Maciej B.

Stepien

CHRISTIANITY
A LITTLE BLACK BOOK

Lublin 2013
www.maciejbstepien.com

Copyright by Maciej B. Stpie, 2013

Essays first published on the Internet as entries in Pilgrimblog.com during 2011 and 2012. The site has been closed down in 2013 to allow this collective edition to be published.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

About the author: Maciej B. Stepien is a historian, Catholic theologian (STL Sanctae Theologiae Licentiatus) and a journalist. He currently pursues his Ph.D. in history at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.

About the book: This short collection of essays has been written over two years (from February 2011 to February 2013) in Dublin, Ireland and Lublin, Poland. In the Novelty of Christianity the author attempted to point out some of the ideas which decided in the past on exceptional attractiveness and endurance of Christian religion and spirituality. The choice of topics was made with regard to those features of Christianity that have been obscured in modern times by misrepresentations and ignorance of mainstream dispute. The next two essays have been written in anticipation of popes Benedict XVI encyclical on faith (still unwritten) to compare these lines of thought with ideas the pope would have put to paper. Two closing texts take on basics of Christian spirituality. Lublin, Poland 11th February 2013

Contents

Novelty of Christianity ............................................. 6

Key to the Mystery: Faith ....................................... 21

Gnothi Seauton ....................................................... 46

Homo Viator ........................................................... 58

God of Surprise ....................................................... 71

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

Kurt Lewin

NOVELTY OF CHRISTIANITY

Christianity in its essence was alien to the Hellenistic culture. It went against some of the basic notions universally shared by the ancients.

Replacing them with new ideas resulted in extinction of the ancient mindset and worldview. Subsequently the first Christian civilisation of European middle ages could be established and set out for cultural conquest of the planet.

Good News

Christianity entered the stage of worlds history not so much as a new religion, but more as a news. It was a true story told. A word of mouth. Not a writ or a scroll, but a piece of information. Sensational news told on the roads, ships, in taverns, inns, marketplaces and caravan hubs. It was the news about God the one and only God of the Jews becoming a human being in a concrete historical and geographical environment. The news stated that
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in his act of living, suffering, dying and coming back to life some real, existing man that is real, living God, appeals now to everyone to get to know him, disregarding each and every division known to mankind, starting with sex and status, and ending in language, land of origin and ethnic background. That news was proclaimed as good news or joyous news the euangelion about God who declared total and unconditional solidarity with all human beings. The truth about Christianity which is now rarely pointed out and nearly forgotten is that striking difference in comparison to other

monotheistic religious systems: all of them put God high above a human being, in some sort of imaginary fundamental otherworld. message of The original was and a

Christianity

revolution in understanding what is the place where a human can meet with God. This place, this terrain was now announced to be the human being. Every human being. True cult and true human religion was proclaimed. It was the religion of personal and
7

individual

relationship

with

God,

religion

proclaiming discovery of human infinite dignity, a religion stunned with a story of unconditional love and friendship, proven by God with pain and blood and gruesome death. A religion deeply humbling as the news left no doubt that the true God was in fact everyones humble servant.

God of Philosophers

Another revolution was total exclusion and denial of all ancient Greco-roman religions, which had became by then an established part of public life, so called institutio vitae. Christianity when talking about true God always pointed finger towards the God of philosophers, which was a nonreligious reality, a purely academic concept, a logical closure to the ontology discussed by the ancient scholars. Christianity exposed this God as God of creative love, God that supports and protects human beings, God-servant, God-friend, God8

supporter taking totally human side and becoming a human himself to prove his true nature.

Infinity and Perfection

New was the revolution in perception of infinity and imperfection. Infinity was for the ancients synonymous to imperfection - to lack of order and harmony, lack of shape and proportion. Something to be perfect required a definite shape; required boundaries and proportions which would demonstrate perfection to any beholder. The concept of perfect God who is infinite smashed that long established connection between the two notions: finity and perfection.

God of Matter

New was the concept of creation from nothing which demanded to relate all matter to God, and not only the law, the reason and Logos which governs it. For the ancients matter of the world in
9

itself was something illogical, alien to divinity which was thought to be the realm of ideas. Matter was thus the borderline of all attempts to understand reality. Reason and understanding concerned ideas, not matter. Christianity has broken that line of thinking and opened the way to explore the world of matter as Gods mystery. Natural world has become the open book to read and learn from it with awe and piety.

Knowledge and Penance

Human path of knowing God-Logos had yet additional aspect among the Christians, an aspect indispensable for gaining that knowledge: penance. Individual knowledge of Logos was not only a process of learning acquisition of gnosis but also a transfiguring chastisement, reaching far beyond any human abilities and limitations. The truth of Logos and knowledge of it were always represented as a path of penance for a human being. This novelty was a foundation of Christian memory and the
10

centre of entire Christian message. To get closer to God and deeper in the knowledge of the divine meant not only to speculate on spiritual matters, but to repent and make amends for evil. Without penance Logos would remain a theory, and his truth a philosophical abstract, or a yoke and a burden for humanity.

Love Stepping Down

Christianity turned upside-down the ancient concept of love, which was understood as a drive of that which is ugly towards that which is beautiful, or attraction of that which is worse towards that which is better. The Christians proclaimed an entirely opposite concept: perfect love is about stepping down and emptying of that which is better, when it lowers itself towards that which is worse. In this concept what is beautiful and good is driven towards that which is ugly and bad. And this concept was served in the most shocking way for any ancient mind: a human being who follows this pattern
11

becomes the follower and friend of God, who diminished and emptied himself in exactly the same way for the love of every human being.

Face of God

One of the most scandalising novelties brought in by Christianity was imagery of God. By stating that a human being, namely Jesus of Nazareth, is God Incarnate, the Christians have put a human face on the mystery of God. A face of the loved one. The one you remember what he is like. Once that one human face became the image and cover of the full revelation of Gods mystery, the imagery of all and everything that was deemed divine, heavenly and sacred took up a distinctively human and humanistic profile. Human persons, their faces, words, deeds and acts have become the means of portraying, painting and carving the revealed God. It was the utter transgression of the Jewish law, which banned all attempts to reduce God to an image or thing that can be carried around or handled. Human face of
12

God has overridden that ban: a portrait of the loved one is to be carried around and cherished. While the Jews venerated the unspeakable, the Christians followed whats human and imaginable. And the ground for that change seemed undisputable: whoever seeks the face of God, will find it in the human face of Jesus Christ. God himself has made his face plain to see. The image of God is man.

