Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

doctrine over people

I was thinking about this passage from Fear and Trembling:

The paradox of faith, then, is this: that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual…determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal.

And then I stumbled upon this:

Identifying Religious Brainwashing: Doctrine Over Person (Part 7 of 8)

In our modern scientific post-Enlightenment age have we placed doctrine/ideas above people? Is there a general push just to conform, to defend the party, rather than embody the truth in my life?

life

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves. (17 January 1837)

yo-yo ma

This is a magnificent piece of music. But the best about this particular version is Yo-Yo Ma’s enthusiasm while he plays – he does not play the piece but he lives it. He plays the piece for himself, not an audience or money, but completely for his own enjoyment.