Part 4
It is a sad upside-downness, altogether too common, to talk on and on about how the object of love should be before it can
28 Love the Person You See
be loved. The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable – whether given or chosen – and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As the apostle John reminds us: "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20)
Consider how Christ looked on Peter, once he had denied Jesus. Was it a repelling look, a look of rejection? No. It was a look such as a mother gives her child when the child is in dan ger due to its own indiscretion. Since she cannot approach and snatch the child from danger, she catches him off guard with a reproachful but saving look. Was Peter in danger, then? Alas, we do not understand how serious it is for one to betray his friend. But in the passion of anger or hurt the injured friend cannot see that it is the denier who is in danger. Yet the Savior saw clearly that it was Peter who was in danger, not him, and that it was Peter who needed saving. The Savior of the world did not make the mistake of regarding his cause as lost because Peter did not hurry to help him. Rather, he saw Peter as lost if he did not hurry to save him.
Christ's love for Peter was so boundless that in loving Peter he accomplished loving the person one sees. He did not say, "Peter you must first change and become another man before I can love you again." No, he said just the opposite: "Peter, you are Peter, and I love you; love, if anything, will help you to become a different person." Christ did not break off his friendship with Peter, and then renew it again when Peter had become a differ ent man. No, he preserved the friendship and in this way helped Peter to become another man. Do you think that Peter would have ever been won again without such faithful love?
We foolish people often think that when a person has changed for the worse we are exempted from loving him. What
a confusion in language: to be exempt from loving. As if it were a matter of compulsion, a burden one wished to cast away! If this is how you see the person, then you really do not see him; you merely see unworthiness, imperfection, and admit thereby that when you loved him you did not really see him but saw only his excellence and perfections. True love is a matter of lov ing the very person you see. The emphasis is not on loving the perfections, but on loving the person you see, no matter what perfections or imperfections that person might possess.
He who loves the perfections he sees in a person does not see the person, and thus does not truly love, for such a person ceases to love as soon as the perfections cease. But even when the most distressing changes occur, the person does not thereby cease to be. Love does not vault into heaven, for it comes from heaven and with heaven. It steps down and thereby accom plishes loving the same person throughout all his changes, good or bad, because it sees the same person in all his changes. Hu man love is always flying after the beloved's perfections. Chris tian love, however, loves despite imperfections and weaknesses. In every change love remains with him, loving the person it sees.
Alas, we talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity teaches us that the perfect person is the one who limitlessly loves the person he sees. We humans always look upward for the perfect object, but in Christ love looks down to earth and loves the person it sees. If then, you wish to become perfect in love, strive to love the person you see, just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses. Love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferently away or turns to love someone else. Love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you. Love the person you see and see the per son you love.
29 Love's Hidden Need
Love is like a spring that lures by the murmuring persuasion of its rippling. The stream almost begs one to go along the path, and yet it does not wish to be discovered or its secret revealed. Love is like the rays of the sun that invite us to observe the glory of the world but reproachfully punish with blindness the presumptuous who try, inquisitively and impu dently, to discover the origin of the light. The suffering is always most painful when the surgeon penetrates into the more vital, hidden parts of the body. In the same way, the suffering is most painful and most devastating when someone, instead of rejoic ing in the works of love, wants the pleasure of penetrating it, by disturbing it.
The hidden life of love, in its most inward depths, is unfath omable, and still has a boundless relationship with the whole of existence. As the quiet lake is fed by the flow of hidden springs, which no eye sees, so a human being's love is grounded in God's love. If there were no spring at the bottom, if God were not love, there would be neither a lake nor human love. As the still waters begin obscurely in the deep spring, so our love mysteriously be gins in God's love.
The life of love is hidden, and yet its hidden life is itself in motion and has the eternal in itself. As still waters, however qui etly they lie, are really running, so love flows, however still it is in its hiddenness. But the still waters can dry up if the springs
stop; the life of love, on the other hand, has an eternal spring. This life is fresh and everlasting. No cold can freeze it – it is too warm for that; and no heat can dry it up – it is too fresh in its own coolness for that. Let us therefore not disturb this hiddenness or give ourselves over to mere observation or introspection.
This hidden life of love is knowable by its fruits. Yes, in love there is a need to be recognizable by its fruits. How beautiful it is – that which marks the deepest poverty also signifies the greatest riches! Need to have need and to be needy – how reluc tantly we wish this to be said of us! Yet we pay the highest com pliment when we say of a poet, "It is a need for him to write." Alas, even the most needy person has a rich life in comparison to the only really poor person, who lived out his life and never felt the need of anything! It is the lover's greatest treasure to need the beloved. It is the believer's highest and true wealth to need God. Ask the lover, or ask the believer if they could dis pense with their need! It is the same with the recognizability of love by its fruits. It would be the greatest torture if love was re quired to keep hidden, to go unrecognizable. Would it not be as if a plant, sensitive to the vigor and blessing of life in itself, did not dare let it become known and kept the blessing to itself?
A tree, as Jesus puts it, is known by its fruits. But it is said of certain plants that they must form hearts. The same must be said of a person's love; if it is really to bear fruit and be recogniz able by its fruit, it must form a heart. Love, to be sure, proceeds from the heart, but let us not forget that love itself forms the heart. This is the essential condition for bearing love's fruit.
As love itself is not to be seen, neither is it known by any single expression. There is no word, not even the most sacred word, which can guarantee that there is love in us. Likewise, there is no deed, not even the best, of which we dare announce: the one who does this is surely demonstrating love. No, it de pends upon how each deed is done. True, there are special acts
29 Love's Hidden Need
that we call works of love. But just because we make charitable contributions, because we visit those in prison and feed the poor does not necessarily mean we have love. Yes, it is quite pos sible to perform works of love in an unloving, yes, even in a selfloving way. When this is so, the "works of love" are in vain. Consequently, how something is said, how it is meant, and how the deed is done is the decisive factor in determining and recog nizing true love. Yet even here there is nothing, no "in such a way," that unconditionally guarantees whether love is or is not.
