Preparing for Battle

    I put my body through it's paces like a war horse; I keep it clean, sturdy, prepared. I harden it and I pity it. I have no other steed.

    I keep my brain wide awake, lucid, unmerciful. I unleash it to battle relentlessly so that, all light, it may devour the darkness of the flesh. I have no other workshop where I may transform darkness into light.

    I keep my heart flaming, courageous, restless. I feel in my heart all commotions and all contradictions, the joys and sorrows of life. But I struggle to subdue them to a rhythm superior to that of the mind, harsher than that of my heart - to the ascending rhythm of the Universe.

    The cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: "I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son not the Holy Ghost. I am your General!

    "You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms!

    "Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you; do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station.

    "Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!

    "Learn to obey. Only he who obeys a rhythm superior to his own is free.

    "Learn to command. Only he who can give commands may represent me here on earth.

    "Love responsibility. Say: 'It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved then I alone am to blame.'"

                                                ~ From The Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises by Nikos Kazantzakis