I read this verse in Andrew Murray's book "Humility". It was so surprising, thought-provoking, and convicting: "we shall see that we may indeed have strong intellectual conviction and assurance of the truth while pride is kept in the heart, but that it makes the living faith, which has power with God, an impossibility."
How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
THE ENEMY, by Pablo Neruda
ReplyDeleteMy old enemy came to visit
today: a man hermetically sealed
in his truth, like a castle
or strong-box,
with his own style of breathing
and a singular sword-play
sedulously stropped to draw blood.
I saw the years in his face:
the eyes of tired water,
the lines of his loneliness
that had lifted his temples
little by little to consummate self-love.
We chatted a while in
broad mid-day, in windy
explosions that scattered
the sun on all sides and struck at the sky.
But the man showed me only
his new set of keys, his one
way to all doors. Inside him,
I think he was silent,
indivisibly silent:
the flint of his sould
stayed impenetrable
I thought of that stingy integrity
hopelessly buried, with power
to harm only himself;
and within me I knew
my own crude truths shamed.
oops, missed the last stanza!
ReplyDeleteSo we talked - each of us
honing his steely convictions,
each tempered by time:
two blind men defending
their individual darknesses.
oh man, that poem is so deep. I don't think I understood it all ... I will have to think about it :)
ReplyDeletethat poem is stirring and dreadfully somber.. it's great
ReplyDelete