Soren Kierkegaard's Prayer for Inner Peace - Translated for Today

Kierkegaard for Today

Søren Kierkegaard was born in 1813 in Denmark. He was the founder of existentialist philosophy and a pioneer in Christian ethics. Two hundred years later—everyone from theologians, freshman philosophy students, and people reading 140 character feeds on Twitter are exposed to his writings.

The most common form of despair is not being who you are. 

Two dangers exist: 1) Copying somebody else and trying to be like them. 2) Being the person somebody else wants you to be. God created you to be you and nobody else. 

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Life is a journey and an adventure. The future always involves an element of faith. Mistakes will be made. Lessons can be learned. Our past either destroys us, defines us, or develops us. Choose to let it develop you. 

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Looking into the eyes of another person, experiencing God’s forgiveness and grace, serving a stranger, loving a child, exploring creation—such are the things of life. When life becomes a series of problems that are solved the point of life itself is missed. 

Once you label me you negate me. 

Think about all the labels we use to describe people: old, young, fat, unsuccessful, sick, junkie, divorced, weak, etc… Kierkegaard knew labels lie and shouldn’t be accepted or used. 

Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see. 

His definition of love is biblical and compelling. He is describing Christ’s version of love: Agápē. Love that is blind and impartial. Love with no strings attached. Love based on the character of the person loving rather than the worthiness of the object of the love. You figure this out and you figure life out. 

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins. 

Of course he was describing Jesus here. Tiberius Caesar was the most powerful person in the world at the time of Jesus’ death. He died a few years after Jesus and is a footnote in human history. Jesus dies and the church begins. Two thousand years later nearly 2.5 billion people confess him as Savior and Lord. Being willing to die for someone or something beats not caring enough to die for anyone or anything. 

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself. 

He is writing about risk. The life without risk is the most dangerous life possible. Not to risk means things like intimacy, growth, and discovery will never happen. The greatest risk is not failure or being hurt; the greatest risk is reaching death without living. 

The best is yet to come…

Craig

The King and the Humble Maiden

It's Christmas Day. We celebrate the birth of Jesus. Soren Kierkegaard tells a parable about why God came to the world as a human. Fully human and fully God.

There once was a king who loved a humble maiden. This king was of uncommon royal lineage. He was a king above kings, with power and might to make all others humble before him. Statesmen trembled at his pronouncements. None dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all who opposed him. The wealth of his holdings was unfathomable. Tribute arrived on a daily basis from lesser kings who hoped to gain his favor.

And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden who lived in the poorest village in his vast kingdom. He longed to go to this maiden and announce his love for her, but here arose the king’s dilemma: how to declare his love? Certainly, he could appear before her resplendent in his royal robes and surrounded with the Royal Guard, ready to carry her away in a carriage inlaid with gold and precious stones. He could bring her to the palace and crown her head with jewels and clothe her in the finest silks. She would surely not resist this type of proposal, for no one dared to resist the king.

But would she love him?

She might say she loved him. She might be awed by his royal splendor and tremble at the thought of being blessed with such an amazing opportunity. She might tell herself that she would be foolish to reject such a marriage proposal. But would she love him, or would she go through the motions all the while living a life of empty duty, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she love him or regret the moment of being face to face with the overwhelming grandure of the king?

Or would she be happy at his side, loving him for himself and not for his title or riches or power?

He did not want a wife who behaved as a subject to his royal decrees, cringing at his word and unwilling to do anything but agree with all he said and did. Instead, he wanted an equal, a queen whose love knew no restrictions or limitations. He wanted an equal whose voice would speak to him at all times without hesitation. Love with his beloved maiden must mean equality with her. He wanted a relationship with the woman that had neither barriers nor walls in which he was not a king and she was not a poor subject of the crown. The love shared between them would cross the chasm that threatened to keep them apart, bringing the king and peasant together and making the unequal equal. In short, he wanted the maiden to love him for himself and not for any other reason.

He had to find a way to win the maiden’s love without overwhelming her and without destroying her free will to choose. The king realized that to win the maiden’s love, he had only one choice. He had to become like her, without power or riches and without the title of king. Only then would she be able to see him simply for who he was and not for what his position made him. He had to become her equal, and to do this he must leave all that he had.

And so one night, after all within the castle were asleep, he laid aside his golden crown and removed his rings of state. He took off his royal robes of silk and linen and redressed himself in the common clothes of the poorest of the kingdom. Leaving by way of the servant’s entrance, the king left his crown, his castle, and his kingdom behind. As the next day’s sun rose in the east, the maiden emerged from her humble cottage to find herself face to face with a stranger, a common man with kindly eyes who requested an opportunity to speak with her and, in time, to court her for her hand in marriage.

And so the courtship continues.

Happy Birthday Søren Kierkegaard

Today would have been Søren Kierkegaard's 198th birthday. Here are some of his quotes to consider:

A statue of Kierkegaard in Copenhagen, Denmark

• A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
• Be that self which one truly is.
• Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
• Don't forget to love yourself.
• During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
• Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
• Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
• Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.
• God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
• How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.