“ The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. ” ~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Buon Anno!
ReplyDeleteTrue, each day is new, as is each second. Happy new hour Rob, and have a good year too si Dieu le veut.
ReplyDeleteThank you, The Commentator and Mirino, the same to you!
ReplyDeleteWe are always in the hands of God, whether we like it or not, and I like it. "Si Dieu le veut", what a wonderful sentence, my friend!
P.S. And don't forget that Deus vult (in English "God wills it," and "Dieu le veut" in French) was the cry of the people at the declaration of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095! ;-)
Happy New Year, Rob! I enjoyed this quote by Chesterton!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Rob! I love your blog!
ReplyDeleteAs the Saracens made the same cry- 'insh'allah' as the French Crusaders 'si Dieu le veut' and the English 'With God's will'.. God could well have been at a loss to know to which side he should accord his good will. Perhaps he tossed a coin. No, he would never have had small change. Maybe he just said 'to hell with it. Let them make history and sort things out themselves. In any case they'll never learn..
ReplyDelete@Mirino:
ReplyDeleteGood point, but .. I wish it were as you describe it: "Dieu le veut" is something diffrent from "si Dieu le veut," and Crusaders used to say "Deus vult," that is "Dieu le veut," without ifs and buts... and the "Infidels" used to apply the same principle (without ifs and buts). And of course I was just playing with words. ("Insh'allah" and "si Dieu le veut" are both wonderful expressions of faith and humility.)
However,in my opinion, it is to be said that Crusades were not as horrible as we've been told (I beg your pardon for quoting myself). We have to contextualize them in their own cultural, historical, conceptual frameworks. The fighters of both sides, for instance, were able to respect each other, even though (or just because) they were ready to kill each other in the name of God...
@Angela and Marketa:
ReplyDeleteThank you both so much. Have a great 2010!
Can you please tell me the source of this quotation?
ReplyDeleteSorry, that’s just what I’d like to know. I searched the world over, but in vain. The only certainty is that Gilbert Keith Chesterton is the author of the sentence.
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