ECCLESIASTES 12:1
There is a truth, the greatness and the grandeur of which we are accustomed to praise by saying admiringly that it is indifferent [ligegyldig], equally valid [lige gyldig],97 whether anyone accepts it or not; indifferent to the individual’s particular condition, whether he is young or old, happy or dejected; indifferent to its relation to him, whether it benefits him or harms him, whether it keeps him from something or assists him to it; equally valid whether he totally subscribes to it or coldly and impassively professes it, whether he gives his life for it or uses it for ill gain; indifferent to whether he has found it himself or merely repeats what has been taught. And the only one whose understanding was sound and whose admiration was justified was the one who grasped the greatness of this indifference and in accord with it let himself be formed into an indifference toward what pertained to him or any other human being as a human being or especially as a human being.
There is another kind of truth or, if this is humbler, another kind of truths that could be called concerned truths. They do not live on a lofty plane, for the simple reason that, ashamed, as it were, they are conscious of not applying universally to all occasions but only specifically to particular occasions. They are not indifferent to the single individual’s particular condition, whether he is young or old, happy or dejected, because this determines for them whether they are to be truths for him. Neither do they promptly let go of the individual and forsake [IV 124] him, but they continue to be concerned about him until he himself completely breaks away, and even to this they are not indifferent, although he is not able to make these truths doubtful about themselves. Such a truth is not indifferent to how the individual receives it, whether he wholeheartedly appropriates it or it becomes mere words to him. This very difference certainly shows that it is jealous of itself, is not indifferent to whether the truth becomes a blessing or a ruination to him, since this contrary decision witnesses specifically against the equal validity; it is not indifferent to whether he honestly places his confidence in it or whether, himself deceived, he wants to deceive others, since this avenging wrath expressly shows that it is not indifferent. Such a concerned truth is not independent of the one who has propounded it; on the contrary, he remains present in it continually in order in turn to concern himself about the single individual.
Those words we have just read, tested and repeated for centuries, are such a concerned truth. And if you could hear the voice of the one who said it, you would be assured as to how moved he himself was; and if you could see him in person, and you yourself were a young person, you certainly would be gripped by the sympathy with which he concerned himself about you, but more particularly he would awaken you to concern about yourself. Who was this man who spoke these words? We do not know, but if you are young, even if you are heir to the throne and your thoughts are such as the expectancy of dominion could inspire, then it is told that he, too, wore the royal purple,98 although, despite all this, he was of the opinion that the thought of the Creator is youth’s best thought. And if you are young, even if your life is lowly and without any glittering prospect, you have his royal word that, despite this, the thought of the Creator is youth’s most beautiful splendor.
Therefore, you see, the story that a king spoke these words is, as it were, a devout wish that wants to reconcile the greatest differences in a simple understanding of the same thing by means of the different ways the words themselves are concerned about the difference. When someone of royal birth who someday will rule kingdoms and countries sees on the wall of a humble cottage a picture, such as this might be in modest circumstances, a picture whose inadequacy almost makes him smile and he steps closer and reads these words [IV 125] inscribed on the picture—then the Preacher speaks to him, but the Preacher was indeed a king. And when the son of poverty stands amazed in the palace, when inexplicable thoughts awaken in his soul, when he stares in astonishment at his royal majesty, then the Preacher speaks to him, and the Preacher was indeed a king—then he returns home, reconciled, to his humble dwelling and to his poor picture on the wall.
Is there not, then, a reconciliation? Or will you assume the appearance of contentment in a clumsy attempt to argue that you do not crave the king’s magnificence—but neither can you be content with thinking about your Creator! As if that self-made contentment were not an arbitrary merit of which one does not dare to boast—indeed, worse yet, it is a sign of your miserable state that only witnesses against you! There is really nothing in the wide world that is able (no more than the whole world is able) to compensate a person for the harm he would inflict on his soul99 if he gave up the thought of God; but the person who demanded the highest, blinded though he was, still let it be understood that in a certain imperfect sense he grasped the significance of what he was abandoning. —Or was it perhaps different with you? Perhaps you were unwilling to agree to the reconciliation simply because it was a king who had spoken the words, and “a king, after all, obtains everything he points at; when he has pursued the beckoning of desire to the outermost boundary of pleasure, no wonder that his view of life suddenly changes.”
