Strength to Love

"Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” Romans 12:2

I recall what I have been inspired by the sermon of Martin Luther King, in the book of 'Strength to Love'. I was really touched by his words and wanted to quote some paragraphs in his Sermon of the ‘Transformed nonconformist’:

'In his essay, “Self-Reliance” Emerson wrote, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” The Apostle Paul reminds us that whose would be a Christian must also be a non-conformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave. Mark well these words from the pen of James Russell Lowell:

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

‘By opening our lives to God in Christ we become new creatures. This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed nonconformists and freed from the cold hardheartedness and self-righteousness so often characteristic of nonconformity. Someone has said, ‘I love reforms but I hate reformers’. A reformer may be an untransformed nonconformist whose rebellion against the evils of society has left him annoyingly rigid and unreasonable impatient.

Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit. The transformed nonconformist, moreover, never yields to the passive sort of patience which is an excuse to do nothing. And this very transformation saves him from speaking irresponsible words which estrange without reconciling and from making hasty judgments which are blind to the necessity of social progress. He recognizes that social change will not come overnight, yet he works as though it is an imminent possibility.'

I prayed to God, please help me not to have any excuse to do nothing, even more, not to speak irresponsible words, and only may He lead me to serve him in his way!

Rilke poem from H

"God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousnes.

Give me your hand."


~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

This is a poem given by my psychotherapist.
I miss her very much. We have finished our regular meetings since the last Christmas. I am glad that I could have been meeting her in London in the past year and we had a very close sharing time. I could share with her all my dreams and all my fears. She knows me quite well after a year's sharing. The time chatting with her was very treasureable.

In this poem, the phrase I like most is 'Just keep going. No feeling is final'.

H, I miss you!! This feeling is definitely not the final!