Joy & Strength
Another good one:
Joy & Strength
After struggling through Fear and Trembling I have been reading around in my copy of The Essential Kierkegaard. (Thanks to @Jay313) This is one of Kierkegaard’s signed (NOT pseudonymous) works, where he shows a different side of himself that is both tender and severe. It contains a beautiful study of how being in nature can inform our reverence before God.
From The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air
S. Kierkegaard (1849)
FROM the lily and the bird as teachers, let us learn
silence, or learn to be silent.
Surely it is speech that distinguishes humanity above the animal and then, if you like, far above the lily. But because the ability to speak is an advantage, it does not follow that the ability to be silent would not be an art or would be an inferior art. On the contrary, because the human being is able to speak, the ability to be silent is an art, and a great art precisely because this advantage of his so easily tempts him. But this he can learn from the silent teachers, the lily and the bird.
“Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.”
But what does this mean, what am I to do, or what is the effort that can be said to seek, to aspire to God’s kingdom? Shall I see about getting a position commensurate with my talents and abilities in order to be effective in it? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I give all my possessions to the poor? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I then go out and proclaim this doctrine to the world? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do? Yes, quite true, in a certain sense it is nothing. In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God’s kingdom.
…In the deepest sense, to become silent in this way, silent before God, is the beginning of the fear of God, because just as the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so silence is the beginning of the fear of God. And just as the fear of God is more than the beginning of wisdom, is wisdom, so silence is more than the beginning of the fear of God, is the fear of God. In this silence the many thoughts of wishes and desires God-fearingly fall silent; in this silence the verbosity of thanksgiving God-fearingly becomes silent.
The advantage of the human being over the animal is the ability to speak, but, in relation to God, wanting to speak can easily become the corruption of the human being, who is able to speak. God is in heaven and the human being is on earth and therefore they can hardly converse. God is infinite wisdom; what the human being knows is idle chatter; therefore they can hardly converse. God is love and the human being, as we say to a child, is a little ninny even in regard to his own welfare, and therefore they can hardly converse. Only in much fear and trembling is a human being able to speak with God, in much fear and trembling. But to speak in much fear and trembling is difficult for another reason, because just as anxiety makes the voice fail physically, so also much fear and trembling make speech fall into silence. The one who prays aright knows this, and the one who did not pray aright perhaps learned this through prayer. There was something that lay very heavily on his mind, a matter that was very important to him; it was very urgent for him to make himself rightly understood by God; he was afraid he had forgotten something in the prayer, and, alas, if he had forgotten it, he was afraid that God by himself would not remember it–therefore he wanted to concentrate his mind on praying with all his heart. Then what happened to him if he did really pray with all his heart? Something amazing happened to him. Gradually, as he became more and more fervent in prayer, he had less and less to say, and finally he became completely silent. He became silent. Indeed, he became what is, if possible, even more opposite to speaking than silence; he became a listener. He thought that to pray is to speak; he learned that to pray is not only to be silent but is to listen. And so it is; to pray is not to listen to oneself speak but is to become silent and to remain silent, to wait until the one praying hears God.
…
Out there with the lily and the bird there is silence. But what does this silence express? It expresses respect for God, that it is he who rules and he alone to whom wisdom and understanding are due. And just because this silence is veneration for God, is worship, as it can be in nature, this silence is so solemn. And because this silence is solemn in this way, one is aware of God in nature–what wonder, then, when everything is silent out of respect for him! Even if he does not speak, the fact that everything is silent out of respect for him affects one as if he spoke.What you can learn, however, from the silence out there with the lily and the bird without the help of any poet, what only the Gospel can teach you, is that it is earnestness, that there must be earnestness, that the bird and the lily shall be the teacher, that you shall imitate them, learn from them in all earnestness, that you shall become as silent as the lily and the bird.
