| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: He stood watching the big bear cutting thin slices of meat.
" Give--" he began, when the bear turning upon him with a
growl, thrust him cruelly aside. The badger fell on his hands. He
fell where the grass was wet with the blood of the newly carved
buffalo. His keen starving eyes caught sight of a little red clot
lying bright upon the green. Looking fearfully toward the bear and
seeing his head was turned away, he snatched up the small thick
blood. Underneath his girdled blanket he hid it in his hand.
On his return to his family, he said within himself : "I'll
pray the Great Spirit to bless it." Thus he built a small round
lodge. Sprinkling water upon the heated heap of sacred stones
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: We come then to that great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know
from them what is True, but chiefly to feel with them what is just.
Now, to feel with them, we must be like them; and none of us can
become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and
tested knowledge,--not the first thought that comes, so the true
passion is disciplined and tested passion,--not the first passion
that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the
treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far,
in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose
and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity
is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined. Its nobility
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: be used, since there are so many words of God? I answer, The
Apostle Paul (Rom. i.) explains what it is, namely the Gospel of
God, concerning His Son, incarnate, suffering, risen, and
glorified, through the Spirit, the Sanctifier. To preach Christ
is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save
it, if it believes the preaching. For faith alone and the
efficacious use of the word of God, bring salvation. "If thou
shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved" (Rom. x. 9); and again, "Christ is the end of the law for
righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. x. 4), and "The
|