Yes, love is known by its fruits. This does not mean we should now get busy judging one another. By no means! Even if love is recognizable by its fruits, let us not impatiently, suspiciously, judgingly demand to always see these fruit in our relationships with one another. We must believe in love. This is the first and last thing to be said about love if you are to ever know what love is. For where is love if there is miserable mistrust that insists upon seeing the fruits. If mistrust sees something as less than it actually is, then love sees something as greater than it is. Do not forget that it is more blessed to believe in love. Therefore, the last, the most blessed, the absolutely convincing evidence of love remains: love itself, which is known and recognized by the love in another. Like is known only by like. Only he who abides in love can recognize love, and in the same way his love is to be known.
30 Love Builds Up
To build up is to construct something from the ground up. Everyone knows what the foundation of a house is. But spiritually speaking, what is the foundation of the life of the spirit? It is love. Love is the origin of everything, and love is the deepest ground of the life of the spirit.
The foundation – love – is laid in every person in whom there is love. And the edifice to be constructed, is love. It is love that edifies. Love builds up, and when it builds, it builds up love. Love is the ground; love is the building; love builds up. To build up another is to build up love, and it is love that does the build ing up. Love is the ground, and to build up means precisely to construct from the ground up.
When we speak about the works of love, it must mean either that we implant love in the heart of another or that we presup pose that love is in the other's heart and with this presupposi tion build up love in him. One of the two must exist for building up love. But can a person implant love in the heart of another? No. It is God alone, the creator, who can implant love in a per son, he who himself is love. All energetic and self-assertive zeal in this regard, all thought of creating love in another person neither builds up nor is itself up-building. It is unthinkable. No, true love presupposes that love is in the other person's heart, no matter how hidden, and by this very presupposition builds love up – from the ground up.
30 Love Builds Up
Love is not what you try to do to transform the other person or what you do to constrain love to come forth in him; it is rather how you constrain yourself. Only the person who lacks love imagines himself able to build up love by constraining the other. The true lover always believes that love is present; pre cisely in this way he builds up. In this way he only entices forth the good; he "loves up" love; he builds up what is already there. For love can and will be treated in only one way – by being loved forth.
To love forth love means to believe that love is present at the base. The builder can point to his work and say, "This is my work." But love has nothing it can point to, for its very work consists only in presupposing. If a lover did succeed (by presup posing) in building up love in another person, when the build ing stands, he must step aside and humbly say, "Indeed, I knew it was there all the time." Alas, love has no merit at all, for love's building does not stand as a monument to the skill of the builder or, like the pupil, as a reminder of the teacher's instruc tion. The one who loves accomplishes nothing; he only brings forth the love that is already there. The lover works quietly and earnestly, and yet it is the powers of the eternal, not the strength of his love, which are set in motion. The humility in love is the secret of its power.
Love makes itself inconspicuous, especially when it works hardest. In love's work, our labor is reduced to nothing. The building-up of love can thus be compared to the work of na ture. While we sleep, creation's vital forces keep on. No one gives a thought to how they carry on, although everyone de lights in the beauty of the meadow and the fruitfulness of the field. This is the way love conducts itself. It presupposes that love is present, like the germ in a kernel of grain, and if it suc ceeds in bringing it to fruition, love is modest, as inconspicuous as when it worked day and night.
Therefore, "Love is patient." Patience means perseverance in believing that love is fundamentally present. He who judges that another lacks love takes the groundwork away, and thus cannot build up. Love builds up with patience. Neither "is it ir ritable or resentful," for irritability and resentment ultimately deny love in another. In fact, love bears another's misunder standing, his thanklessness, and his anger.
"Love does not insist on its own way," neither does it "rejoice at wrong." He who seeks his own way pushes everything else aside. He demolishes in order to make room for his own way, which he wants to build up. Yes, the one who seeks to tear down must be said to rejoice at wrong. But love rejoices in knowing that love is already present; therefore it builds up. "Love bears all things." When we say of a very healthy person that he can eat or drink anything, we mean that in his strength he draws nour ishment out of even the poorest food. In the same way love bears all things, continually presupposing that love is funda mentally present, despite resistance – and thereby it builds up.
"Love believes all things." Yes, to believe all things means to believe that love is there – even though love is not apparent, even though the opposite is seen. Mistrust takes the very foun dation away. Unlike love, mistrust cannot build up. "Love hopes all things." Despite all appearances to the contrary, love firmly trusts that love will eventually show itself, even in the deluded, in the misguided, and in the lost. The father's love won the prodigal son again just because he hoped all things, believing that love was fundamentally present. What more can we say? "Love endures all things. It is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude; it is not irritable or resentful…"
Love builds up simply because it knows beyond any doubt that love is present. Have you not, my reader, experienced this yourself? If any person has ever spoken to you in such a way or
30 Love Builds Up
acted toward you in such a way that you felt yourself built up, was it not because you quite vividly perceived that he or she presupposed love to be present in you? We know that no one can bestow the ground of love in another person's heart. Love is the ground, and we build only from the ground up, only by pre supposing love. Take love away, cease from presupposing it – then there is no one who builds up nor is there anyone who is built up.
31 Love's Like-for-Like
Jesus says, "Forgive, and you will also be forgiven" (Mt. 6:14). That is to say, forgiveness is forgiveness. Your for giveness of another is your own forgiveness; the forgiveness you give is the forgiveness you receive. If you wholeheartedly forgive your enemy, you may dare hope for your own forgiveness, for it is one and the same. God forgives you neither more nor less than as you forgive your trespassers.
It is an illusion to imagine that you have forgiveness while you are slack in forgiving others. No, there is not a more exact agree ment between the sky above and its reflection in the sea below, than there is between forgiveness and forgiving. Is it not pure conceit to believe in your own forgiveness when you will not forgive others? For how in truth can you believe in forgiveness if your own life is a refutation of the existence of forgiveness?! Yes, to accuse another person before God is to accuse yourself, like-for-like.
