Being generous with God

In his novel, The Diary of a Country Priest, by Georges Bernanos, the hero brings his life to a close with this prayer:

"Dear God, I give all to You, willingly. But I don't know how to give, I just let You take. The best is to remain quiet. Because, though I may not know how to give, You know how to take. . . Yet I would have wished to be, once, just once, magnificently generous to You."

The God that I don't believe in!

In the History of Contemporary Western Philosophy, I teach my students the thoughts of the German Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.  For ages Nietzsche has been thought to be an atheistic philosopher, the one who had the boldness to pronounce the devastating judgment on God: “GOD IS DEAD”.  I remember way back in 2001 as a student of philosophy, when one of my senior companions wanted to do his final thesis on Nietzsche, he was strictly reprimanded by the superiors. 

Do we have a "Second Mile" in our lives?

There is often the concept of a “Second Mile” that is developed in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospel.  We come across this idea many times in his various discourses and speeches and especially in the Gospel of Mathew in his Sermon on the Mount.   This comes in contrast to the understanding of the Old Testament where the law simply stated: “An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth” which I don’t think has to be interpreted only in terms of retaliation, even though it was said to be the ‘Law of Retaliation’.