Victory Over Death

Immortality and life after death were notions commonly shared by all ancient heathens. It was the Christian belief in resurrection of human bodies that was alien to the ancient mindset. It contradicted the perception of death in the light of ancient concept of immortality of the soul (autonomous, immaterial form of the material body). In this concept death was an irreversible fact. A cosmic necessity. A necessary event firmly embedded in the implacable logics of consequences of every human life. Not the end of life, though. Everyone agreed there was some kind
13

of live after death, and that the human soul that vehicle of a persons conscious self carried on after the body stopped living. The Christians stood firmly against that logic, operating not with notions of immortality and life after death but with something entirely different. They spoke of life eternal and resurrection of the body. They proclaimed that the entire chain of consequences leading to death and beyond was nothing more but a temporal appearance of things. The essence of the Christian message with regard to death was not a trivial statement that death is not the end and there is life after death. Every single one of the ancients knew that and agreed with that completely. Christians declared something else. Death has been overcome the message read, which meant that from every single human life, of every time and place, past, present and future, this apparently obligatory experience would be

completely removed and erased, and its outcome reversed by the power of God himself, the Creator of Life. The Christians announced that each and every
14

human being living or dead would certainly reach a precise moment in their personal history when the death will be no more. The dead will walk back through the gates they passed. All of them. Firm belief in bodily resurrection of all human beings stood as the cornerstone of the Christian religion. Without it Christianity as a whole had no sense at all.

Time

In the ancient, Hellenistic tradition time and its passing was depicted as a closed circle. Time was understood as eternal, and eternity as a cycle of events happening here and now. As a consequence the history of the cosmos was regarded as a neverending procession of days, seasons, years, aeons and worlds, and the ultimate sense of human life was subject to all-commanding ananke the blind necessity, fatum. Christians broke this ancient circle of time, described sometimes in form of a snake eating its
15

tail. Time was drawn by them in a revolutionary way: as a fragment of a straight line, which had its beginning and its inevitable end. The notion of

eternity has become separated from this new, linear time, entering minds in a new, more intellectually challenging form as timeless eternity. History and human lifetime became a task and a challenge for a human being to use whatever time you have to give your life sense which would be worth that eternity.

Eternal Happiness

Convictions on immortality of human beings have accompanied humanity since its beginnings and shaped human culture in every place on this planet. They were grounded in a simple yet refined observation of nature that lead to conclusions that human beings are the only beings around that totally transcend temporal conditions of their bodies. The centre of that transcendence could not simply stop to exist just because the human body ceased to work.
16

Death was commonly recognised as a gate to some kind of human afterlife. Happiness in this afterlife as a reward for a proper conduct in this life was a concept nearly as universal as the intuition of human immortality. Christian insight into these common opinions added something considerably new: any reward or punishment are not, and would never be made by a judgement pronounced or passed on a human being from the outside. On the contrary before entering the gate of death it would be the human being itself that would decide on its eternity in one, final, absolutely free choice that would be made in consequence, and on top of all previous choices. No merits and deeds can buy or guarantee anything at the end of your timeline. All the moral choices can only prepare a human being for making this one last, the most important, ultimate choice in the last moment of its time, when standing free in the face of everything it has been choosing throughout its lifetime the human being will choose once again. Once and forever.
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One thing, however, would give invaluable help in reaching out to life eternal, the Christians proclaimed. And that was personal relationship and close friendship with God. The good news was that everyone was invited to make friends with God. Even better news was that God had been seeking that relationship with utmost resolve. And the best part was that he had revealed himself not as a merciless ruler, but as a humbled and suffering servant of his masterpiece: a truly free and conscious, autonomous and sovereign being. A human being.

Freedom Meets Passion

Christianity, while confirming commonly held intuitions, stressed the central role played by absolute freedom of a human being in its transcendent journey. A stone so heavy that God cannot lift it is an ancient, Christian picture of human freedom, in which the human being itself

18

determines and decrees, in its own time, until the end of it, its own eternity. Can God create a stone so heavy even He cant lift it? This nave and sarcastic question regarding omnipotence of God is today, in 21st century, a century of bottomless ignorance and erosion of Western culture, a very far echo of that ancient, Christian metaphor illustrating the fact and the meaning of human freedom. Nobody remembers it now and whenever this question is asked, the ancient metaphor must be recalled. A stone so heavy that even God can't lift it is a Christian thought on freedom of a human being. It was never a question nor a puzzle. It was a way of stating the truth on dignity of man. From Christian point of view this is how the relationship between human freedom and God's omnipotence presents itself. It renders the scale of consequences of human acts and choices. With the discovery of such a meaning of freedom came wonder at the Omnipotence who makes itself helpless in the face of sovereign, human
19

decision: behold the infinite and omnipotent source of all existence awaiting yes from a human being emerging from depths of time, and finally granting its Creator the permission to lift his creature up and get finally together. On the other hand there was also a horrifying certainty that such a freedom must mean full and unrestrained possibility of saying no to God, with all consequences. For this part the Christian message added one very important detail: God is not an indifferent, distant observer of moral choices of men. God is near and awaits for the yes of human beings in the utmost intimacy with each and every one of them. On many occasions the Christians tried their luck in describing this Gods watchful waiting, this providence or, in other words, his presence in time, lasting entire human life and turning it into one big chain of surprising interactions. The tools for such descriptions were always just words of human languages. Interestingly, what was constantly

picked from the lingual toolbox were descriptive phrases relating to peaks of human passion.
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KEY TO THE MYSTERY: FAITH

Faith Slandered

Although beliefs or religious convictions are well spread across the planet, faith is a phenomenon peculiar to Christianity, or, to word it better, Christian understanding and experience of faith is peculiar. Traces of the same kind of faith can also be found on pages of Old Testament books. From today's perspective that phenomenon seems to be unseen and unknown due to the fact that it has been meticulously erased from the intellectual horizon of the Western culture during the past couple of centuries. Instead of a rational description of what faith is, a caricature of it has been circulated. Understanding of faith has been reduced to the idea of nave or narrow views held by uneducated or fanatic people. Faith in that description is nearly synonymous to religion as depicted in slogans like Too stupid to understand science? Try religion!.