Indeed, this is already earnestness–if it is understood properly, not as the dreaming poet or as the poet who lets nature dream about him understands it–this, that out there with the lily and the bird you are aware that you are before God, something that usually is entirely forgotten in speaking and conversing with other human beings. When just we two are speaking together, even more so when we are ten or more, it is very easily forgotten that you and I, we two, or we ten, are before God. But the lily, who is the teacher, is profound. It does not become involved with you at all; it is silent, and by being silent it wants to be a sign to you that you are before God, so that you remember that you are before God–so that you also in earnestness and truth might become silent before God.
The Essential Kierkegaard p. 333+.
Available free here:
You will need to set up a free account to borrow it online.
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Dear God, Kierkegaard brings me to tears every time. Thank you for the reminder, @Kendel
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Do we not hear God if we listen to Jesus? Maybe we should remain silent about and before scripture more often and listen more to what it says.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…’”
We think it a gallant thing, to be fluttering up to heaven with our wings of knowledge and speculation, whereas the highest mystery of a divine life here, and of perfect happiness hereafter, consists in nothing but mere obedience to the Divine will. - Ralph Cudworth.
Joy & Strength
And then there’s today’s, and I need to preach to myself:
23 posts were split to a new topic: Pithy quotes discussion
Yes, @Dale. In fact, Jesus, God the Son, gave us the very words we should say and bring into ourselves, because we are so verbose in all the wrong ways. We have the ability to speak, yet usually lack the wisdom to speak well, speak upbuildingly, speak anything that God would hear from us without having told us how to pray. And when we have used up those words that God the Son gave us to meditate on as we use, then what?
When the well of our hearts has run dry of words of any value, when we are stunned in misery and suffering or awe and thanksgiving, isn’t it time to shut up? Time to stop talking, stop blabbing to God?
Kierkegaard wrote:
Perhaps one prefers to find some other beginning to wisdom than the fear of the Lord? Perhaps it is better to be still before God and know who He is as we have also been instructed.
Kierkegaard also wrote this:
Gentiles though we may be, do we need to pretend to be heard better by our babbling? We are not listening, when we are talking. We are not even listening, when we are formulating the next thing to say, or the next counterargument. Why rather not, out of reverence, as our words have run dry and we recognize that God himself might wish to have a turn to speak or even have us quiet before him, be silent before the Lord. Show him respect and reverence? Earnestness?
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And no case need be made for the value of silence as respect and reverence before God, which is the point of Kierkegaard’s discouse on the lily and the bird.
The vital importance of silence keeps coming up in what I’m reading by Kierkegaard. He seems to see it as a feature of faith as well as an essential facet of Christian practice, as we see in this discourse.
As I said, when one is focused on formulating the next thing to say, or the next counterargument, one is not listening. Or being reverent. Or demonstrating respect.
Looks like the comment you were responding to got pulled into the wake of the other comments which were relocated. Here it is again so we can see what I was responding to:
It depends on what motivation there is for the silence. There was this thing going around in philosophy that I’m pretty sure SK came into contact with. It proposed a way of approaching God via the negativa which could also be considered a kind of silence. The thing with the via negativa is that it was a magnificent distortion of biblical spirituality.
Ironically the via negativa may be described as a silence when one should speak, and a speaking when one should be quiet.
And we do that by listening to what he says through the Bible, à la Bonhoeffer. (Psalm 143 was important enough to me in the 1980s that I memorized it.)
What I meant to imply with that may not have been clear enough: I was being quiet and letting David, the psalmist, speak, pray in my stead, because I was hurting.
A side note on that is the similarity between the first petition in the Lord’s Prayer and David’s concern in verse 11 of that psalm,
For your name’s sake, Lord…
The priorities of petitioners’ hearts were the same.
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Pseudonymously, Kierkegaard employs this technique, or something similar to it in regard to Abraham’s faith in Fear and Trembling, a technique that one translator/commentator (Bruce Kirmmse) calls “Negative Cartography” in reference to the subtitle of the book, “Guide to an Unknown Country.” The fictitious narrator of the book states clearly, many times throughout the book, that he does not have faith, and represents himself in ways that make it clear he is a typical, contemporarneous member of the Danish church. Throughout the book the narrator keeps describing what faith is not, or what the boundaries of faith are, or the highly formulaic “Teleological Suspension of the Ethical”. But he repeatedly confesses that he does not know what faith is experientially. He can only describe it from the outside.