People so gladly deceive themselves, so gladly imagine that they can have, as it were, a private relationship with God. But if you complain of your enemies to God, he makes short work of it and opens a case against you, because before God you too are a guilty person. To complain against another is to complain against yourself. You think that God should take your side, that God and you together should turn against your enemy, against him who did you wrong. But this is a complete misunderstand
31 Love's Like-for-Like
ing. God looks without discrimination upon all. Go ahead. If you intend to have God judge someone else, then you have made God your judge as well. God is, like-for-like, simulta neously your judge. If, however, you refuse to accuse someone before God he will be merciful towards you.
Let me illuminate this with an example. There was once a criminal who had stolen some money, including a hundreddollar bill. He wanted to get this changed into smaller bills and so he turned to another criminal to help him. The second criminal took the money, went into the next room as if to make change, then came out again and acted as if nothing ever happened. In short, he swindled the first criminal out of the hundred-dollar bill. The first man became so embittered over this that he brought the case to the authorities and reported how shame fully he had been deceived. Naturally the second man was im prisoned on the charge of fraud. Alas, in the trial the first question the authorities raised was: how did the accuser get the money in the first place? And so there were two trials. Thus it is with respect to God. When you accuse another person, there are immediately two cases; just because you come and reported an other person before God, God happens to think of how it also involves you.
Like-for-like. Yes, Christ is so rigorous that he even affirms a radical inequality. He says, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" (Mt. 7:3). And even if you do not see the log, even if no one else sees it – God sees it. Is this not rigorousness, this which makes a gnat into an elephant? But if you truly understand how God is continually present in everything, then you will indeed be able to understand this rigorousness, you will understand that seeing the speck in your brother's eye is always high trea son. God is always present, and if he is present, he also sees you!
How rigorous is this Christian like-for-like! The world's likefor-like is: see to it that in the long run you do to others what others have done to you. But the Christian like-for-like is: as you do to others, God does to you in the very same mode. Christianly understood, what others do to you should not con cern you. You should concern yourself with what you do to oth ers and with the way you receive what others do to you. The direction is inwards; essentially you have only to do with your self before God. To love human beings is to love God and to love God is to love human beings. What you do to others you do to God, and therefore what you do to others God does to you.
If you are embittered towards those who do you wrong, you are really embittered towards God, for ultimately it is God who permits wrong to be done to you. If, however, you gratefully take wrongs as if from God's hand, "as a good and perfect gift," you will not become resentful. If you will not forgive, you es sentially want something else, you want to make God hard hearted. How, then, should this hard-hearted God forgive you? If you cannot bear the offenses of those against you, how should God bear your sins against him? No, like-for-like.
God is himself the pure rendition of how you yourself are. If there is wrath in you, then God is wrath in you; if there is mild ness and mercifulness in you, then God is mercifulness in you. You know well enough that echo which dwells in solitude. It corresponds exactly, oh, so exactly, to every sound, to the slight est sound, and duplicates it, oh, so exactly. If there is a word you prefer not be said to you, then watch your saying of it. Watch lest it slip out of you in solitude, for the echo duplicates it im mediately and says it to you. If you have never been solitary, you have also never discovered that God exists. But if you have been truly solitary, then you have learned that everything you say and do to other human beings God simply repeats. He repeats it with the intensification of infinity.
32 Love Abides – Forever!
The one who truly loves never falls away from love. He can never reach the breaking-point. Yet, is it always possible to prevent a break in a relationship between two persons, espe cially when the other has given up? One would certainly not think so. Is not one of the two enough to break the relationship? In a certain sense it is so. But if the lover is determined to not fall away from love, he can prevent the break, he can perform this miracle; for if he perseveres, a total break can never really come to be.
By abiding, the one who loves transcends the power of the past. He transforms the break into a possible new relationship, a future possibility. The lover who abides belongs to the future, to the eternal. From the angle of the future, the break is not really a break, but rather a possibility. But the powers of the eternal are needed for this. The lover must abide in love, otherwise the heartache of the past still has the power to keep alive the break.
How shall I describe this work of love; this work that trans forms the past into the future? Oh, that I might be inexhaustible in describing what is so indescribably joyous and so edifying to reflect upon!
Let us consider the following. The breaking point between two lovers is reached. It was a misunderstanding; one of them broke the relationship. But the lover says, "I will abide" – there fore there still is no final break. Imagine a compound word
which lacks the last word. There is only the first word and the hyphen. Imagine, then, the first word and the hyphen of a com pound word. What will you say? You will say that the word is incomplete, that it lacks something. It is the same with the one who loves. The lover understands that the relationship which the other considers broken is a relationship which has not yet been completed. Although it lacks something, it is still not a to tal break. The whole thing depends upon how the relationship is regarded, and the lover – he abides.
Again, a relationship comes to the breaking point. There is an argument which separates the two. One breaks it off and says: "It is all over between us." But the lover abides: "No, all is not over between us. We are still midway in the sentence; it is only the sentence which is not complete." Is it not so? What a difference there is between an unfinished sentence and some thing we call a fragment because we know that nothing more is to come. If one does not know this, he says that the sentence is not yet completed. True, from the perspective of the past, one might well say, "It is a broken fragment." From the vantage point of the future, however, we await the next part, and say, "The sentence is not complete; it still lacks something."
Perhaps it is disharmony, a cooling-off, or indifference that separates the two. One makes the break saying, "I no longer speak to that person. I never see him anymore." But the one who loves says: "I abide. We shall yet speak with one another, because silence also belongs to conversation at times." Is this not so? Even if it is three years since they last spoke together, it doesn't make any difference. If you saw two people sitting si lently together and you knew nothing more, would you thereby conclude that it was three years since they spoke to each other? Can anyone determine how long a silence must be in order to say, now there is no more conversation? Does the dance cease because one dancer has gone away? In a certain sense, yes. But if
32 Love Abides – Forever
the other still remains standing in the posture that expresses a turning towards the one who has left, and if you know nothing about the past, then you will say, "Now the dance will begin just as soon as the other comes." Put the past out of the way; drown it in the forgiveness of the eternal by abiding in love. Then the end is the beginning and there is no break!