21

Though completely unknown, faith thrives among certain portion of followers of Christ. Interestingly the group which shares this

extraordinary attitude towards reality has grown throughout the last few decades to the volume never seen before in the history of Christianity. Modernity reveals the unexpected fact: growing number of God-Human worshipers join the ranks of those who not only believe but certainly also have faith. What is it, then?

Not a Belief

Faith is not some partial form of knowledge, some sort of belief, which could be, or should be, turned into knowledge that is certain, confirmed, ready to apply and impart. In its essence it is rather a different spiritual attitude, which exists right next to knowledge all by itself and on its own, and which cannot be reduced to, or derived from, any form of knowledge. Faith is not simply an act of intellectual affirmation of some unproven statement, narrative or
22

content. It does not belong to the category of beliefs. Faith is the existential relationship with God, incomparable with most of the other human acts, and standing out among all possible human experiences as one exceptional and unmistakably clear, personal participation based on God offering himself, and his offer realizing in full what is offered. Faith is not merely an act of reason, nor is it the act of will. It is not an act of emotion either, but an act in which all spiritual powers of a human being join together. This act is accompanied by awareness that all of them are set in motion and united as a result of the owner being gifted with something. Faith becomes a part of the spiritual culture of a person, becomes surely his/her own, personal, human act his/her personal property along with full awareness of the fact that the human being is not the author of what propelled his/her entire spiritual potential. God turns first toward a person and does it in a way that, when one responds, one enters the relationship with God. This is why faith is described
23

by the Christians as a gift of God and only in the form of such a gift it can become part of spiritual landscape of an individual.

Fides Querens Intellectum

Life cannot be based upon beliefs. Not without an abrupt end to this practice at some stage. Life of a free and conscious human being weighs too much for such thin foundations to withstand the pressure. Sooner or later they will crumble bringing down the whole edifice. The foundations of life of a human person require much greater strength and levels of certainty way beyond any calculated results or arguable conclusions. One of the main characteristics of faith is selfevidence and certainty that infinitely exceeds certainty of a mathematical proof. Christian masters of spirituality sometimes compared faith to

acquiring another, spiritual set of receptors, tuned only to touch, taste, hear, see and smell the very base of reality: God himself, working in full
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harmony with usual perception of one's own self and the environment by means of body senses. Nothing inspires thinking and critical

reflection like that infinite certainty and selfevidence, which is the hallmark of the authentic act of faith. It is the source of thousands of questions and a drive to know all the answers. The act of faith provokes thought, putting it in creative anxiety and sending it out in search of understanding and explanation. That search, that drive, that quest of an enquiring mind was always deemed to be a direct and the first consequence of a genuine act of faith. Blind faith is one of the most absurd phrases if used to describe Christian understanding of it. There is no other thing more contrary to faith than blindness. Christian faith is most of all seeing, and a new quality of seeing. It is deeper, further, fuller seeing of entire reality. And not only the view improves, the sound does as well. Faith experienced by the Christians is a whole set of new senses by which one can hear God speaking. Such an act of faith is a gift out of this world quite literally. Fine25

tuned and tailor-made to fit human beings it comes as absolutely indispensable piece of equipment for every careful observer of things that go around.

Pure Reason

Faith is an encounter with living God, which opens new horizons to a human being beyond the realm of reason. By this it purifies reason, enabling it to carry out its tasks better by seeing better its own area of competence. One of the most important functions of faith is curing the reason itself. Faith does not force the reason, it is not an outside supervisor of what is thought and conceived. On the contrary, it makes the reason return to itself, and makes it look at everything including the act of faith from its own, free perspective, unlimited by any ideology. Presence of faith enables the reason to claim back what reason should always have as its vantage point: the perspective of pure reason.

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Meaning

Faith is a human attitude towards entire reality, incomparable with knowledge and reaching through reality to its base. It brings forth the meaning without which a human being would not find its own place in the world and would not acquire true peace. Faith brings forth the meaning which lies at the foundations of all human calculations and actions. The meaning given by faith to the entire reality is also a nourishment that sustains in a human being everything that makes up the essence of its humanity. Act of faith is an act deeply and exceptionally human, the most appropriate act of a human person. Faith is the key which opens wide the doors to the mystery which every human being is for him or herself.

Logos, Not Chaos

To have the faith means to agree that the meaning which cannot be cast by the human being,
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and which can only be accepted, has already been given in the way that makes it enough to give and entrust yourself to that meaning. It is not by any means a blind commending yourself to something irrational. On the contrary: it means closing in on Logos, and by this on the truth itself. The act of faith places a human being firmly on the side of those who maintain that the base of reality is rational by nature. And the act in question is not a mere conclusion, intuition or a feeling. It is a plain sight and a close contact, magnificent in its obviousness, overwhelming and apparent beyond any doubt. It allows reason to judge with certainty after examining that new experience that the foundation of the whole reality, including ones own life, is Logos, not chaos.

Existential Turn

In faith a human being finds a conclusive opening of its view of the surrounding reality. In that opening the discovery is made how misled one once
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was following only what could be seen, touched and measured. It is the main reason why faith cannot be proven but only can be described by words of reason. Faith is an existential turn and is achieved by those who make that turn. All human dreams of a spiritual journey, great passage, inner

transformation, regeneration or self-initiation are but a shadows of this real turn of entire existence which is achieved by a human being when all its powers unite in the act of faith. By this act the human being engages in the experience of God, and the reality which is God enters the scope of that human being.

Deus Semper Maior

Only

such

an

engagement

opens

an

opportunity to gain knowledge of God and make friends with him. Only by taking up this experience it is possible to ask questions, and only the one who asks gets the answers. On the other hand it is

important to see that a human being on its part asks too little, and too small questions, and that the
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answer brought in by faith is enormously larger than all the questions asked. This, however, is not a reason to resign and quit. On the contrary, it is the source of constant broadening of the area of enquiry. The reality of God is greater than human experience, including the human experience of God.

System of Meanings

Faith that (some of) the Christians have is not a belief in a set of statements. It is an act by which a free and conscious human being confers meaning to the entire reality and life itself. By this act the Christians were able to survive and make progress in mankind. Christianity as a religion founded on that peculiar act is most of all a system of meanings, not a system of statements. Something even more stupid than introducing faith as a set of beliefs is the statement that the truth voiced by Christianity is a set of dogmas in which Christians are forced to believe. In that perspective the essence of Christian community life comes down
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to the enforcement of beliefs, suppression of freedom of thought and constructing barriers to free enquiry. In such a perspective those who represent the authority protecting Christian doctrines are cynical theocrats practicing this enforcement to satisfy their hunger for power and earthly

possessions. Thus, in the footsteps of a caricature of faith a caricature of the community which lives by this faith closely follows. It is also the caricature of what that community the church gathered throughout the centuries as a deposit of conclusions and resolutions defining its own identity.