The words, then, were indeed meaningful, but the admonition was not to be taken, because the words were indeed concerned but not concerned about any particular individual, were indeed words of concern, were indeed reconciled to life insofar as they were tempered in sorrow but were nevertheless only a sigh from the hiding place of sadness, a sigh in the hour when the weary soul bids the earth farewell, but still only a bubble that breaks, however deep the depths from which it rises. There is a kind of wisdom that virtually chooses the concealment of mental disorder and by its strange agitation makes up for everything in people’s eyes, but the sigh itself and the outburst and the emotion pertain to no one, no one in the whole world, not even the one from whose heart the sigh sounds. At times a short saying like this is heard in the world, heartbreaking words, a language of the heart, not pithy as is the language of thought, but trembling with mood. It will not be a light on anyone’s path, since the sun will light the man’s way by day, and the moon will shine for him at night, but the will-o’-the-wisp will not give illumination in the night fog, not even for itself.
[IV 126] When a person’s life draws toward evening, when, weary and reflective, he associates with death as his one and only confidant, when his spirit has lost the strength to make an accounting in earnest and death has become the comforter, when his will and purpose no longer desire anything but his thought vaguely fumbles in the past, while forgetfulness like a busy day laborer works early and late in the service of the comforter and now youth flits by the soul like a dream—then such a person, musing on life’s most beautiful meaning as this once pertained to him, says to himself: Happy the one who did that! But if alongside him stood a young man still totally challenged by life, he would not talk in this way. Only when he is sitting alone, decrepit as a ruin, lost in sadness, only then does he say it, not to anyone else, not to his own soul, but says it to himself: Happy the one who did that! And just as one knowledgeable about medicine knows that there are lines in the face that are lines of death, so a person knowledgeable about the soul knows that this outburst signifies that the spirit wants to be extinguished. The outburst may very well have its meaning, but it is futile to look for the power of the admonition in it, because faith is not there, faith in having accomplished the good oneself, or faith that anyone else will succeed. And anyone who avidly pays attention to such words most often is himself in a similar state or at least has a sad presentiment that something similar will befall him, and therefore both find solace and relief by swooning in this powerlessness in which the admonition does not disturb them, but in which the blessing of the admonition does not rest upon them, either.
“All is vanity and pernicious toil,”100 says the Preacher, and light-mindedness regards such words as an ingenious plaything, thoughtlessness as a hopeless riddle, and depression as an opiate that makes the last worse than the first.101 The Preacher has said many a word that can always be beneficial for having been said if it can help someone to save himself from having the same experience or at least help him renounce the vain hankering to be more and more ingenious. But are the words just read of that kind, and did not the Preacher perhaps say everything prior to this solely for the sake of these and similar words, and would he not perhaps have willingly given up saying everything else if only someone would follow these words? Indeed, the Preacher specifically declares that “childhood and youth are also vanity” (Ecclesiastes 11:10), and for that matter even having done what he calls for, “to let [IV 127] your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, to walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes” (11:9), is vanity—but has the Preacher ever said that to think of one’s Creator in one’s youth is pernicious toil or that to have thought of him in one’s youth would also eventually prove to be vanity? Has he blended what he says about this with everything else, or is the way in which he says this worlds apart from the way in which he says the other things? Has he not relegated everything to vanity precisely so that the eternal and blessed significance of that thought might become properly manifest, so that it might bind the straying soul in obedience to the admonition? He does not say, as he usually does—so rejoice in your youth, so put away sorrow102—where the very expression, by indifferently tossing out what is said, suggests that what he is speaking about is a matter of indifference. He has omitted this casual little word, and as the discourse on the vanities goes on and seems to want to cast everything into vanity, the Preacher stands up to outbid the confusion so that it does not exceed its boundary,103 to halt the vanity by the specific expression of the admonition: Think, therefore, about your Creator.