And so a relationship comes to a breaking-point, and one severs the relationship. It was terrible; hate, eternal and irrecon cilable hate fills the other's soul."I will never see that person any more. Our paths are forever separated; the abysmal depth of hate lies between us." To him the world is too small to house them both; to him it is agony to breathe in the same world where the hated one breathes. He shudders at the thought that eternity will house them both. But the one who loves abides. "I will abide," he says. "Therefore we are still on the path of life to gether." And is this not so? When two balls collide in such a way that the one, simply by repulsion, carries the other along in its path, are they not on the path together? That it happens through repulsion cannot be seen; for that is something past which must be known. But the one who truly loves moves be yond the past. He abides, he even abides on the path with the one who hates him. There is thus no break.
What marvelous strength love has! The most powerful word that has ever been said, God's creative word, is: "Be." But the most powerful word any human being has ever said is,"I abide." Reconciled to himself and to his conscience, the one who loves goes without defense into the most dangerous battle. He only says: "I abide." But he will conquer, conquer by his abiding. There is no misunderstanding that cannot be conquered by his abiding, no hate that can ultimately hold up to his abiding – in eternity if not sooner. If time cannot, at least the eternal shall wrench away the other's hate. Yes, the eternal will open his eyes for love. In this way love never fails – it abides.
33 When Love Is Secure
Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eter nally secured; secured against the ravages of change, eternally and happily secured against despair. However joyous, happy, indescribably confident, instinctive and inclinational, sponta neous and emotional love may be – it still needs to establish it self more securely, in the strength of duty. Only in the security of the eternal is all anxiety cast out. For in spontaneous love, however confident it be, there still resides an anxiety, a dread over the possibility of change. Yet in the you shall, it is forever decided; one's love is forever secure. Every other love can be changed into something else.
Spontaneous, emotional love can be changed, for instance, to its opposite, to hate or by a kind of spontaneous combustion it can become jealousy. From being the greatest happiness it can change into the greatest torment. The heat of spontaneous love is so dangerous – no matter how great its passion – that it can very quickly become a poisonous fever.
Worst of all is how spontaneous love can gradually be changed through the years – as when a fire gradually consumes itself. Human love can lose its ardor, its joy, its desire, its origi native power, its living freshness. As with the river which springs out of a rock and disperses farther down in the slug gishness of the dead-waters, so is love exhausted in the luke warmness and indifference of habit. Alas, of all love's enemies
33 When Love is Secure
habit is perhaps the most cunning. It is cunning enough never to let itself be seen, for he who sees the habit for what it is, is saved from it. Habit is not like other enemies we can see and against which we strive and defend ourselves. The struggle is re ally within ourselves – to see it. Ah, and how difficult this struggle is!
There is a preying creature, known for its cunning that slyly falls upon the sleeping. While sucking blood from its sleeping prey, it fans and cools him, making his sleep still more pleasant. This is how it is with habit – or maybe it is even worse! For the vampire seeks its prey among the sleeping, but it has no means to lull to sleep those who are awake. Habit, however, is quite adept at doing this. It slinks, sleep-lulling, upon a person, and then drains his blood while it coolingly fans him and makes his sleep all the more pleasant.
In this way human-inspired love can be changed into some thing else and made unrecognizable. Such is the way of habit. And when we become aware of how habit has changed our love, we long to make up for it, but do not exactly know how. We do not know where we can go to buy new oil to rekindle our love. Then we are liable to despair and to become weary of not ever being able to fan it into flame again. What sadness it is to en counter a poverty-stricken man who had once lived prosper ously, and still, how much more sorrowful than this to see human-inspired love changed almost to loathsomeness!
Genuine love, love transformed and sustained by the eternal, however, will never become characterized by habit; habit can never get power over it. To what is said of eternal life, that there is no sighing and no tears, one can add: there is no habit. If you are to save your soul or your love from habit's cunning – though people blindly believe there are all kinds of ways of keeping oneself awake and secure – then you must heed to the eternal's you shall. This alone will preserve you. This alone will
keep your love alive. Let the thunder of a hundred cannon re mind you three times daily to resist the force of habit. Have a friend remind you every time he sees you. Have a wife who, in love, reminds you morning and night – but be careful that all this also does not become habit! For you can become accus tomed to hearing the thunder of a hundred cannon so that you can sit at the table and hear the most trivial, insignificant things far more clearly than the thunderous noise outside. No, only the eternal's you shall and the hearing ear can save you from habit.
Behold, passion inflames, worldly sagacity cools, but neither this heat nor this cold nor their blending is the pure air of the eternal. There is something fiery in this heat and something sharp in this cold, and in the blending an unconscious deceit fulness. But this "You shall love," this command from God, takes all the unsoundness away and preserves for eternity what is sound. This you shall is the saving element, purifying, elevating. There where the merely human wants to storm forth, the com mand still holds. Just when the merely human would lose cour age, the command strengthens. Just when the merely human would become tired and clever, the command flames up and gives wisdom. The command consumes and burns out what is unsound and impure in your love, but through it you shall be able to kindle it again, even when, humanly considered, all has been lost.
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34 Nebuchadnezzar
These are recollections of my life when I was a beast and ate grass, which I, Nebuchadnezzar, make known to all people and to every tongue.
Was not Babel the great city, the greatest of all the cities of the world? I, Nebuchadnezzar, built it. No city was so renowned as Babel, and no king so renowned through Babel, the glory of my majesty. My royal house was visible unto the ends of the earth, and my wisdom was like a dark riddle which no one could explain. So no one could interpret my dreams.
And the word came to me that for seven years I should be transformed and become like a beast that eats the grass of the field. And I heard a voice that came suddenly, and I was trans formed as quickly as a woman changes color. Grass was my food, and dew fell upon me, and no one knew who I was. But I knew Babel and cried out, "Is not this Babel?" But no one paid attention to my word, for when I spoke I sounded like a bellow ing beast. My thoughts terrified me, for my mouth was bound, and no one could grasp a thing I said.
