Therefore it is always a difficult matter for one person to offer another such a comfort, because when the troubled one consults him and he then says, ‘I certainly do know where comfort is to be found, indescribable comfort; indeed, what is more, it transforms itself little by little in your soul into the highest joy.’ Then the troubled one will probably listen attentively. But when it is added, ‘Nevertheless, before this comfort can come, you must understand that you yourself are simply nothing; you must chop down the bridge of probability that wants to connect wish and impatience and desire and expectation with the object wished for, desired, and expected; you must renounce the worldly mentality’s association with the future; you must retreat into yourself, not as into a fortress that still defies the world while the self-inclosed person nevertheless has with him in the fortress his most dangerous enemy (indeed, it may even been to the enemy’s advice when he closed himself up in this way), but into yourself, sinking down before your own nothingness and surrendering yourself to grace and disgrace’ Then the troubled one would very likely go away disgraced.
~ O Need God – Upbuilding Discourse
Søren Says
March 18, 2008 by at 2:59 pm
Gee, thanks Quin.
I just meant to commiserate with Mr. Spitzer, whose picture you can find by clicking on the title.
But don’t thank me; thank Søren!