He does not speak as if this thought were a thought only for youth, which nevertheless must eventually become a thing of the past; he does not speak of it as if it were something past that once had meaning, something past that most desirably had had meaning once—no, the meaning of youth is precisely the meaning of this thought, and precisely by means of this thought youth will be secured against being vanity, secured against seeming to be vanity at some time. He speaks not as one who wishes, not as one who longs, not as one who swoons, but he speaks to the young with the power of conviction, with the authority of experience, with the trustworthiness of assured insight, with the joyful trust of bold confidence, with the emphasis of earnestness, with the concern of the admonition. He does not talk indefinitely about youth in general, but just as the single individual probably does not understand in general that he is young, since such an understanding belongs specifically to a later age, but understands it personally, so is it precisely in this way that the Preacher wants the admonition to be understood. This is the main concern of the admonition, that even though it can be repeated again and again and applies to countless numbers of people, it speaks every time to the single individual; then it is as if it spoke to him alone, as if it came into existence solely for his sake, as if it were unconcerned about all the rest of the world but all the [IV 128] more concerned about him—indeed, very concerned, as concerned as if he would be doing a good deed if he accepted it. This is how the words sound, and even if you in lightness of spirit or in heaviness of spirit tried to beguile the Preacher, to trick him out of the admonition, which certainly would be lamentable, you would not succeed; the Preacher is not responsible for any ambiguity.
In this way the Preacher speaks admonishingly, and if you are young, even if you were initiated at an early age into much wisdom, he nevertheless is still speaking to you; and if you are young, even if you are rather simple, you nevertheless will not stand imploringly at the door of that wisdom, because the Preacher’s concern is also for you, and he is not just saying that you can think about your Creator, but he admonishes you to do it; and if you are young, whether you are joyful or dejected, whether you are carefree or discouraged, whoever you are, it is nevertheless to you, precisely to you, that he is speaking, you to whom the admonition applies, just as does the basis for the admonition: “before the evil days come and the years draw nigh of which you will say, ‘They do not please me.’”104 This is why he earlier tried to startle the soul out of its security into seeing the vanity of life, kept it from “believing light-mindedly” (I Corinthians 15:2), because otherwise his admonition, no matter how well intentioned, would always become a vanity or, rather, a serious matter that would always be taken in vain. Youth specifically does not think about the evil days, and does not understand what is meant by “the sound of the mill becomes weak, and all the daughters of song are feeble” (Ecclesiastes 12:4), and keeps itself from doing what it understands better than any other age. And when the evil days come and the sound of the mill becomes weak and the daughters of song are feeble, then one has not thought about the Creator in one’s youth and has lost not only youth but also the understanding of youth’s thought of the Creator.
In this way the Preacher admonishingly addresses the young, but anyone who wants to speak of those words just read will strive not only to make clear in his discourse the thought contained in the words but also to make the discourse itself clear, for “if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who then will prepare for battle” (I Corinthians 14:8). That the discourse is clear—what else does this signify except that it applies to someone, that it does indeed speak to some human being for upbuilding. Now it is indeed the case that the admonition’s concerned truth addresses itself specifically to the single individual in a particular circumstance of life; but the discourse about it nevertheless must take good care lest it make the upbuilding conditional upon the accidental, take good care lest, out of envy of the accidental, it come into conflict and into contradiction with what otherwise is upbuilding, since in that case the upbuilding is untrue and is nothing but an unhealthy amusement based on a preference or a mistaken [IV 129] wish that foolishly hankers after this. If one wanted to be built up by the thought of old age, but in a special way so that youth could not be built up by the same thought, then the upbuilding itself would be untrue. If one wanted to speak for upbuilding to an old man on the theme that everything is over soon, he certainly would unsettle the young man with this talk; how could he avoid becoming discouraged and prematurely tired of a life at the end of which one said that the best is that everything is over soon. That kind of upbuilding is a deception, a fraudulent compromise, because there is no advantage in being old and just as little in being young. If a person thinks youth is an advantage, he disdains the upbuilding and wants to hear nothing but the mundane words of the like-minded, indeed, the fellow conspirators, about how thrilling it is to be young. If a person thinks, with regard to thought of the Creator, that youth has a definite opportuneness that can never be had again, who would dare to speak with himself about this subject, who would dare to speak to anyone else about it for fear that it would be too late, for fear that upbuilding thought might change into terrifying thought?