And I thought to myself: Who is this Mighty One whose wis dom is like the darkness of the night, and like the deep sea un fathomable? No one knows where the Almighty resides, no one can point and say, "Behold, here is his throne." For he does not dwell on the confines of my kingdom as does my neighbor. And
neither does he dwell in his temple, for I, I, Nebuchadnezzar, have taken his vessels of gold and silver, and have leveled his temple to ruins.
No one knows anything of him. Who is his father, and how did he came to acquire his power, and who taught him the se cret of his might? He has no advisers from whom one might buy his secret for gold; no one to whom he says, "What shall I do?" and no one who says to him, "What are you doing?" He does not have spies who wait for the opportunity when one might catch him; for he does not say, "Tomorrow," he says, "To day." He makes no preparations like a man, and his prepara tions give the enemy no rest, for he says, "Let it be done," and it comes to pass.
It is he who has done this to me. He does not aim like the bowman, so that one can flee from his arrow; no, he speaks and it is done. In his hand, the brain of kings is like wax in the smelt ing oven, and their power is like a feather when he weighs it. And yet he does not dwell on earth that he might take Babel from me and leave me a small residue, or that he might take away everything from me in order to be the Mighty One in Babel.
This is how I thought in the secrecy of my mind, when no one recognized me and when my thoughts terrified me. This is how I thought of the Lord. But the seven years passed by and I became once again Nebuchadnezzar, and I called together all the wise men to see if they could explain to me the secret of that power, and how it was I had become a beast of the field. And they all fell down upon their faces and said, "Great Nebuchad nezzar, this is but a vision, an evil dream! Who could be capable of doing this to you?" But my wrath was kindled against them, and I had them put away for their folly. For the Lord possesses all might, as no human being possesses it, and I will not envy his power, but will laud it.
34 Nebuchadnezzar
Babel has ceased to be the renowned Babel, and I, Nebuchad nezzar, am no longer Nebuchadnezzar, and my armies no longer protect me, for no one can see the Lord and no one can recognize him. Even if he were to come, the watchmen would give warning in vain, because I have already become like a bird in the tree, or like a fish in the water, known only to the other fish.
I no longer desire to be renowned through Babel, but every seventh year there shall be a festival in the land, a great festival among the people, and it shall be called the Feast of the Trans formation. And an astrologer shall be led through the streets and be dressed like a beast, and he shall carry with him his cal culations, torn to shreds like a bunch of hay. And all the people shall cry, "The Lord, the Lord, the Lord is the Mighty One. His deed is swift like the leap of the great fish in the sea."
My days have been numbered, and my dominion has gone like a watch in the night. I do not know where to go – whether it is to the invisible land in the distance where the Mighty One lives, that I might find grace in his eyes, or whether he will take the breath of life from me, so that I become like a cast-off gar ment like my predecessors, that he might find delight in me.
I, I, Nebuchadnezzar, have made this known to all people and to every tongue, and great Babel shall carry out my will.
35 The War Within
Imagine a group of people who have come together to socialize. The conversation is in full swing, lively, almost out of control. One person can hardly wait to have his say till the other is through with his, and everybody takes part more or less actively as in a debate.
Then enters a stranger, who arrives in the midst of it all. Judging by the behavior of the group and the loudness of the talk, the stranger infers that the topic of conversation is one of great concern and importance. As it so often happens, however, the conversation is about a mere trifle. With perfect calmness, since he has not been in the heart of the conversation, he in quires about the subject of their conversation. The stranger, of course, cannot in the least be blamed for the effect his inquiry produces. He only assumed that what was being discussed was something of significance. But what a surprising effect, to be come suddenly aware that what had so passionately absorbed the attention of the group was so unimportant that it can hardly be put into words. It turns out to be a mere nothing, and everyone gets annoyed.
Stranger still is the effect produced by God's word when it is heard in the midst of the world's talk. Think about it. In the world there is lots of talk about this or that strife. There is talk about this person who is in conflict with that person, about that man and that woman, although united in marriage, living in
35 The War Within
strife with one another, about the disagreement that has begun between this one and that, about this one challenging another to a fight, about there being unrest in the city, about a war that is impending, about the conflict of nature's elements that rage fearfully. Behold, it is this that is talked about everywhere, day in and day out. If there is a conflict to report, then there is al ways a listening audience. But if one should bring up or men tion the strife and unrest that resides within every person with God – what an astonishing effect! To most people such talk is but nonsense, a mere trifle. There are too many other impor tant things to talk about.
Travel the world over, get to know the most various cultures, go about and enter into conversation with all the different peoples, visit them in their houses, follow them to their meet ings, and listen attentively to what they talk about. Now tell me if you ever hear anything said about the eternal strife, the war between God and man, the war within a person's soul. And yet this strife is the affair of every single person. In fact, there is no other strife that it is absolutely the affair of every person.
The strife between human beings – well, after all, there are many that live their lives rather peaceably without being in con flict with anybody. The strife between married people – well, after all, there are many happy marriages that go along without much tension. And after all it is a rare occurrence for a man to be challenged to a fight. And even during a war, yes, even if it was the most terrible war, there are still many who live in peace. But this strife, this fight with God is absolutely the affair of every single person, whether people recognize it or not. But beware lest you make the slightest mention of it!
Perhaps this strife is regarded as so sacred and so solemn that it is felt it should never be talked about. Perhaps it is like how God is manifested in creation. God is not directly visible so as
to be noticed in the world. In fact, the beauty of creation at tracts attention to itself, almost as if God did not exist at all. So maybe this strife is a kind of secret every person has, and be cause it is not directly visible, it never gets talked about. Every thing else instead gets talked about, attracts attention to itself, as if this sacred strife did not exist. Perhaps so, perhaps.
But it is certain that every person, every sufferer has oppor tunity, in one way or another, to become aware of this strife. And it is this strife that underlies all others. Oh, whoever you are, pay heed to this sacred strife. This alone is the strife of eternity.
