Substack Notes Roundup #8
Martyrdom, duty, greatness, and more...
This is the 8th collection of my most recent Substack notes. Enjoy.
“As the world around us grows darker more of us will be challenged about our faith, more of us will be called before despots and atheists and rulers and kings and synagogues. The powers of this world will work in our favour because Christ will give us the opportunity to find salvation by being willing to confess Him before these earthly powers. This darkness will only increase, let us not fool ourselves about this. Darkness is the fruit of deception. As we grow closer to the end unbelief and immorality will multiply all around us. In the midst of this every confessor of Christ will be precious to God. Let us hold on to this assurance. No one will confess Christ in his own strength. We mustn’t fantasize about being martyrs when we are living such sinful lives. If we live and give ourselves to the passions we will not be confessors of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that convicts the soul of Christ and the Holy Spirit only enters those places that are cleansed and prepared for Him.”
We are degrees of freedom separated from what people around us are going through.
If we weren’t we would realize that we all more or less worry about the same things. How to make a decent living, how to be successful, how not to make a fool of ourselves in public, how to man-up and speak to the girl we like, how to deal with the terror of an ageing parent etc.
We are not worse in life than everyone else, we simply can’t conceive the severity of their problems.
Make friends and talk with others. We are all living our first life.
“I am not unacquainted with the perplexities and dangers of life, I do not fear them, and I encounter them buoyantly. I am not unacquainted with the dreadful, my memory is a faithful wife, and my imagination is (as I myself am not) a diligent little maiden who all day sits quietly at her work, and in the evening knows how to chat to me about it so prettily that I must look at it, though not always, I must say, is it landscapes, or flowers, or pastoral idylls she paints. I have seen the dreadful before my own eyes, I do not flee from it timorously, but I know very well that, although I advance to meet it, my courage is not the courage of faith, nor anything comparable to it. I am unable to make the movements of faith, I cannot shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd, for me that is an impossibility … but I do not boast of it. I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity.”
— Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
There is no “going further” than faith; no sucking out wordly wisdom; no petty calculation or ethical reduction.
To go beyond faith is to return to reason; a device used for worldly affairs. No reasonable man would ever believe and no faithful man would ever use reason to entice the reasonable.
Only the true believer makes the leap beyond reason. The rest of us can do nothing but observe in awe.
I’ve recently been implementing the Socratic method and it’s astonishing how many people parrot things they cannot support by facts. Three questions in and their whole worldview just crumbles.
Nobody ever admits they don’t know enough. Neutrality has gone out of fashion.
“What ordinarily tempts a man is that which would keep him from doing his duty, but in this case the temptation is itself the ethical… which would keep him from doing God's will. But what then is duty? Duty is precisely the expression for God's will.”
— Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Why do some still hold the misconception that progressivism equals tolerance? It does not.
It equals destruction of the old. Hence the maniacal response to anything resembling traditionalism, be it political or religious.
What is truly inconceivable to me is the disproportionate enmity towards Christianity as opposed to other religions like Islam and Buddhism which are generally treated with respect.
Is this progressive bubble solely a product of the West’s decline?
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
— Luke 14:26
Don’t be ashamed to admit to your ignorance.
Undeclared ignorance is prideful ignorance.
Worldly possessions are a by-product of greatness, not its purpose.
True greatness is selfless. True greatness is love. True greatness is service.
“But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.”
— Matthew 23:11
— Alone, by Edgar Allan Poe
Thank you for the Combo / index! ✨🌐🕊️🏔️🧭⚓🌊
Grace and peace to you Amigo, onward to Bethlehem.
The narrow path.....