But this is not the case. Therefore, when Holy Scripture makes it the condition for entering the kingdom of heaven that a person become a child again,105 this discourse is upbuilding precisely because it is addressed to every human being, whereas if it were understood otherwise it would be the silliest and bleakest talk ever heard in the world, because the child itself, after all, does not know what it is to be a child. What holds for childhood holds for youth also, except that there is the difference that with the passing of youth much can also be lost and wasted. The discourse about youth may very well be a source of concern to the single individual, but if the discourse also makes it impossible for this concern to be conducive to his reassurance, to become a sadness over the past that serves for his betterment, then the discourse does not build up but is worldly-minded, contentious, and confused. On the other hand, if the discourse will also influence a single young person to prevent the painful aftereffects of being remiss, it presumably will enhance the significance of youth for him, even though the discourse, with regard to authority, only borrows its way.
[IV 130] Think about Your Creator in the Days of Your Youth.
Think about your Creator in the days of your youth. One does this best and most naturally in youth, and if anyone kept the thoughts of youth through all the rest of his life—well, then he would have accomplished a good work. Let this be our eulogy of youth, even though it is rarely heard, although youth is nevertheless extolled often enough. Just as it is supposed to be harmful for an infant to be handled by everyone, so all this praise seems to be injurious to the health of young people. When the false or unwise friendship of inconsolableness holds forth, will it not infect youth with its irascible unhealthiness, will it not introduce a throbbing disquiet and craving into youth’s carefree security? Because inconsolableness is envious of youth, shall one therefore also make youth envious of itself and bewildered about itself? Do not take too much control of the young, nor of the infant, but do not therefore do the opposite, either; do not make it prematurely old, lest it drink the bitterness of not being allowed to be young when one is young, and for a second time drink the bitterness of not having been allowed to be young when one was young. The Preacher is not like this. When youth is merrily celebrating at a banquet, the Preacher is not a desperate character who wants to carry it away into wild passion and momentary enjoyment, not an alarming specter who wants to forget himself in youthful company, not a fool who, though past his prime, fancies that he is still young, but neither is he a peevish and tiresome man who cannot rejoice with the joyful.106 He joins in the rejoicing, and when youth has heartily enjoyed itself, has danced itself weary, not for life exactly, since youth ought not to do that, but for the evening, then the Preacher sits in a room within the dance hall and talks more earnestly. But he makes the transition just as naturally as youth, which is able, even with a smile on its lips and with enthusiasm, to listen appropriately to the discussion of lofty and holy matters. So, then, let “youth wear the crown of rosebuds before they wither” (The Wisdom of Solomon 2:8), but let no one teach this to youth, teach it to do this “as in youth” (Wisdom 2:6) and thereby influence, or in any other way influence, youth to “reason unsoundly” (Wisdom 2:1), as if this were the only thing it had to do, because thought of the Creator is still youth’s most beautiful glory, is also a rosebud, but it does not wither.
[IV 131] 107In youth one does it most naturally. The person who can think this thought along with everything else he otherwise thinks does indeed think most naturally, and the person who does not need to be changed so as to be able to think it and does not need the thought to be changed so that he can think it does indeed think most naturally, because he finds in this thought the equivalent in childlikeness, which makes play the best. In this way those words of the Preacher are already a demonstration that this thought must be the most natural for youth. If he had not been speaking to youth, he very likely would have made lengthy preparations. He perhaps would have demonstrated that there is a God, and then when he had kept the learner busier than the Jews in the land of Goshen in order under his supervision to have him enslave himself to the truth, he perhaps would have intimated that he could even reach the point where God became the Creator. Yes, so it goes. When one grows older, everything becomes so miserable. God in heaven has to sit and wait for the decision on his fate, whether he exists, and finally he comes into existence with the help of a few demonstrations;108 human beings have to put up with waiting for the matter to be decided. Suppose that a person died before that time; suppose that when the matter was finally decided he was not in the practice of thinking about God as his Creator and the joy over that was all gone! The Preacher does not speak in that way, but just as a friendly person lays the infant’s happy future at the cradle, just so does he offer his words, and youth understands them immediately. Youth understands immediately that there is a God, because for the young person God’s house is right next to his father’s residence, and it is entirely natural for him to be there. But when one grows older, the way to the church is often very long; when the weather is bad in the winter, it is very cold in the church; when the singing of birds fills the woods in summer, the church is not on the path. For the youth, God lives close by. In the midst of his joy and his sorrow, he hears God’s voice calling; if he does not hear it, he misses it immediately, has not learned subterfuges, does not know how to conceal himself109—until he hears it again. When one grows older, it is a long way to heaven, and the noise on earth makes it difficult to hear the voice; and if one does not hear it, the noise on earth makes it easy not to miss it.