This is not the technique that Kierkegaard uses to inform himself of God as far as I can tell. Obviously, I have only read a tiny fraction of his work so far. His knowledge of Scripture is deep and wide. His work is utterly steeped in it. Part of the challenge reading Fear and Trembling is the constant scriptural reference by SK’s choice of vocabulary, turn of phrase, etc. As one reads his work thoroughly broadly, one may disagree with SK regarding matters of interpretation and how he interprets Scripture, but he was not “making it up.”
In the small portion of his work that I’ve read so far, it’s obvious that SK was intellectually a man of his time and geography. Romanticism, and I think particularly German Romanticism, is just as clear as Hegel and many other streams of thought. He had a voracious rational mind that was thoroughly Christian.
Mike, I really recommend you find some of his books and start digging in. I linked The Essential Kierkegaard up in the last quote I shared. Start with his shorter religious works. “The Two Ages” (p. 252) is where his later, and mostly signed (not pseudonymous) works are found. The EK is an anthology with large excerpts, so everything is shortened; not entire works, but I think they’ve made a good effort to provide enough of each work to give an accurate “thumbnail” of the entire thing.
It’s better to discuss informed, rather to argue speculatively what might have been.
Dale, with all that in mind, I recommend you completely and thoroughly reread the quote from SK’s “Lily in the Field” and think over what Kierkegaard actually said and why, etc.
Find out what he was really saying as much is as possible. I think you are arguing against problems that don’t exist.
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In case people missed the quote from Kierkegaard’s discouse on The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air in all the bits and pieces that followed it, here it is again. It’s a perfect morning to share it, while I’m listening to birds from all directions.
Enjoy.
FROM the lily and the bird as teachers, let us learn
silence, or learn to be silent.
Surely it is speech that distinguishes humanity above the animal and then, if you like, far above the lily. But because the ability to speak is an advantage, it does not follow that the ability to be silent would not be an art or would be an inferior art. On the contrary, because the human being is able to speak, the ability to be silent is an art, and a great art precisely because this advantage of his so easily tempts him. But this he can learn from the silent teachers, the lily and the bird.
“Seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness.”
But what does this mean, what am I to do, or what is the effort that can be said to seek, to aspire to God’s kingdom? Shall I see about getting a position commensurate with my talents and abilities in order to be effective in it? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I give all my possessions to the poor? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I then go out and proclaim this doctrine to the world? No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom. But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do? Yes, quite true, in a certain sense it is nothing. In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God’s kingdom.
…In the deepest sense, to become silent in this way, silent before God, is the beginning of the fear of God, because just as the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so silence is the beginning of the fear of God. And just as the fear of God is more than the beginning of wisdom, is wisdom, so silence is more than the beginning of the fear of God, is the fear of God. In this silence the many thoughts of wishes and desires God-fearingly fall silent; in this silence the verbosity of thanksgiving God-fearingly becomes silent.
The advantage of the human being over the animal is the ability to speak, but, in relation to God, wanting to speak can easily become the corruption of the human being, who is able to speak. God is in heaven and the human being is on earth and therefore they can hardly converse. God is infinite wisdom; what the human being knows is idle chatter; therefore they can hardly converse. God is love and the human being, as we say to a child, is a little ninny even in regard to his own welfare, and therefore they can hardly converse. Only in much fear and trembling is a human being able to speak with God, in much fear and trembling. But to speak in much fear and trembling is difficult for another reason, because just as anxiety makes the voice fail physically, so also much fear and trembling make speech fall into silence. The one who prays aright knows this, and the one who did not pray aright perhaps learned this through prayer. There was something that lay very heavily on his mind, a matter that was very important to him; it was very urgent for him to make himself rightly understood by God; he was afraid he had forgotten something in the prayer, and, alas, if he had forgotten it, he was afraid that God by himself would not remember it–therefore he wanted to concentrate his mind on praying with all his heart. Then what happened to him if he did really pray with all his heart? Something amazing happened to him. Gradually, as he became more and more fervent in prayer, he had less and less to say, and finally he became completely silent. He became silent. Indeed, he became what is, if possible, even more opposite to speaking than silence; he became a listener. He thought that to pray is to speak; he learned that to pray is not only to be silent but is to listen. And so it is; to pray is not to listen to oneself speak but is to become silent and to remain silent, to wait until the one praying hears God.
