Literature is achieved anxiety.
But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of us were sinners before him and worthy of condemnation.
Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
Hence the importance of patience in the New Testament, which becomes the basic constituent of Christianity, more central even than humility: the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one's own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the Lamb which is led.
When you say Yes to God unconditionally, you have no idea how far this Yes is going to take you. Certainly farther than you can guess and calculate beforehand. . . but just how far and in what form? At the same time, this Yes is the sole, non-negotiable prerequisite of all Christian understanding, of all theology and ecclesial wisdom.
Being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, the Christ upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.
Without Easter, Good Friday would have no meaning. Without Easter, there would be no hope that suffering and abandonment might be tolerable. But with Easter, a way out becomes visible for human sorrows, an absolute future: more than a hope, a divine expectation.
To say I live a cursed life is an understatement. I have to get up every day and work with people who are not as successful as me nor will they ever be as successful as me. Nobody knows the struggles I go through.
Cranes carry this heavy mystical baggage. They're icons of fidelity and happiness. The Vietnamese believe cranes cart our souls up to heaven on our wings.
. . . but that's what mankind is like: they only prize what they no longer possess.
Looking back, I've learned that everyone is searching for three things: Identity, community, and a sense of individual purpose. These are fundamental, and if a person feels marginalized or disenfranchised, they're likely to turn to something negative, maybe drugs, maybe promiscuity, or maybe a white supremacist group.