Youth understands it immediately—how marvelous—but is not the fact that it is marvelous again the explanation! There was a thinker,110 much admired in memory, who thought that [IV 132] miracle was a characteristic of the Jewish people, that in a characteristic way this people leaped over the intervening causes to reach God. But if we point to a youth who did not grow up in that nation, do you not think, then, that the marvelousness of miracle will be manifest here, too? And do you think, then, that adulthood dares to forget completely that which belongs essentially to youth and which does not belong to a particular nation as something accidental? But when one grows older, then along come the intervening causes; and if someone reaches God by the long road of intervening causes, he can say that he comes from far away—that is, if he does reach God, for many perish along the way. Is this the fault of the intervening causes or of the pilgrim?
Youth understands immediately that God is Creator, that he has created “heaven and earth and everything found therein.”111 “Everything found therein”—is this not a vast phrase; is it suitable for youth? What has youth seen—after all, it has only peeked into the world; compared with someone who has circumnavigated the earth, what does youth know about the world? But youth knows about God, and since God is not supposed to be far away, to find him is not a matter of seeking him far away. There was a thinker who became a hero by his death; he said that he could demonstrate the existence of God with a single straw.112 Let the thinker keep his demonstration; give youth the straw—it cannot demonstrate. But why is demonstration necessary at all when one has the straw and—God! When one grows older, along comes the demonstration, and the demonstration is a prominent traveler whom all look upon with admiration.
Youth understands that God has created the world, and yet that was six thousand years ago. But youth understands it immediately—no wonder, for to the young, what are six thousand years but yesterday?113 When one grows older, six thousand years are a great many years; then one perceives that it was six thousand years ago that the world was created and also six thousand years since everything was very good.114
But just as youth quite naturally thinks that God is Creator, so it likewise naturally thinks that which follows as a consequence; and since it does not need to waste any time on fathoming the former, it can promptly begin the latter. But what does follow as a consequence? Well, when one grows older [IV 133] and very sensible, then very strange things follow as a consequence; then one goes beyond115 an earlier thinker, calls oneself after a later thinker, or gives others a name, and does other similar things that pertain neither to God nor to oneself but only to public opinion. Youth, however, has already begun the latter with the former, because what follows more closely as a consequence of the former than that which lies so near that it does not even seem to follow as a consequence of it, much less follow in addition as a consequence? What else is the latter except that thanksgiving is quiet in humility, that confidence rests in childlike trust, that pain over the disturbance of the harmony is so deep that peace cannot long be absent, the concern so childlike that youth does not need to go far in order to live once again, to be moved, and to have its being in God.116
And in youth it is done best, because he indeed thinks a thought best who always has it handy and yet hides it deepest, he who does not have to look for it among a host of things in order to find it, who does not look for it in out-of-the-way places.
Youth does not have many thoughts, but from this it only follows that it can better hide the one it has, even though it always uses it. When a person grows older, he has many thoughts; and if one of them is lost, he does just as that woman did—he lights a candle117 and goes searching for it and meanwhile lets the ninety-nine others shift for themselves.118 Or he thinks that a thought is lost, and in searching for it wastes time, since it was an illusion. Such things cannot happen to youth; when one has but a single thought, how could it possibly be lost! Having many thoughts is like having many clothes. Now one wears one thing, now another. But youth has one thought, which is always becoming, and wastes no time in choosing. On the other hand, youth has the same place and scarcely less space than the place where the adult hides his thoughts, but when one has only one thought, that thought can have a very good place and ample space.