…
Out there with the lily and the bird there is silence. But what does this silence express? It expresses respect for God, that it is he who rules and he alone to whom wisdom and understanding are due. And just because this silence is veneration for God, is worship, as it can be in nature, this silence is so solemn. And because this silence is solemn in this way, one is aware of God in nature–what wonder, then, when everything is silent out of respect for him! Even if he does not speak, the fact that everything is silent out of respect for him affects one as if he spoke.What you can learn, however, from the silence out there with the lily and the bird without the help of any poet, what only the Gospel can teach you, is that it is earnestness, that there must be earnestness, that the bird and the lily shall be the teacher, that you shall imitate them, learn from them in all earnestness, that you shall become as silent as the lily and the bird.
Indeed, this is already earnestness–if it is understood properly, not as the dreaming poet or as the poet who lets nature dream about him understands it–this, that out there with the lily and the bird you are aware that you are before God, something that usually is entirely forgotten in speaking and conversing with other human beings. When just we two are speaking together, even more so when we are ten or more, it is very easily forgotten that you and I, we two, or we ten, are before God. But the lily, who is the teacher, is profound. It does not become involved with you at all; it is silent, and by being silent it wants to be a sign to you that you are before God, so that you remember that you are before God–so that you also in earnestness and truth might become silent before God.
The Essential Kierkegaard p. 333+.
Available free here:
You will need to set up a free account to borrow it online.
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Memory is frequently the bond slave of despondency.
Wisdom can readily transform memory into an angel of comfort.
C.H. Spurgeon
…if they would prayerfully rake the ashes of the past, they would find light for the present
Nice metaphor.
…rehearse his deeds of grace.
It’s about God’s providence, in your life and others’.
Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Art thou a child of God, and yet satisfied to go on without seeing thy Father’s face? What! thou the spouse of Christ, and yet content without his company!
We no longer speak of health as the natural or normal condition of our bodies and the world. We speak of health as the hoped-for result of the use of products produced by the health industry, which thrives upon illness. As the land and people languish, the economy prospers (for a while).
From the Introduction in Wendell Berry’s “The Need To Be Whole” (Patriotism and the History of Prejudice) 2022.
I expect this new acquired book to be my reading companion over the next days - and maybe more quotes from it to show up here.
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Wow,…ouch. I can see a huge problem in some cases–sometimes the maddest people I meet are those convinced of a delusion who I can’t treat, in good conscience (delusional parasitosis, Internet false diagnosis of low testosterone, Hashimotos, negative tests for Lyme, for example). . On the other hand, being a praise addict can make me want to treat someone who doesn’t need something, just for the idea of having helped them. I sometimes have to stop and think before I prescribe.
The addition of meds that make us achieve happiness chemically faster than by hard work and living in the real world (benzodiazepines like Valium and opioids like oxycodone) makes it harder yet. By definition, they make us more painful or anxious to come off them, and we think that only they can help us. However, most people I see come off them are much happier.
The first part of the Hippocratic oath is “do no harm”–it’s harder than I thought. I have to be people’s physician, not their friend.
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I’m curious as to those who like Kierkegaard–have any of you also read Dorothy Sayers, by chance? I was just reading the introduction to “Letters to a Diminished Church.”
It reminds me a bit of Kierkegaard’s work–but I have not read much of either. Maybe @Jay313 ? Thanks.
She reportedly was a feminist and Christian apologist who found help for her faith in part after reading George MacDonald’s “Unspoken Sermons.”
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