36 Sickness Unto Death
Just as there isn't a single human being that enjoys perfect health, so there is not a single human being who does not despair at least a little. There is not a single human being whose innermost being is free of uneasiness, unquiet, discor dance, or anxiety in the face of something unknown, something he doesn't even dare strike up acquaintance with. Everyone, in one way or another, is plagued with an anxiety about a possibil ity in life or about himself. We go about with a sickness – not unlike an illness of the body, which a physician has diagnosed – a sickness of the spirit that only now and then, in glimpses, re veals itself and with what is for him an inexplicable anxiety.
Despair differs from what we usually call sickness, because it is a sickness of the spirit. If for instance, a physician determines that so and so is in good health, and then later that person be comes ill, this doesn't mean that the physician was wrong. He may well have been right about his having been well at the time. Once despair makes itself known, however, it becomes apparent that the person was already in despair. Unlike a fever, which comes and goes, when someone falls into despair, it is immedi ately evident that he was already in despair. This is because de spair is a characteristic of the spirit. It is related to the eternal, and therefore has something of the eternal in its dynamic.
We must not assume, therefore, that despair is something rare. On the contrary, it is quite general. And we cannot assume
that just because someone doesn't think or feel he is in despair, he is not in despair. Nor should we think that only the person who says he is in despair is so. On the contrary, he who says without pretense that he despairs is, in actual fact, a little nearer, a step nearer to being cured than all those who do not regard themselves as being in despair. Yet we must concede that the normal situation is this: that most people live without being properly conscious of being spirit, and for this reason all the socalled security and contentment with life are actually forms of despair.
Ah! So much is spoken about human need and misery and how to overcome it. So much is spoken about wasting our lives. But the only wasted life is the life of him who has so lived it, de ceived by life's pleasures or its sorrows, that he never became decisively, eternally, conscious of himself as spirit, as a self. Or, if I may put it another way, he has never become aware – and gained in the deepest sense the impression – that there is a God and that "he," himself, is answerable to and exists before this God, and that this God can only be met by way of despair. Alas! so many live their lives in denial, decapitated from eternity. So many are not aware of their true destiny, defrauding themselves of this most blessed of all realities.
Imagine a house consisting of a basement and a ground floor, designed in such a way that there is, or is meant to be, a difference of social class between the occupants of each floor. Imagine if we were to compare being a human being with such a house. The sorry and ludicrous fact with most people is that they prefer to live in the basement. Every human being is the synthesis of spirit and body, the infinite and finite, freedom and necessity, destined for spirit. This is the building, but we prefer living in the basement, that is, in the categories of the senses and in the abstractions of thought. We not only prefer living in
36 Sickness Unto Death
the basement, we love it so much that we are indignant if any one suggests we occupy the fine suite lying vacant above. After all we are living in our own house!
Yes, so many prefer to live in the basement, along life's sur face. You can see amazing examples of this, which illustrate it on a stupendous scale. Take a thinker who erects a huge building, a system of thought, one that encompasses the whole of life and world history. Turn your attention to his personal life and you will discover to your astonishment, like among so many others, the appalling and ludicrous fact that he himself does not live in this huge, high-vaulted palace, but in a shack next door. If you took it upon yourself to draw attention to this deception, to this contradiction, he would be insulted. As long as he can complete the system – with the help of his error – being in error is not what he is afraid of. What sickness!
Or, take the industrious person who busily secures his life with this and that creature comfort but in a moment of illness or physical loss or adversity falls to pieces. If you took it upon yourself to ask, "What are you so busy for? What difference is all this activity if at a moment's notice you fall ill or fall dead?" you would surely be cursed. As long as this person can keep busy – without thinking too much about life's meaning – living in de ception is the least of his fears.
All this is only to say that just because one is ignorant of his state as being one of despair, he is in despair all the same, and even more so. Beneath ignorance lies despair – spiritlessness – whether his state is one of total extinction, a merely vegetative life, or a life full of energy the secret of which is nevertheless despair. When the spell of illusion is broken, when life begins to quake, then it is immediately apparent that despair was lying beneath all the time. No wonder people prefer to live in the basement.
37 The Dynamics of Despair
The human being is essentially spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is to be a self. But what is the self? In short, the self is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. The self is the conscious unity of these factors, which relates to itself, whose task is to be come itself. This, of course, can only be done in relationship to God, who holds the synthesis together.
When is despair completely eradicated? It occurs when the self, in relating to itself and in wanting to be itself, is grounded nakedly in the power that established it. In other words, when it is related openly to and dependently on God. To transcend despair is neither to become finite nor to become infinite but to become an individual in their synthesis, which God alone holds together. In so far as the self does not become itself in this way, it is not itself. And not to be oneself, as God created you, is despair.
Finitude's Despair
Despair comes in different guises. To lack infinitude is a de spairing confinement. It consists in ascribing infinite value to the trivial and temporal. Here the self is lost by being altogether reduced to the finite. Finitude's despair allows itself to be, so to speak, cheated of its self by "the others." By seeing the multitude of people and things around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise in the ways of the world, a person
37 The Dynamics of Despair
forgets himself, forgets his own name, dares not believe in him self, finds being himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like all the others, to become a repetition, a number along with the crowd.
Now this form of despair goes virtually unnoticed in the world. Precisely by losing oneself in this way, a person gains all that is required for a flawless performance in everyday life, yes, for making a great success out of life. One is ground as smooth as a pebble. Far from anyone thinking of such a person as being in despair, he is just what a human being ought to be. He is praised by others; honored, esteemed, and occupied with all the goals of temporal life. Yes, what we call worldliness simply con sists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn them selves to the world. They use their abilities, amass wealth, carry out enterprises, make prudent calculations, and the like, and perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not authentic selves. They are copies. In a spiritual sense they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self for God, however self-consumed they are otherwise.
The Despair of Weakness
The despair of weakness is the despair of not wanting to be oneself. This kind of despair amounts to a passivity of the self. Its frame of reference is the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good fortune, misfortune, and fate. What is imme diate is all that matters. The determining factor is what happens or does not happen to oneself.