Youth does not see many people, but that does not mean that youth cannot cling wholeheartedly to humankind and to the human. There was a pagan wise man who, ridiculed by the crowd, decided to ridicule the others. He walked about by day with a lighted lantern looking for man.119 One should not ridicule him; anyone who as a young person has not found man may very well need a lighted lantern. When one grows [IV 134] older, one sees many people, meets and parts, but if from youth onward one does not have man, what then does one find; and he who finds it, what does he find but the pastor, the schoolteacher, his equals, and everything else he knows so well from home; and what does he find that replaces the best that he loses little by little? So also with the thought of God. When the adult finds this thought again, what else does he find but what he found in his youth! He thought it in his youth, and the first time he did so it was as if he had already thought it for an eternity. It is more difficult for the years to think with such unforgetfulness. When one is older, this thought commonly has only its allotted time, and so it must be. Other thoughts have their allotted times; everything is parceled out, and even if one otherwise lives in abundance, with regard to this thought one commonly lives scantily enough. But youth is the season of overabundance. When a person grows older, he does not grow anymore, but youth is the time of growth, and it grows along with its one and only thought, just like lovers who grew up together. When a person grows older, he often scrutinizes his thoughts and retards himself. One grows best in concealment, and physically a person never grows as much as during the nine months in the womb; and spiritually he never grows as much as in youth’s concealed life, when his growth is a divine growth. The older he becomes, the more complicated the accounting becomes, and yet that thought about the Creator is what the schoolmaster in his childhood talked of so much; it is the number carried [Mente], and if the number carried is forgotten somewhere, then the reckoning is incorrect throughout.120
Let childhood, then, keep the angels, who always behold the face of God;121 but bestow on youth, O God, a friendly solicitude that keeps it from losing the best. Woe to him who defrauds widows122 and orphans, but woe also to him who defrauds youth of this thought, even though he gave it everything else! Woe to him who moves the landmark of the poor;123 woe to him who moves the landmark of youth!
Think about your Creator in the days of your youth. This thought continually recurs, and sometime later it will help you to think most naturally and best of the Creator, however more specifically the help is to be defined with regard to the single individual.
[IV 135] It is hard, people say, to separate those who are inwardly united, but how much harder it is when the Creator and youth’s thought about the Creator are separated. Human language says very little of this concern, since not only their talk but virtually language itself is so selfish that it talks only of their own affairs and very little of God’s, whose concern this separation is.
But what is it, then, that separates them? My listener, should not you yourself know what it was that separated you, and should not the single individual know what it was that separated him from God, even though that which separated was very different for different people! Perhaps it was age that separated them, that he had grown old although God always remained the same. He certainly is not to be censured for growing older; on the contrary, a person surely deserves praise if in this regard he knows the time and the hour.124 Indeed, nothing is more loathsome than to see the miserable beggar whose eyes and countenance implore everyone for the flattering falsehood that he still seems young, or to see the poor wretch who despite his advanced age still bolsters himself with the lie that he has youth ahead of him, or to see the weakling who has no other defense against the years than a feeble wish that he were still young. He, however, who knows the time and the hour and the opportunity finds the separation less striking, and he is indeed furthest from having forgotten his youth, which even he has done who day and night wants it back. Whether a person will succeed in growing older in such a way that he at no moment notices the separation that will lay the foundation for another kind of understanding,125 we do not know, but for most people it probably turns out that just as they are separated from what belonged to youth, leave their father’s house and their mother’s care, are separated even further from them, so are they also separated from God.
Perhaps he then grew older, and with the years came understanding, and with understanding knowledge, and with knowledge grief,126 and with increased knowledge increased grief. But as he was developed and educated in this way, the simple became more difficult for him, and since without this guidance he wanted to rule himself, everything became more and more complicated. —Perhaps he chose the guidance of thought, and in order not to owe anyone anything he let this seed sow itself and let one thought evolve out of another, until eventually the infinite manifested itself to him and made him dizzy. The more he stared fixedly at it, the more his eye lost the visual power to find the way back to finitude. —Perhaps desire blinded him, life seemed a joke to him, and he let God grieve in heaven while he chose pleasure and let enthusiasm [IV 136] speak in vain about conflict and struggle, about courage in dangers, patience in tribulations, love in life, victory in death, reward in heaven, while he let every day have its pleasure.127 —Perhaps a worldly-minded worry about food and clothing scattered his mind so that he did neither the one nor the other.128 —Perhaps he subjected himself to an inconsolable seriousness that made life here below into slavery, God in heaven into a severe master, his will into a terrible law, and in this way he wandered in a desert without finding any relief. —Perhaps it was sin and perdition that lay divisively between him and youth’s thought of God, and the wrath of the separation seemed to make an understanding impossible.