Faith and Philosophy

All the statements and doctrinal conclusions of ancient, middle aged and modern Christianity are results of the chase of reason after all the answers to the questions that a free and thinking person, gifted with faith, can ask when confronted with material witnesses of Gods revelation. In this primacy of being gifted dwells the difference between faith and
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philosophical thought. At the source of philosophy there is a private search for truth executed by reason which only after that seeks and finds its co-journers. Faith in the first instance is a call to join the community of the gifted; a call to unity of spirit, and of experience. In the second run it opens wide the road to the individual adventure of searching and discovering the truth.

Symbol of Faith

A direct consequence of elevation of reason and rationality in the act of faith is a peculiar symbol created by the Christians for their faith. It is not a sign, ideogram nor an image, but a certain set of judgments of reason concerning God, mankind and history. These statements, that voice of reason credo (the creed) is the symbol of faith. It joins together words and notions derived from Christian Sacred Scriptures with words and notions from outside of these writings from the realm of philosophy. Credo is thus composed of two
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languages with which a human being is capable of telling the truth about God: the language of revelation and the language of philosophy. Symbol of faith binds them together. That binding represents a fundamental affirmation and support for the search of truth undertaken by free reason. It is also an affirmation of the power of human reason, which can and should reach out not only to all wonders of nature, but also to things most sacred and divine. The symbol of Christian faith and the unique form of that symbol in particular reveals the highest praise for the autonomy and power of free and rational thinking.

Broken Coin

The experience of faith stands in the centre of the Christian approach to truth. One observation helps to explain this. Just like the credo makes a sort of symbol for the faith, the faith itself can be described as a symbol of sorts. In this case the original meaning of the Greek term symbolon ought
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to be recalled. The ancients referred with that term to a broken half of a coin owned by two distant trading families. When those two broken halves were joined together the identity of an envoy could be proved, deals could be made, friendship and trading alliance could be furthered. Faith is compared in Christian thought to that symbolon because it demands to be put together with the rest, it demands communion and unity. It points constantly to something above it; something different than the faith itself. It refers to the truth which is not merely a logical value of propositions, but the source of human joy of life, a meaningful, cosmic event, an undeniable fact and a liberating force. It refers to God and makes personal relationship with him possible and actual. The picture of faith as a symbolon held in the heart of a human being is one of the most brilliantly accurate descriptions of the act of faith. This picture reveals in a flash what has been obscured about Christian spirituality in modern times: that

spirituality does not dwell on the experience of faith

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alone. It is not a celebration of a broken piece held out, nor an art of gazing in the void where the missing part should be. It is most of all an experience of unity and communion, a stunning discovery that the wholeness has just been unbroken. The uniquely Christian experience of faith is inseparable from the uniquely Christian experience of facing the truth. The Christians do not possess the truth as such. They surely have its symbolon the faith which links them with the reality of God. The truth the Christians speak about is not a set of written statements, but a person. It is Jesus Christ himself. The Christians have the truth to that extend in which they have Christ. Faith is not some kind of a circle of divine light stumbled upon by a human being and claimed its own. It is not only a sign on the road leading to the truth. It is not only an open door to the final mystery, and not just the key to personal encounter and relationship with God, either. It is a joyous connection, meeting and recognition. The moment one receives his broken
35

half of that symbolon the other half is put with it together instantly, and the mysterious Owner of that second half reveals his presence. Faith has never been some flat duty of thinking this and believing that, but a driving force to find out, meet in person, and experience for yourself the stunning closeness of the living God, acting and present, revealed and accessible, finally recognised. And as for all Christian doctrines and statements that's been formulated and refined throughout the ages they form a stretch of landmarks on the road travelled by the Christians toward that Living Truth. They have amassed directly and naturally from that fundamental praise and encouragement of reason which is expressed by the symbol of faith. They are contained in, connected with, or implied by the symbol of faith in one way or another. They open, unfold and extend its meaning, making up a corpus of teaching which shows a remarkable build-up over the centuries. That never-ending effort of opening and unfolding still goes on, with each new generation aiming to
36

know the reality of God-human engagement better than their predecessors. With each new culture, nation or community embracing the good news, a new wave of people sets out to know Jesus Christ closer and better than ever before, the way He really is, risen from the dead, alive, close and active, available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Speaking of Somebody

Faith as a symbol of truth tells the truth by directing constantly to what is above it, by pointing at something entirely different by pointing at Someone living. This aspect of faith dominates so much the experience of faith of those who have it, that this experience is very often described by Christians with the use of words like 'meeting', 'relationship', 'closeness' or 'friendship' with God. It is entirely understandable. When the quest for truth driven by reason becomes thanks to the act of faith the path to ever greater closeness with God, it is more appropriate to change your vocabulary to that
37

which can be applied to the description of an interpersonal relation. The Christians maintain and this is crucial that God has become a human to make friendship with Him possible to anyone who is capable of entering relationships with others. That conviction makes the very core of Christianity and its entire spirituality. This spirituality seems to have two sides, just like a coin or a medal. From one side it looks like a perfectly rational and school-like activity that could be described as a search for the truth undertaken by reason on the road opened by faith. From the other side of it the thing looks

much less formal and conceptualised: it is a quest for closeness and friendship with another human being that one human being that is God himself Jesus Christ. Christian faith is not only a firm option for a spiritual base of reality and its rational nature. It is not only an experience of certainty that the whole reality is based on Logos. It is an encounter with a human, Jesus. It is an experience which clearly
38

shows that the meaning of the whole world, the universe we live in, is a concrete person that gives himself away as love, and by this gift of love makes human life worth living.

Love

For those who have faith two names are of utmost importance: Jesus and Christ. Joining one with the other puts the equation mark between the person and his work. This equation means identity of the human being and the act of giving himself away: act of love. In a more general view it is an equation mark between love and faith. To have faith in Jesus Christ means simply to turn love into contents of your faith. Thus, a new criterion of thinking and acting is established. And that changes human life entirely. Faith that does not seek to act through love is not really Christian faith. Love and faith contain in themselves each other.

