secret

"Yes, it is the dawn that has come.  The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying.  The sun tips with light the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand.  The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there.  Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret."

 -Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country 

sydney whispers

She approaches with stealth, quietly as he reads an ancient epic on the recliner.  The sun has made its way to the horizon, and he would like nothing more than to rest, reliving glorious feats of gods and men.  She whispers.  "Papa, we should go outside and play baseball." How can he resist.

"Guess what, Sydney.  I ordered you a present.  It's going to come in the mail in a few days.  What do you think it might be?"

He sees that she knows instantly, but she pauses anyhow, pretending to think about.

"Maybe some new wiffleballs?"

She's right.

They play ball as the last day of summer turns to night.  And she hits many homeruns.

"the offense"

    When Christianity came into the world, it did not need to call attention (even though it did so) to the fact that it was contrary to human nature and human understanding, for the world discovered that easily enough. But now that we are on intimate terms with Christianity, we must awaken the collision. The possibility of offense must again be preached to life. Only the possibility of offense (the antidote to the apologists’ sleeping potion) is able to waken those who have fallen asleep, is able to break the spell so that Christianity is itself again.

    Woe to him, therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity! Woe to the person who makes miracles reasonable. Woe to the person who betrays and breaks the mystery of faith, distorts it into public wisdom, because he takes away the possibility of offense! Woe to the person who speaks of the mystery of the Atonement without detecting in it anything of the possibility of offense. Woe again to him who thinks God and Christianity are something for study and discussion. Woe to every unfaithful steward who sits down and writes false proofs, winning friends for themselves and for Christianity by writing off the possibility ofoffense. Oh, the learning and acumen tragically wasted. Oh, the time wasted in this enormous work of making Christianity so reasonable, and in trying to make it so relevant!

    Only when Christianity rises up again, powerful in the possibility of offense, only then will it need no artful defenders. The more skillful, the more articulate, the more excellent the defense, however, the more Christianity is disfigured, abolished, exhausted like an emasculated man. Christianity ought not to be defended, at least not on the world’s terms. It is we who should see whether we can justify urselves. It is we who must choose: either to be offended or to accept Christianity. Therefore, take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long!

- Soren Kierkegaard

wagon wheel

Kierkegaard on truth

Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only
true explanation of it; the only true way of acquiring it. Truth is
not a sum of statements, not a definition, not a system of concepts,
but a life. Truth is not a property of thought that guarantees
validity to thinking. No, truth in its most essential character
is the reduplication of truth within yourself, within me, within
him. Your life, my life, his life expresses the truth in the striving.
Just as the truth was a life in Christ, so too, for us truth must be
lived.

Therefore, truth is not a matter of knowing this or that but of
being in the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an
infinite difference here, best seen in Christ’s response to Pilate.
Christ did not know the truth but was the truth. Not as if he did
not know what truth is, but when one is the truth and when the
requirement is to be in the truth, to merely “know” the truth is
insufficient – it is an untruth. For knowing the truth is something
that follows as a matter of course from being in the truth,
not the other way around. Nobody knows more of the truth
than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be
in the truth; it is to have the truth for one’s life. This always costs
a struggle. Any other kind of knowledge is a falsification. In
short, the truth, if it is really there, is a being, a life. The Gospel
says that this is eternal life, to know the only true God and the
one whom he sent, the truth (Jn. 17:3). That is, I only know the
truth when it becomes a life in me.

- Soren Kierkegaard