"Multiplicity........................"

”Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when, in prayer, he can, as it were, creep into God”…. Soren Kierkegaard

I’m pondering this morning if perhaps I’m not a bit of an existentialist. Can one be that and still claim membership with Christianity? Such label was first penned on the above author who was also quoted as saying “If you want to be loathsome to God, just follow the herd.” Its definition is determined a 20th Century philosophy embracing diverse doctrines, but centering on an analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe, each and every person held accountable for their own choices, ignorance being no excuse. Other thinkers like Nietzsche and Sartre would take the idea as a foundation for atheism. Kierkegaard, however, while breaking relationship with the Lutheran state church of Denmark, believing it to be merely playing with “a form of morality and a doctrinal system”, maintained pursuit of God. He is said to have coined the term “leap of faith”, punctuating it with a need for it to be made “only after reflection”. Life, as he saw it, should be an adventure and a constant risk, a “stumble down the path” in my own words, but one always taken with “a passionate commitment” to a truth beyond conquering with theology. Within such margins as stated here, we are close to being in agreement, my singular point of departure being that one’s plunge into this ought to be preceded, as well as followed, by serious consideration of our position in Him. Indeed, I like it when he refers to “infinite resignation” being the last stage prior to faith. Human beings are like snowflakes: no two of us are exactly alike; and it occurred to me that this might well be what Paul actually meant in his epistle to the Galatians with his statement that, in Jesus, there is “neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female.” More than just salvation being extended unto all, grace equates to patience with all, love for all, each of us taken just as we are, ministered to with no attempt to make us “one” other than in Him, the only requirement being our handing Him the reins of our heart. Did Kierkegaard know Christ via a born-again encounter? I’ve not yet discovered mention of anything resembling it within his writing; but who am I to judge another man’s journey by mine. To each their own appointed place before His throne……