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Back To Reality

Human being is a creature that seeks the truth by nature. Also by nature it chooses its surroundings to be the field of this quest. All material reality becomes the theatre of such inquiries. And every now and then some people change their lives entirely not because they have reached beyond this reality, discovering some ineffable, meta-physical truths, but because they came across something in this reality which speaks to them with a force so great that the change of life appears to be a logical, and indeed wanted consequence of such an exposure. Christianity as a religion is built upon personal relation between each individual and the living God. And it is specifically Christian to point out that the closeness with God and contact with Him does not occur by reaching out beyond this reality, but by awareness of what is here and now. His presence for a Christian does not belong to some outer, distant divine sphere, but makes itself felt in this reality.
40

On the other hand the Christian perspective involves a firm conviction that such a life-changing moment comes about not because of a mere contact with the sound of a spoken word, nor by suggestion brought on by an image, nor by an emotional aftermath of a more complex, interactive experience. People start to look at the world in a different way because and this is crucial to understand the Christian point of view they have been touched by the living God, present and active in somebody's word, creative act, or in somebody's experience. This is the foundation of the Christian saying that faith comes by hearing if what is heard (and listened to) is the Word of God.

Birth of Faith

That Word is the Word Incarnate and people change their lives not because they overheard or read something exceptionally convincing, suggestive or logical, but because in that moment of their lives the Word of God finally found its way in through
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somebody's words or some inner experience that may have resulted from a variety of circumstances. The Christian point of view on the question of birth of faith is in fact very strict: human words and actions can do nothing without the presence of God. Faith comes by hearing while its giver is God alone. The act of faith is being triggered in direct, personal and most intimate encounter with the Logos, the omnipresent and all-encompassing Word of God. Even poetic insights are quite misleading when it comes to describe this God/human close encounter. Touched by God?, or by his finger? or a hand? Actually all these phrases paint the picture of a human being that is kept at the arm's length, while for every single one gifted with faith the words are more like embraced or hugged to the beating heart. Another important detail of these descriptions is that they do not refer to some ethereal or elusive feeling, a whiff of emotion, or a sentimental outburst. What is described is a real and persistent state that will not fade or go away. It is
42

there and it stays right there, plain and true, ready for rational investigation.

Freestone

The presence of Logos among human species is not limited to carefully preserved clauses of the Sacred Scriptures. The Christian religion insists that the living Word of God fills up, runs through and transcends all creation that is, all possible universes. It is the Word of the Creator and Father of every human being. Every human being is gifted irrevocably with life and absolute freedom. With the gift of faith, however, God waits for the first sign of readiness of each individual. God, according to Christians, never forces the gift of faith. He awaits a free and conscious request, a plea, or at least an implied invitation. After all, he has created his every human child as a stone too heavy for him to lift it. That stone has to let him do it first.

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All possible ways leading to the reception of faith (and there are as many of them as there are living human beings) eventually come down to one thing: state of readiness for the reception of that gift. The Giver himself does not save it for later nor does he select by any merit or rank. It is humans who often lack the courage to ask for the gift of faith. As if they followed an instruction saying seek, and maybe one day you'd find some clues leading to me, ask, and maybe I will think about doing something, or knock, and I will check if unlocking for you does any good. But what Jesus Christ actually says on gifts coming directly from God, sounds entirely different: Seek, and you will find. Ask, and you will get it. Knock, and the door will open for you. It is interesting how few get the courage to seek, knock and ask. It is one more characteristic of Christianity: it carries inside the unique experience of faith a human act by which a person perceives the presence of God and enters a personal relation with Him, an act easily achieved by simply asking for it and among the Christians
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themselves there are many who are reluctant to ask. As a result many of them remain just holders of some beliefs and are easily ridiculed by the modern world.

Receiving the Gift

Acceptance of the gift of faith leads to two things: to a life in communion with God and to the doors of His gathering because this is how the original name of ekklesia (the church) translates. Reception of this gift marks the beginning of a journey that will take a lifetime. It is a journey which leads out into the space of life and freedom, to friendship with the Son of God, the Word of God, Logos the very foundation of entire reality. Two words which characterise best the experience of faith are 'strength' and 'beauty'.

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GNOTHI SEAUTON

To know thyself was in Greek antiquity one of the instructions for those, who wanted to know judgments of gods and did not wish to leave questions on future state of their affairs without answer. Such was the maxim that welcomed all visitors to the temple of Apollo in Delphi, carved on the front wall among two other proverbs of those times. The temple was famous for its oracle, and famous to the extent which exceeded Greek firm preference for locality in matters of divine guidance: it has become the only oracle of its times that drew visitors from all parts of ancient Hellas. There the unique composition of volcanic fumes coming out of the chasm gave the woman established as Pythia the source of oracles - an opportunity to intoxicate herself just enough so that her state of frenzy was genuine while her cries remained deeply meaningful and mysterious. Knowing one's own self appealed to all rational and thinking people of all times and places.
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The aphorism gnothi seauton has been and still is a signature of inner effort of a human being, who decides to focus on things important and sublime, be it through achievements of science, philosophy or spirituality. That maxim has become a hallmark of a serious quest for wisdom. Popularity of that aphorism is so large, that in modern times it has begun a life of its own and is smoothly included in - or separated from - various cultural and religious contexts. To know thyself is mostly exposed as something that is the ultimate goal in itself, as if that was the way in which one could discover that single, important answer which is conclusive in matters of inner peace, spiritual harmony, happiness and fulfilment. Christianity puts self knowledge in a very clear context, in which an answer is given to question of the goal towards which this effort goes. The answer to the question what for also points to the starting point of the entire Christian search for wisdom.

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Befriend Yourself

To know one's own self requires reasonable, truthful and honest descent into what makes up a personal, inner world of a human being. The outer layer of this ocean are emotions, deeper one is made up of needs and longings, even deeper you can find decisions and moral choices that has been made, the results of which are being accumulated and deposited in the deepest layer. To get to know yourself means first and foremost to seriously face all of it, do not deny the facts, overcome fear and give up self-aggression in contact with what is wrong or just plain stupid. Such a taming approach to one's own inner world gives twofold results: firstly a human being becomes his own friend and begins to deal with others in the same way, since the manner in which we look at and approach other people is always the exact same one with which we deal privately with ourselves. Secondly, a human being that is well accustomed and friendly towards his inner world
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becomes sensitive to the truth about himself. When words of truth come from the outside, he instinctively responds with openness and curiosity as he hears from someone else what he had recognised, named, accepted and lived through before.

