Quote for the day

"Already yesterday's concerns are consigned to forgetfulness, and tomorrow's are too far away to obligate us today. The burden of yesterday is shaken off by glorifying shadowy time of old; the task of tomorrow is avoided by talking about the coming millennium. Nothing is fixed, and nothing holds us. The film, vanishing from memory as soon as it ends, symbolizes the profound amnesia of our time. Events of world-historical significance, along with the most terrible crimes, leave no trace behind in the forgetful soul. One gambles with the future. Lotteries and gambling, which consume an inconceivable amount of money and often the daily bread of the worker, seek the improbable chance of luck in the future. The loss of past and future leaves life vacillating between the most brutish enjoyment of the moment and adventurous risk taking. Every inner development, every process of slow maturing in personal and vocational life, is abruptly broken off. There is no personal destiny and therefore no personal dignity. Serious tensions, inwardly necessary times of waiting, are not endured. This in evident in the domain of work as well as in erotic life. Lasting pain is more feared than death. The value of suffering as the forming of life through the threat of death is disregarded, even ridiculed. The alternatives are health or death. What is quiet, lasting and essential is discarded as worthless."—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Ethics

Wow, that was written in 1940, but it could describe today. I just started Ethics over the weekend. Debbie looked at it and said, "Wow, that's a big book." She's right, it is almost 600 pages. Of course, with Bonhoeffer, you don't read quickly. I figure this will last me through the end of the year :)

UPDATE: Sorry, the links didn't work. I fixed them (I think). —Thanks for pointing it out, Andy.