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“For commitment to the Good is a whole-souled decision, and a man cannot by the craft and the flattery of his tongue lay hold of God while his heart is far away. No, for since God is Spirit and truth, a man can only draw near to him by sincerity, by willing to be holy, as He is holy: by purity of heart. Purity of heart: it is a figure of speech that compares the heart to the sea, and why just to this? Simply for the reason that the depth of the sea determines its purity, and its purity determines its transparency. Since the sea is pure only when it is deep, and is transparent only when it is pure, as soon as it is impure it is no longer deep but only surface water, and as soon as it is only surface water it is not transparent. When, on the contrary, it is deeply and transparently pure, then it is all of one consistency, no matter how long one looks at it; then its purity is this constancy in depth and transparency. On this account, we compare the heart with the sea, because the purity of the sea lies in its constancy of depth and transparency. No storm may perturb it; no sudden gust of wind may stir its surface, no drowsy fog may sprawl out over it; no doubtful movement may stir within it; no swift moving cloud may darken it: rather it must lie calm, transparent to its depths. And today if you should see it so, you would be drawn upwards by contemplating the purity of the seat. If you saw it every day, then you would declare that it is forever pure-like the heart of that man who wills but one thing. As the sea, when it lies calm and deeply transparent, yearns for heaven, so may the pure heart, when it is calm and deeply transparent, yearn for the Good. As the sea is made pure by yearning for heaven alone; so may the heart become pure by yearning only for the Good. As the sea mirrors the elevation of heaven in its pure depths, so may the heart when it is calm and deeply transparent mirror the divine elevation of the Good in its pure depths. If the least thing comes in between, between the heavens and the sea, between the heart and the Good, then it would be sheer impatients to covet the reflection. For if the sea is impure it cannot give a pure reflection of the heavens.”
— Soren Kierkegaard
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Loading ...Don’t Worry #2
Posted on February 6th, 2010 by uberlumen.
Categories: Book Reviews, Evil and Suffering, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, Vital Signs of Healing.
As I pointed out in Don’t Worry #1, living in the ‘now here’ is a powerful way to combat worry. In Dale Carnegie’s book: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, his first point is: Live today! Don’t worry/focus on yesterday or tomorrow.
“…twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry: “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”"
“What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with ‘day-tight compartments’ as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe, safe for today! Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of ‘day-tight compartments.’ ”
“Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.”-Roman poet Horace.
“life ‘is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.’”
“This speech contains twenty-six words that have gone ringing down across the centuries: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6: 34)
1 comment.
Eric
Comment on February 11th, 2010.
A great reminder on a life time journey to know, serve, and glorify the true and living God without the weight and distraction of the future you cannot master…..Matthew 6:34……clarifying, challenging, inspiring. Awesome!!
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