On Every Frequency

In this second result of self-knowing lies Christian answer to the question of purpose of all these efforts. And that is, to make easier the access to everything that is constantly and through all surrounding reality spoken to each and every one by God himself. According to Christians God speaks to every single human being without exceptions, by all means possible, constantly seeking contact and greater closeness with everyone, throughout his or her entire lifetime, telling nothing but the truth. And that is the reason why most people ignore this transmission or run away from it. On the other hand a person living in truth about him- / or herself beginning with
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truthfulness, honesty and friendly attitude towards ones own self is able to pick this voice easily out of the background, pay attention to it, and to stop and listen to it a little more.

The Dramaturgy of an Encounter

The very first Christians that walked the face of the Earth have spotted and written down an example of such a 'stop and listen' event, which turned into a conversation with God on truth. It happened in the most usual circumstances, without portents and miracles, without solemn introductions, without crowds or festive air, in a common location, devoid of any meaning except for practical one: by the water well. And the very scenery of that event and dialogues that took place brings forth one crucial Christian observation: God, when speaking to a human being, does not make it spectacular, he makes it personal. The conversation by the well (Jn. 4:5-42.) begins at total lack of understanding. Jesus Christ
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and the woman discuss thirst and water. 'Living water' which in their language is synonymous to 'running water' (water flowing straight from the source) has a different meaning to each of them. The woman gladly accepts an offer of access to the unlimited source of 'living water', but the

misunderstanding is complete. They both talk about two separate things. It is a good image of how voice of God who tells the truth about himself and what he is going to give totally blends in the background of daily routine and human struggle to meet basic needs and sustain living. Christian experience pointed out from the very beginning that God often changes his tactics of approach when facing such difficulty in making contact and drawing human attention to what he really means. That is happening in the next part of the conversation and exposes the Christian meaning of self-knowledge. When misunderstanding builds up the dialog changes its course to personal and the woman admits - even though she does not have to - that she has no
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husband. In response she suddenly hears the truth about her complicated private life. And not only she does not exit the dialogue, but her reaction is even greater interest in the person of her interlocutor and the conversation itself. Christ's response to that growing interest is intriguing: the topic of the woman's private life disappears immediately from what is discussed, and instead words are spoken on salvation, future cult of God, worshipers wanted by God, who God really is, and finally, who's the one that talks to her. Suddenly - when the woman identifies truth about herself in the words of the stranger, and begins to suspect that this man might have something to do with God - he starts to tell her the truth about himself and everything he stands for. And he speaks solemnly, seriously and very clearly, and yet shortly and quickly, as if he wanted to tell her the most in that one precious moment when he drew her attention. The longest of all Christ's dialogues ever written down on pages of the Four Gospels reaches its conclusion.
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It is the second important image of how God talks to a human being. It is thoroughly Christian picture of God seeking man to tell him the truth and all the truth, without limits - about himself, his closeness, desire for relationship, about the history, the future; simply about everything. It is a God who comes forth, cuts the distance, and presses for conversation. The most important detail here is that the personal topic was not expanded. Telling the truth straight in the eye appears to be but an introduction to the next, quite different part of the dialog. In that turn of the plot one can grasp a clear image of God who seeks opportunity to finally reveal, bring in, tell, give and present everything he has to a human being and to do so in the first moment in which a human being sensitive to the truth realises that the truth has just been spoken and becomes interested in its source. In contrast to what happened between Christ and the woman (who goes back to her village by then) his disciples are depicted. While the woman is absent they listen to the teaching, but all get stuck
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exactly in the same kind of misunderstanding like the one that begun the conversation by the well. The evangelical story has also its finale: the woman does not keep the things she heard to herself, but drags others to Christ, stating that he told her the truth about herself. The villagers go to check this and they find out for themselves. From that moment on nothing remains the same and the life of that small community changes. They ask him to stay with them. It is the third Christian image related to the conversation between God and a human being, the subject of which is truth. In contact with God the truth about one's own self does not go to the second place in front of some 'great truth' about God, history, humanity, salvation, true cult, etc. The former does not give ground to the latter, but gains a new context, in which all decisions will be made, and actions taken from now on.

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Ad Lectorem: the Lecture and Its Framework

In the above fragment of the Gospel according to St. John there is one more participant of all described scenes - it is the reader himself. It is for him that was written what Christ speaks in three acts: initial misunderstanding regarding drinking water, the main description of his mission and the final misunderstanding regarding food. And for obvious reasons all scholarly commentaries on this particular passage must analyse theological depths of that three-part lecture. The dramaturgy of the meeting of Christ and the woman serves as a story line framework, to which the seminal lecture of the Evangelist is pinned. But this framework, taken as it is, expresses something just as much essential as the contents of Christ's proclamations. It is, first, the story of an encounter of man and God. Second, it is the story about how helpful can be man's inner honesty and truthfulness in such an encounter. Third, it is an image of God exposing perfectly all the
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characteristics of his attitude towards human beings discovered by the Christians. Fourth and last, the narrative of the meeting of Christ and the woman exposes Christian meaning of the words gnothi seauton: a human being stepping onto the path of self-knowledge inevitably stumbles upon God approaching. But this encounter does not end the whole quest. Such a meeting can only change conditions of further, individual efforts. The work on knowing yourself can now be continued in a new light, and most of all may stop to be lone work. The workshop of a man working on his inner world and asking questions about the truth receives new lighting, and inside the workshop an intriguing helper and co-worker appears, with apparently deep knowledge and vast experience. Knowing thyself in such a company aspires to a new level of quality: knowing turns into understanding. It is that presence and closeness of God that makes Christians often neglect inquiries in detailed matters of self-knowledge, and sum up the whole question shortly, as if they looked from the opposite
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end: a man will never fully understand himself without Christ. Such a general approach seems to tell that Christianity denies the value of an individually undertaken effort of self-knowledge. And it is not so. The Christian meaning of the words gnothi seauton confirms in a way universally felt importance of this aphorism: fulfilling that ancient command means going down the path on which God is approaching from the opposite direction. The encounter is inevitable, and will happen number of times. Subjects of meetings will be personal, interesting to both sides. And an honest effort towards better knowledge of one's own self gives a chance that not all such meetings would end up in misunderstandings.

