Irenic Thoughts

Irenic. The word means peaceful. This web log (or blog) exists to create an ongoing, and hopefully peaceful, series of comments on the life of King of Peace Episcopal Church. This is not a closed community. You are highly encouraged to comment on any post or to send your own posts.

12/29/2006

Good Intentions

The Widow
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote in his book Works of Love,

Take the story about the woman who placed the two pennies in the temple-treasury, but let us poetize a little variation. The two pennies were for her a great sum, which she had not quickly accumulated. She had saved for a long time in order to get them saved up, and then she had hidden them wrapped in a little cloth in order to bring them when she herself went up to the temple.

But a swindler had detected that she possessed this money, had tricked her out of it, and had exchanged the cloth for an identical piece which was utterly empty—something which the widow did not know. Thereupon she went up to the temple, placed, as she intended, the two pennies, that is, nothing, in the temple-treasury: I wonder if Christ would not still have said of her, that "She gave more than all the rich?"

1 Comments:

  • At 12/29/2006 9:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Interesting. I seem to remember there is a verse in the Bible that discusses our intentions. God knows what is in our heart and based on the details of the story the woman had the right intentions and her heart was in the right place.

    I'm sorry you had a problem finding Georgia On My Mind.....it's so new that Google hasn't indexed it yet. The link is http://mymindisongeorgia.blogspot.com :)

     

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