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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250401
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DTSTAMP:20260525T144508
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UID:13277-1743465600-1743551999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:A TOUGH MIND \nAND A TENDER HEART \nFrom a sermon by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.3 \n◊◊◊ \nToughmindedness without tenderheartedness is cold and detached\, leaving \none’s life in a perpetual winter devoid of the warmth of spring and the gentle heat of \nsummer. What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined \nheights of toughmindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless \ndepths of hardheartedness? \nThe hardhearted person never truly loves. He engages in a crass \nutilitarianism which values other people mainly according to their usefulness to \nhim. He never experiences the beauty of friendship\, because he is too cold to feel \naffection for another and is too self-centered to share another’s joy and sorrow. He \nis an isolated island. No outpouring of love links him with the mainland of \nhumanity. The hardhearted person lacks the capacity for genuine compassion… He \npasses unfortunate men every day\, but never really sees them. He gives dollars to a \nworthwhile charity\, but he gives not of his spirit… \nJesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent \nand the tenderness of the dove. To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike \nqualities is to be passionless\, mean\, and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without \nserpentlike qualities is to be sentimental\, anemic\, and aimless. We must combine \nstrongly marked antitheses… \nThe greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both toughminded and \ntenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and of gentleness. The Bible\, \nalways clear in stressing both attributes of God\, expresses his toughmindedness in \nhis justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness in his love and grace. God has two \noutstretched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice\, and one is \ngentle enough to embrace us with grace. On the one hand\, God is a God of justice \nwho punished Israel for her wayward deeds\, and on the other hand\, he is a \nforgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal \nreturned home. \nI am thankful that we worship a God who is both toughminded and \ntenderhearted… At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When \nslumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth\, we need to know that there is a \nGod of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like \nthe green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of \noppression\, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless \nstrength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man. \nBut there is also times when we need to know that God possesses love and \nmercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the \nraging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into \nsome destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of \nhomesickness\, we need to know that there is Someone who loves us\, cares for us\, \nunderstands us\, and will give us another chance. When days grow dark and nights \ngrow dreary\, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative \nsynthesis of love and justice which will lead us through life’s dark valleys and into \nsunlit pathways of hope and fulfillment. \n  \n3 Martin Luther King Jr. Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row\, 1964. 5-9.7
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-288/
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