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HOMO VIATOR

The Chain of Errors

It is an outstanding feature of the modern culture to misinterpret the notion of civilisation to be a total of what has been built, produced and established in terms of science, technology, and law. This view hints at underlying concept of man as a thoughtful, purposive producer homo faber defined as different from animals by producing his own physical environment. The third piece of this chain of basic errors has a tragic impact on nearly every single human life: it is the promise of happiness that lies within the reach of such a free and intelligent civilisation builder. Homo fabers happiness is to be achieved through career, hard work, higher income, savings, investments and acquisition of goods. The promise is simple in itself: there is a long way before you, but if you set boldly out, grit your teeth, work hard and keep doing it for decades ahead, you will eventually get there. You shall reach your happiness.
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Being busy and active makes your life meaningful. Acquiring skills and responsibilities is what personal development is all about. Along the path of your career you will fulfil yourself in the most satisfying way through work. Your good work will be rewarded and your happiness will grow around you. You will fabricate it piece by piece over the years of blood, sweat and tears. There are two immediate things you get out of your work: you get tired and you get paid. And these are two notes that are struck in every motivation scheme: your future holds less tiresome tasks for you and more money. So work harder. Happiness is near. Or is it? Every human being who went down that road discovered sooner or later that pursuing happiness through work and career is a path to despair.

Plain Stupidity

Unbearable burdens first deform the bearer and then lead ultimately to breaking his back and
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halting all progress in painful and shocking collapse of strength, will, and self-esteem resulting in a quiet burial of all recently held hopes and dreams. Avoiding the burden is one option often claimed to be liberating by those who contest the mad vortex of modern civilisation building. Exchanging work and duty for concern with personal freedom, selfexpression and spiritual development leads to a fairy-tale mockery of erroneous civilisation tended to by the homo faber. It is a spiritual and dreamy alternative civilisation, full of secret knowledge, non-physical powers, imaginary channels of

communication and often eloquent beings offering guidance through an inner voice that happens to be covering chapters of a textbook already sold in million copies. Alternative, which means the choice out of two and two only, is only too good a term to reflect the intrinsic stupidity of this run for cover from the enslaving forgery of homo faber. A perception of a complicated and multi-layered error which leads to a firm conclusion that there can be only one way of sorting it out, namely the way of
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acting contrary at every point and level, cannot be backed up by any extensive use of reason.

The Clever and the Sly

Therapeutic qualities of leisure and partying do not need to be proven. They are obvious to any hard working individual. That's what keeps you going. Clever switching and keeping balance between wound and unwound states is the chapter one in every homo fabers survival manual. Some aim to even greater heights: choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. That one seems to beat the system entirely. And yet both approaches bear witness to a total agreement with the ways of the choking mill of homo faber: work is what matters. Happiness or at least the promise of your future happiness has something to do with your work. Maybe with you being clever enough to be fit to start your work every day. Or with your choice of career and, by some sly or lucky

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arrangement, with you feeling actually good about your job. Taking ludum as a sedative / painkiller / stimulant (which is a common practice), or having a profession that is actually your favourite ludum (which is a common dream) are both self-preserving reactions to the harsh reality of homo fabers civilisation. Its gears are moved by human beings who are motivated, trained, assessed and managed to take part in greater productive undertakings. The fittest are rewarded, unfit are disposed of, both being treated as resources for the project. And being treated as a resource degrades and hurts, which is the primary source of all common practices and dreams about the work done daily.

Resting In Your Free Time

Work in peace could have been read on every tombstone should it be such a satisfying and self-fulfilling activity. It is not. Work is a mere means to an end. Not to be glorified and not to be
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despised in itself. Just necessary. It is an important life necessity like hygiene, meals, a place to sleep and the air to breathe, only it goes with one extra dimension: the social one. Work is a social exchange of services and goods and is demanded as such, and because of that demand it has a value in itself. For the worker, and for those who benefit from his effort. It can be even life-saving and life-building value in some cases. But the work you do and the job you have does not even define you in any way. It only tells others what you do for a living at the moment. Something else is much more telling: how you anticipate your free time (a term forged by enslaving conditions of modern culture of

productivity). It does not matter if you are a fulltime professional working Monday to Friday, using out the best of yourself for somebodys business target and waiting for the clock to finish or if you are an idle rich that wakes up to another sunny day. Your anticipation of that time, of this part of your life that is left entirely up to you and your free and
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autotelic activity, tells clearly that pursuit of happiness can only be accomplished after your work is done and finished. Rest is the word. It is when you get all that was necessary behind, when you are done with all that needed to be done for the day, the true self-fulfilment, satisfaction and joy can be sought and tasted. It is resting time. The time for ludum, not fabricatio.

Homo Ludens

There is an approach to burdens of work and life in general, uncommon and somewhat lofty, which is served to modern minds through certain scripted documentaries covering the lives of the rich and the famous: life is a game. Dont be so serious about it. To live is to play. Happiness is to have fun. Who says you cannot be happy all the time? Just pass the time joyfully. Do whatever it is that makes you happy (you will need a lot of money to do it, though). It is a paradox that such an approach to life is taken up and applied... seriously.
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This approach is nothing new as it was common to the ancient wisdom that life should not be treated too seriously and the best approach to daily matters should be playful. Solemn, serious and formal approach to daily routines is pointless said wise men of ancient Greece because what life is all about is a game, a play, joyful passing of time. This platonic thought dwelt deeply in a fatalistic view of the history as eternity that repeats itself over and over again. And it is quite natural to take such an easy-going approach to life if you are an ancient Greek freeman whose household thrived for generations on slave labour. It is also common for modern self-styled wise men, born with silver spoon in their mouth, to promote their lifestyle as the ultimate goal and a righteously occupied peak of a perfect social order. But life is not a game, and work is not a play, otherwise there would not be separate terms to distinguish between them. You can try and make one into the other in practice, and get as a result a complete and utter alienation from the rest of your
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kind. And as all games tend to become boring after a while, you need to move from one to the next, more exciting and stimulating one. This process escalates, but not indefinitely, only to the point of selfdestruction. We are not homines ludentes, and a life lived playfully turns into a parody of human existence. And yet we strive for free time, leisure and fun more that for anything else. All of us are natural born players and hobbyists. Our free time is full of play, and all kinds of things referred to as favourite. Ludum is in our veins to such an extend that modern science discovered, not without some embarrassment, that the human culture itself, the whole of it, grows as a semblance of the games we play. More importantly neither a hard-working professional nor an idle rich, nor anyone really, is actually a homo faber, either. Civilisation is not about production. Happiness is not about job well done and upward mobility.

