Posted on 01/10/2007 9:43:20 AM PST by AlbionGirl
And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 20:28
At the other end of the sea whose shore lies before us, by the Sils Maria, there is an inscription carved into a mighty stone, on a forested peninsula. The inscription reads "Friedrich Nietzsche" and above is the song of the deep midnight, from the Zarathustra who once originated in Sils Maria. Year after year Nietzsche had fled from the hustle of the world to the loneliness of this mountain vale, upon which at that time lay the deep stillness of natural isolation. Before the green mirror of the sea, to the right and to the left the steep cliffs, and in the distance the desolate ice and snow of the high mountain peaks, far from men and their boisterous bustle, he sat there and wrote his great works. Among the poems, which he here created - They are among the greatest written in the German language. Perhaps the deep isolation, the most desperate lostness of the soul, has never found such an expression as in them. - There is one, which describes how in the terrifying loneliness of the mountain heights, cries out for people who understand him: "the friend remains, ready day and night." But no one comes who understands him. And finally his screams subside, the cry of an endless desire: "The song is over, the desire of a sweet cry dies in the mouth... Now the world laughs, the terrifying curtain is torn, the wedding came for light and darkness." The dust passes into the night of insanity.
The rest of this wonderful piece is right here.
(Excerpt) Read more at clai.org.au ...
It's ineffably sad to witness a friend in the throes of a cocaine or heroin addiction. They are completely enslaved, and completely beaten-down. They beg relief from the caretaker in The Shining. They need Our Lord more than just about anyone, and it's for those people that I offer this piece by the inimitable Hermann Sasse, who had a deep respect for his sheep, who understood with such superior fashion what it means to pastor the blessed People God.
There are those who say that Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathrusta because he was dumped by Lou Salome. Maybe she was like the other Salome and want his head on a plate and Nietzsche, unlike John the Baptist, offered the whip instead of the honey to the world. Love can make you crazy especially when you are scorned and jilted; and in Nietzsche's case, he will rewrite the Bible in his own image to have his revenge.
Agreed.
The other thing about Nietzsche that probably led him to want to rewrite the Bible in his image, was his disgust with that strata of society that has an inveterate and self-serving hatred for greatness. And that strata does exist.
Everytime I visit Italy and become reacquainted with my peasantry, Nietzsche springs to mind. And, truth be told, it's not just the Italian (European?) peasantry, it's the well-to-do too. The smallness of their ethos looms large when compared to the grandness of the American ethos, regardless of its pitfalls.
Take idoms, for example. The Italians have myriad idoms that hope for bad things to befall those they don't like or are in conflict with. Same for the Russians. A gentleman, Mikail, who emigrated to the US at the age of 65, following the dissolution of the USSR, who was a prosecutor in Moscow, and who lived in the apartment below me when I first moved into this complex told me one day that an old Russian saying went thus: I would gladly lose one eye, if you could promise me that my neighbor will lose two.
As far as I know, Americans have no such idioms (if that's what they're called). That isn't to say there isn't envy among Americans, it's just that it's not inveterate like that which I believe exists in the European marrow.
Ping to read later!
Thanks for posting this. The whole essay is worth reading. Hermann Sasse was perhaps the outstanding Lutheran theologian of the 20th century. I have read a number of pieces by him, including the "We Confess" anthology of essays you picture above.
Pinf for later read. Thanks.
Thanks for the ping.
Now, on to AlbionGirl...be ye U.S., Angleterre or Aussie? I grew up in one of the U.S. cities of Albion.
How about you? Would that be Albion, Michigan?
I recently bought The Lonely Way, which is a compilation (in two volumes) of selected letters and essays of his. The only thing I regret is purchasing them through Amazon. I would have preferred to buy directly from Concordia Publishing House. It's important to keep such publishing houses alive even if it costs you a bit more money, and I'm not even sure it does.
I'm overwhelmed by Sasse's pastoral reach. He really did understand the awesome responsibility tending to the People of God carries with it. I already treasure these books, and it will take a few more months before I get through all of Prof. Sasse's works. After that, I'm on to Martin Chemnitz, who I've already peeked into a bit. His thinking on sedes doctrina is as rock-solid as it gets. Looking forward to his book on the two natures of Christ.
My wife works for the guy who translated that.
After that, I'm on to Martin Chemnitz.
You can't do much better than that. Well, the "other" Martin (Luther), maybe. :-)
It is here as well. How many scream and cry about how much others own and do. Envy is a universal condition.
RE: Concordia Publishing House. I do purchase my reference books from CPH (and Repristination press for my Gerhardt books).
I likewise encourage others but CPH is not in danger of failing. The Interim Director did a bang-up job over the last 5(?) years. The new Director appears to be following that course.
I will recommend a book that I have found as an indispensible reference. Although it is not from CPH, you may want to consider it for "after Chemnitz".
- The Complete Timotheus Verinus by VELoescher from Northwestern Publishing (WELS). It answers the Pietism Movement of the 1600's. Read it now to see how this very same "pietism" has re-appeared in the contemporary Lutheran churches.
Thanks to both of you for the recommended reading.
I really wasn't implying that it wasn't a universal condition, only that the Italian and Russian and possibly a European manifestation of it had a virulence that was missing in the American heart and mind. Maybe that's because the historical 'misery index' so far surpassed anything these blessed United States have ever really known. Whatever the reason, I still think the idoms tell the story of what I'm really getting at.
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