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.