Of Motives and Immortality

Twenty two years ago, a beautiful girl gave me a Christmas gift that would change my life forever.  Perhaps she did not know then how this gift would impact her also.  In late November of 1991, I asked Carrie Urheim to accompany me to a Christmas concert.  Soon afterward we fell in love.  This wonderful young woman gave me a book for Christmas that year, a book that I have read through over and over.  I’ve worn the cover off the paperback copy she gave to me.

I’ve thought often about which books have influenced me most, and the older I get the easier it is for me to answer.  The first six or eight times I read Purity of Heart, I struggled to capture the meaning, to follow the arguments, to understand the logic and the language.  But each time I read it, a new paragraph or two makes sense to me, and the old familiar ones do not lose their sage, searching power.  I now read this little book about once a year, and never without my journal nearby.  I would wish to liken the book to an old friend; and perhaps for the penitent, it most certainly is.  But for the active one, in the bustle of life, the words of S.K. are anything but friendly.  I rather more accurately liken this little book to a spinning grindstone upon which Kierkegaard alternately rotates and presses the thoughts and intents of my heart against the Eternal; simultaneously exposing impure motives and sharpening the axe head of commitment and purpose.  I never read this book without pride and falsehood splintering away with sparks flying.

Time does not here permit me to elaborate on the various encounters I’ve had with these pages.  Perhaps I will one day have opportunity and perhaps not.  Those stories will be written in eternity where I will of course give account as the solitary individual encountering signposts on the journey.  For now though, I will leave the reader with an excerpt from the final paragraph and an invitation to carefully consider the words of James 4:8, the point of origin of Kierkegaard’s discourse – Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  

“Father in Heaven! What is a man without Thee!  What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee!  What is all his striving, could it even encompass the world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee:  Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all!  So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing…  Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man’s burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing.” -- Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, Kierkegaard