To despair is to lose the eternal, but of this loss the one who despairs in weakness says nothing, it doesn't even occur to him. He is too preoccupied with securing his earthly existence against unnecessary deprivation. To lose the earthly, however, is not in itself to despair, yet that is precisely what this person
speaks of and calls despair. What he says is in a sense true, only not in the way he understands it. He is turned around and what he says must be understood backwards. In other words, he stands there pointing to something that is not despair (e.g. a loss of some kind), explaining that he is in despair, and yes, sure enough, the despair is going on behind him but unawares. Therefore, if everything suddenly changes, once his external circumstances change and his wishes are fulfilled, then happi ness returns to him, he begins life afresh. When help comes from outside, happiness is restored to him, and he begins where he left off. Yet he neither was nor becomes a self. He is a cipher and simply carries on living merely on the level of what is im mediate and of what is happening around him.
This form of despair consists of not wanting to be a self, really. Actually, it consists of wanting desperately to be someone else. Such a self refuses to take responsibility. Life is but a game of chance. Hence, in the moment of despair, when no help comes, such a person wants desperately to become someone else. And yet a despairer of this kind, whose only wish is this craziest of all crazy transformations – to be someone else – is in love with the fancy that the change can be made as easily as one puts on an other coat. Or to put it differently, he only knows himself by his coat. He simply doesn't know himself. He knows what it is to have a self only in externals. There could hardly be a more ab surd confusion, for a self differs precisely, no, infinitely, from those externals.
And what if such a person was able to become somebody else, could put on a new self? There is the story of a peasant who had come barefoot to town but who made enough money to buy himself a pair of stockings and shoes and still have enough left over to get himself drunk. On his way home in his drunken state he lay down in the middle of the road and fell asleep. A
37 The Dynamics of Despair
carriage came along, and the coachman shouted to him to move aside or else he would drive over his legs. The drunken peasant woke up, looked down at his legs and, not recognizing them because of the stockings and shoes, said: "Go ahead, they aren't my legs." So it is with the immediate person who despairs in weakness of being a true self. It is impossible to draw a pic ture of him that is not comic.
The Despair of Defiance
Unlike the despair of weakness, the despair of defiance is the despair of wanting in desperation to be oneself. Here despair is conscious of itself as an activity. The self 's identity comes not from "outside" but directly from the self. It is rooted in the con sciousness of an infinitude, of being related to the infinite, and it is this self the despairer wants to be. In other words, such a self severs itself from any relationship to the power that has estab lished it. It wants desperately to rule over itself, create itself, make this self what it wants it to be, and determine what it will have and what it will not have. The one who lives in defiance does not truly put on a self, nor does he see his task in his given self. No, by virtue of his own "infinitude" he constructs his own self by himself and for himself.
The defiant self recognizes no power other than its own. It is content with taking notice only of itself, which it does by means of bestowing infinite interest and significance on all its enter prises. In the process of its wish to be its own master, however, it works its way into the exact opposite; it really becomes no self, and thus despairs. As it acts, there is nothing eternally firm on which it stands. Yes, the defiant self is its own master, absolutely (as one says) its own master, and yet exactly this is despair. Upon closer examination it is easy to see that this absolute ruler is a king without a country. He really rules over nothing. His
position, his kingdom, his sovereignty, is subject to the dictates of rebellion at any moment. This is because such a self is forever building castles in the air, and just when it seems on the point of having the building finished, at a whim it can – and often does – dissolve the whole thing into nothing.
When confronted with earthly need, a temporal cross, a thorn in the flesh that grows too deep to be removed, the defi ant self is offended. It uses the suffering as an excuse to take of fense at all existence. Such a person wants to be himself in spite of suffering, but not in "spite of it" in the sense of being without it. No, he now wants to spite or defy all existence and be himself with it, taking it along in steely resignation with him, almost fly ing in the face of his agony. Does he have hope in the possibility of help? No! Does he recognize that for God everything is pos sible? No! Will he ask help of any other? No! That for the entire world he will not do. If it came to that, he would rather be him self with all the torments of hell than ask for help.
Ah! Indeed, there is much, even prolonged and agonizing suffering that the defiant self fundamentally prefers so long as it retains the right to be itself. Ah, demonic madness! Such a self wants to be itself in hatred towards existence, to be itself ac cording to its own misery. It does not even want so much as to sever itself defiantly from the power that established it but in sheer spite to push itself on that power, importune it, hold on to it out of malice.
In rebelling against existence, the defiant self will hear noth ing about the comfort eternity offers. This comfort would be to his undoing, an objection to the whole of his existence. It is, to describe it figuratively, as if a writer were to make a slip of the pen and the error became conscious of itself as such and then wanted to rebel against the author. Out of hatred for him, the error forbids the author to correct it and in manic defiance says
37 The Dynamics of Despair
to him: "No, I will not be changed, I will stand as a witness against you, a witness to the fact that you are a second-rate au thor." Yes, this is the despair of defiance, and what despair it is!
38 Consider the Lilies
Once upon a time there was a lily that stood in a se cluded place beside a little rippling brook. It lived in happy companionship with some nettles and a few other little flowers that grew nearby. The lily was more beautifully arrayed than Solomon in all his glory. Moreover, it was carefree and happy. One day a little bird came by to visit the lily. It came again the following day. Then it stayed away for several days before it came again. Now this seemed rather odd and baffling to the lily – strange that the bird did not remain in the same place like the little flowers nearby; how could the bird be so fickle? But as so often happens, the lily fell in love with the bird precisely be cause the bird was so fickle.
This little bird, however, was proud and naughty. Instead of delighting in the lily's beauty and sharing the joy of its innocent happiness, it would show off its freedom, making the lily feel its bondage. Not only that, the little bird talked fast and loose, of how in other places there were lots of lilies far more beautiful and in those places there was rapture and merriment, a fra grance, a splendor of colors, a singing of the birds that was be yond all description. This is how the bird spoke, and its stories usually ended with the remark – so humiliating for the lily – that in comparison with such glory the poor lily looked like nothing. Indeed, according to the bird, there was reason to wonder if it had any right to be called a lily.
