#deeds

Gilles Caron     US Soldier, Dak To, Vietnam     1967

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Author Frederick Buechner writes, “In Hebrew the term dabar means both ‘word’ and 'deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I am afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone. Something lay hidden in the heart that is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly. Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.” [Thank you Candace]

Huzzah!

Glen Iris, Vic.

,,The path of good deed appears to those who begin to love the honoring of God as very harsh and entirely gloomy, not because it is so, but because, even from the womb, human nature dwells together with the vastness of pleasures, and to those who have been able to pass its middle it appears very sweet and delightful; for, in this way, the evil habit, being subjected to the good one through the co-working of goodness, perishes together with the remembrance of beastly pleasures. Therefore, from this point on, the soul walks with sweetness on all the paths of good deeds. For this, the Lord, bringing us onto the path of salvation, says: "Strait and narrow is the way that leads to the kingdom, and few there are that enter through it" (Matthew 7, 14). And to those who with much diligence want to approach the keeping of His holy commandments, He says to them: "My yoke is good and My burden is light" (Matthew 11, 30).

Therefore, at the beginning of the struggle, it is fitting to work His holy commandments with a certain forced will, so that, seeing our purpose and labor and that we choose with great pleasure to serve His glorious wills, Good God may send us His holy will ready for help. And from then on our will is prepared by the Lord, so that with much joy we may work."