Friday, June 29, 2007

Friday Dinner Party Conversation Stopper

"And here they say: Don't question, humble yourself, fall on your knees, try, drive out base thoughts, chase away the tempter. So perhaps this is the way, perhaps one should begin not with love for Thee, but with hate for Thy enemies? Hate is so much easier; how can it be, Oh God, that the road that leadeth to Thee should begin with hate? Can this be so, when Thou hast ordered us to purge from our hearts all hate for our enemies? For if, as Thou teachest, we are to love our enemies, this must include Satan, who is our enemy too. And so even that only road, the one shown by Thee, begins in contradiction to Thy commandment. And if one is allowed to begin with pure hate on the road toward Thy feast, why cannot one begin with sinful love, which, though sinful, must carry in it the vestiges of some warmth from Thy hearth, while hate exudes only coldness? So I should begin with that sinful love, but I cannot do so because its sinfulness grips me like a hoop on the pillory in front of Thy people. And thus I must return to where I began, as always, to where I began."

- From "The Prayer of Heloise," Conversations With The Devil, Leszek Kolakowski

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