hears a weak challenge ("Halt! Who goes there?") or finds me forgetful of the password (Geronimo) or hiding or smoking, it's weekend KP for a month. The minutes and hours drag agonizingly by. I'm cold to the bone. Do I ever watch for six in the morning and the dawn!



Peace Forever,
Firacub.