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What is true happiness and how to find it are questions deeply thought about and disputed for thousands of years. Not without some achievements.

The Gift and the Quest

Christians, on their part, insist on relationships and on one particular human act which has the ability to perpetuate itself throughout a lifetime: the act of love. Love being total and unconditional gift of one person to another. This plain definition also plainly indicates that love is something to be practiced and perfected as long as there is time to do it. Practical observation and first-hand experience added also this line of commentary to the concept: the more you give, the more you have which indicates a process of growth of sorts, or maturing of this act. Unlike many other human acts (but in line with the act of faith) this one involves all powers and senses, the whole person in its entirety and complexity. And yet it is also as natural as breathing and is verbalised in the most simple way in all
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languages. It also spawns a lot of feelings and emotions at the beginning. Those feelings are so powerful that they often are mistaken for the love itself. They fade away with time though, leaving room for the real thing to be practiced and perfected. For Christians, who have turned upside-down the ancient concepts of love, being in love is the first and foremost condition to acquire personal

happiness. Not the only one, though, as this goal lies ahead of an exciting and strictly personal experience referred often to as path of wisdom. What is absolutely original and intellectually unique in this approach is that love itself is plain and simple to explain and tell about. And certainly love is not a feeling. Wisdom, on the other hand, remains the utmost and holy mystery. There are many accounts of wisdom seekers among the Christians, but all of them found it difficult to define anything but the mere beginnings and basic methods of their quests. In contrast, modern culture seems to perceive love as an intricate mystery, with suspicious chemical substances playing their part in it, while
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perception of wisdom puts it simply at a certain level of eloquence and education.

Playing Along

Being in love and seeking wisdom blend into a straight-forward approach to life and people, to duties and responsibilities, to hierarchies and ranks, and to wealth and possessions. It is an approach of individual sovereignty, which strips them all of their self-styled or conditioned importance, and seeks some usefulness in them instead. When the goal to achieve is that personal and that different from purposes and aims of all surrounding entities, any serious and necessary dealings with them may become, and truly are, a satisfying and rewarding ludum. What a paradox. Technically speaking, the advantage of this attitude is one extra level down where the weight and meaning of your life is hidden. You stop to live your life on superficial level which is easily controlled by whoever has the means of control over
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your time of work, your earnings, rates of payment, and so forth. When you live your life only on that level whoever controls these superficial things has total control over you. And that is absolutely unacceptable. Placing the weight of your life deeper than that saves you from slavery. It liberates and gives you the true and indispensable experience of personal freedom.

Homo Viator

Christian

identity

revolves

around

that

experience. It is an identity of a visitor, or a pilgrim in the world, coming in here for a short period before going away. Concerned with

something completely different he takes on whatever work or task seems suitable for now, taking care of what is necessary and moving on with time towards what lies ahead of this short journey: a final destination, where, hopefully, his playing time will not be disturbed. Or, in other words, he will rest in peace.
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GOD OF SURPRISE

One of the main characteristics of Christianity is the embedded in this religion awareness that God catches human beings unaware and unprepared, never meeting their expectations, or to be more accurate: meeting them in a way that is quite surprising. God in Christian thought is the author of a long list of surprising and unexpected acts. His surprises are not only 'presents' that nobody asked for, which can be found in carefully edited stories of miracles and portents put in the holy books. Surprising were also his promises and oaths taken before human beings, up to and including messianic promises. But the greatest surprise was always the way the oaths and promises were fulfilled. One of the most scandalous surprises of God was the Messiah himself and his kingdom. No such thing was expected, not that kind of man was awaited, not that kind of teaching was sought to be heard and not such a picture of redemptive work was
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anticipated. Everything was either too small, or too good, or too horrible to fit human-made imagery built up in expectation of all that was supposed to happen. Christianity is the religion of such a Messiah somebody different from what was expected. And this is the primary reason why God in Christian experience and memory is most of all God of surprise, somebody unpredictable, somebody to chase after to catch up with. He surprises with what he does in human history, even more with what he promises, and the greatest surprise always comes with what is presented as the fulfilment of what was promised. On behalf of a human being it always results in blowing up and tearing down all currently established ways of understanding God and the things he is going to do. That periodical demolition of what has been established marks stages of personal growth, especially concerning the faith. Child-like faith is merely an affirmation of stories told by the elders, accompanied by eruptions of feelings towards an
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imaginary picture of God constructed upon what has been heard. Grown up faith is a liberating closeness with God and a mature overview of ones own self and the entire world an overview supported by thousands of experiences. It is a faith marked with traces of Gods passing; a faith seasoned in series of dismantling Passovers. The shock which the human being is exposed to in a life with God as a companion leaves no doubt that the contact was made with living God. When this roller-coaster kicks off, the most basic tool of Christian spirituality can be used, and it is a tool quite exceptional to Christians in its fundamental importance. It is to view the history of entire community of God's People (the Jews and the Church) as an analogy to one individual life. It is a historical twist peculiar to the Christian religion and its spirituality. And as the centuries go by the spiritual lessons drawn by such a tool become ever more instructive for each new generation. They give a guidance as to the conditions which the personal interaction with God is played on. They do not,
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however, give any certainty as to what is going to happen next. One thing seems to be quite certain, though: you should expect surprises. From the centuries-long trail of various experiences Christian spirituality managed to draw a substantial number of advises and guidelines on how to preserve and develop relationship with living God. First in this instruction was still God himself, coming up with the list of most simple

commandments. But in the very first one of them: 'You shall love' there was a surprise waiting to amaze those who would meditate on it. Love cannot be commanded. Moreover, love, that true one, is to be learned with great effort throughout entire lifetime. Christians soon enough realised that under the surface of these words of human language there is something extraordinary; something that comes with the sound of a language spoken, but comes from Someone Unspeakable actually speaking straight to the heart. Hidden in these words is a promise, not a command. You shall love are not words of a ruthless ruler, demanding obedience.
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God is love and it is love itself that promises: you will know me.

Dublin, Ireland Lublin, Poland 2011-2013

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