"Just because so many things are in conflict does not mean that we ourselves should be divided. Yet time and time again one hears it said that since we have been put into a conflicted world, we have to adapt to it. Oddly, this completely unchristian idea is most often espoused by so-called Christians. How can we expect a righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone who will devote themselves undividedly to a righteous cause?"
Sophie Scholl
"People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all.
They can only conceive one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men. They do not know that reality is to be sought not in division but in unity, for we are ‘members one of another.’ “
Thomas Merton
“In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in His own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our familiality with all mankind."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Stocks closed largely unchanged today.
Volatility as measured by VIX continued to move lower.
Gold and silver moved slightly higher with the Dollar largely unchanged.
Defy the world with love, and a light will come into your life.
Have a pleasant evening.