38 Consider the Lilies
So the lily began to fret. The more it listened to the bird the more worried it became. It no longer slept soundly at night. It no longer woke up happy in the morning. It felt imprisoned and bound. It found the purling of the water tiresome and the day long. In self-concern it began to be preoccupied with itself and the condition of its life. "To look so inferior as I do," said the lily to itself, "to be as insignificant as the little bird says I am – oh, why was I not placed somewhere else, under different conditions? Oh why did I not become a Crown Imperial?"
To make matters worse, the lily noticed that it was becoming exhausted from its worry. So it talked seriously to itself, yet not so seriously that it banished the worry out of its mind. Rather, it talked in such a way as to convince itself that its worry was justi fied. "After all," it said, "my wish is not an unreasonable one. I am not asking the impossible, to become what I am not – a bird, for example. My wish is only to become a beautiful lily, or even perhaps the most beautiful."
Amidst all this, the little bird flew back and forth, and with every visit and every departure the lily became more and more agitated. Finally it confided everything to the bird, and that evening they decided there had to be a change that would put an end to all the worry. So early the next morning the little bird came. He pecked away the soil from the lily's root so that it might become free. When this had been done, the bird took the lily under its wing and flew away. The decision was that the bird should fly with the lily to the place where the most beautiful lil ies blossomed. Then the bird was to help the lily get planted down in the hope that with the change of place and the new surroundings it might succeed in becoming a magnificent lily in the company of all the others, or perhaps even a Crown Im perial envied by all the others. Alas, on the way the lily withered!
What does this have to say to us? The lily is we human beings. That proud, naughty little bird is the restless attitude of com parison, which roams far and wide, fitfully and capriciously, ac quiring a diseased knowledge of distinction. And just as the bird did not put itself in the lily's place, comparison (or com paring) does the same thing by either putting us in someone else's place or putting someone else in ours.
In his preoccupation with comparisons, the worried person finally forgets altogether that he is a human being. He despair ingly thinks of himself as being so different from others that he even believes he is different in his very humanity. That, of course, is what the little bird meant when he suggested that the lily was so insignificant that there was reason to doubt whether it really was a lily at all. And the typical defense for worrying (it seems so reasonable) is always that we are not asking anything unreasonable – such as to become a bird, for example. We only wish to fulfill an ambition we have not yet achieved, even if it seems so trivial to other worried people. If then, as with the movement of the bird to and fro, comparison incites worry to a passion and manages to tear us loose from the soil, for the soil is our willingness to be what we are created to be, then it seems as if comparison has now come to take us to our desired goal. And it certainly does come and fetch us, but only as death comes to fetch a person. It lets the worried one perish on the fluttering wings of despondency.
So what can the anxiety-ridden person learn from the lilies? He learns to be content with being a human being and not to worry about the differences between one person and another. He learns to speak just as concisely, just as solemnly, and just as inspiringly about being a human being as the Gospel speaks about the lilies. Let us consider Solomon. When dressed in royal splendor the one speaking says: Your Majesty. But when the
38 Consider the Lilies
most solemn speech of eternity is spoken, then we say: Man! And in the decisive moment of death when all differences are abolished, we say: Man! And in saying this we are not speaking disdainfully. On the contrary, we are uttering the highest of ex pressions. For to be a human being is not something lower than the differences we humans invent, but is high, high above them.
Worldly anxiety has its basis in a person's unwillingness to be content with being a human being and in his anxious craving for distinction by way of comparison. True, worry about making a living, or as it is more commonly put, worries about the ne cessities of life, is not exactly an invention of comparison. Nevertheless, should we not be able to learn a lot about this anxiety from the lilies and birds? If we cannot, without a smile, think of the lily's desire to become a Crown Imperial then think of its dying on the way. Oh, let us bear in mind that it is rather something to weep over that we too become just as foolishly worried, yes, just as foolishly.
39 Behold the Birds of the Air
Once upon a time there was a wood dove. It had its nest in the fearsome forest, where wonder and apprehension dwelt together, among the erect, lonely trees. But nearby, where the smoke rises up from the farmer's house, lived some tame doves. The wood dove would often meet a pair of these. He would sit on a branch that stretched out over the farmyard, not far from the two tame doves on the ridge of the roof. One day they were talking together about how things were going and about making a living. The wood dove said, "Up until now I have made my living by letting each day have its own troubles, and in that way I get through life just fine." The tame dove, not without preening itself, answered: "No, we manage differently; with us, that is with the rich farmer with whom we live, our fu ture is secure. At harvest time, my mate and I sit up on the roof and watch. The farmer brings in so many loads of corn that I know we are secure for a very long time. We two are well pro vided for and have our guaranteed security."
When the wood dove returned home he pondered the mat ter. It occurred to him that it must be a great comfort to know that one's living was secure for a long time, and what a wretched thing it was to always live in uncertainty. "It would be best," he told himself, "to gather a great stockpile and store it here or there in some safe place."
The next morning the wood dove woke earlier than usual. He got to work right away and was so busy gathering and stor
39 Behold the Birds of the Air
ing that he scarcely had time to eat. But as fate seemed to hang over him, every time he had collected a little supply and hidden it away, when he came to look for it, it was gone! Meanwhile there was no actual change about making a living. He found his food every day as before. And yet a great change had taken place. He did not suffer actual want, but he had acquired the anticipation of need in the future. His peace of mind was lost. He had become anxious about the necessities of life.
From now on, the wood dove began to worry. His feathers lost their glint of color, his flight lost buoyancy. He was no longer joyful; indeed, he was almost envious of the rich, tame doves. He found his food each day, ate his fill, and yet he was not satisfied. In worrying about his needs he had trapped him self in a snare in which no birdcatcher could have trapped him, trapped as only a free creature can trap himself. "This securing of the future is constantly on my mind," he said. "Oh why am I a poor wood dove and not one of those rich ones?"
He saw plainly that anxiety was taking its toll on him, and so he spoke seriously to himself, yet not so seriously that he could drive away the worry from his mind and set his heart at rest. No, he only spoke in such a way that he convinced himself that his care was justified. "I am not asking anything unreasonable or impossible," he said. "I do not ask to become like the wealthy farmer, but only like one of the rich doves."