We could probably develop this further, but to what purpose? When the separation is there, it is not so important to stare fixedly at the reason as to sorrow over the separation, which can manifest itself in such a different way when the evil days the Preacher speaks of have come or when the retreat is to begin. Just as the first book in the Old Testament has been called Genesis, the second, Exodus,129 so it could very well be said that in human life there is a third book that is called Retreat. There is evident, then, a necessity to turn back to that which once was so beautiful but which since then has been disdained, forgotten, disregarded, defiled, and to which everyone nevertheless now has recourse with a certain shame. And it is indeed understandable that he was ashamed that he, no matter what the error of his way was, first attempted everything before he decided to return, but was it not a blessing that there was something to return to, was it not fortunate that the blind man had a child who could lead him! And so one walks for a brief hour like a blind man led by a child.130
We do not conceal that one person’s retreat can be very different from another’s, that one person’s can be a more peaceful return, the other’s a flight that terror pursues, but it is the Preacher who says: Therefore think about your Creator in the days of your youth, think about this for the sake of the retreat. Even though the moment it is to begin is ever so terrible, even though a person in self-hatred has destroyed ever so much of what lay behind him, just a recollection131 of this thought will always be of some help to him. Perhaps there was someone [IV 137] who, reduced to extremity, sought only to gather his bitterness, his wrath, in a single passionate cry and sought in vain among the sagacious, who usually know all about life’s emptiness and nothingness, until he cried out: Oh, the world passes away and the lust of it!132 But see, then these words awakened like a recollection in his soul, and with them awakened a redeeming recollection that still called to him with the integrity of youth: But God’s Word abides forever. In this way, youth’s recollection helped where nothing else would help, and this is how it helps: it breaks the spell of brooding seriousness so that there is joy again in heaven and on earth; it disperses the fogs of busy care in God-surrendered nonchalance; it dissolves the pernicious toil in quiet astonishment at the dark saying “to hope against hope”;133 through the bold confidence that understands nothing, does not understand the ensnaring assertions of self-accusation but understands only God’s mercy, it rescues the one who despairs from seeing the despair. Perhaps there was someone who pondered deeply and pondered long over the divine, although what he found out he himself sometimes understood more simply than when he fathomed it, until at last as he sat there thoughtful and ruminative he smiled at all his pondering by paying heed to youth’s recollection that whispered to him the simple words and by their intervention transformed the beautiful earnestness into an even more beautiful jest134 for him. Perhaps there was someone whose plans always brought him victory and people’s admiration, although he himself, in comparing the outcome with the calculations, always discovered a little discrepancy, until at last, as he stood there rigorous and dominating, he was tempered by listening to youth’s recollection that hummed the simple words to him and by interweaving themselves transfigured his beautiful earnestness into an even more beautiful jest.
We do not extol the retreat as if this alone were life’s meaning, as if recollection were everything in life. We are not so presumptuous as to speak triflingly of the truth that more mature human wisdom fathoms or of the beauty that human art produces; even less do we disparage the honest work of adulthood. We are speaking only of the beautiful meaning of the retreat for human life and of how having thought about the Creator in one’s youth is the retreat’s rescuing angel.
Let a person’s work, then, take from him what belongs to [IV 138] it, his time, his diligence, but in the advancing years, O God, preserve a recollection of youth that preserves youth’s thought of the Creator. Woe to him who separates what God has joined together; woe to him who separates adulthood from its youth.
Now if there is anyone whom this meditation only painfully reminded of his lack, then it certainly would be unseemly and unworthy of an upbuilding discourse, indeed, all the worse for itself, if it remained unsympathetic, because in that case it would not be upbuilding, would not have found the universal, but would have been beguiled by the accidental. It is probably rather seldom that a person can truly feel this lack, and at times he may delude himself, push the fault away from himself, cravenly hold the soul apart, deceive it with good intentions, choose the pain of the lack instead of the sorrow of repentance. If that is the case, then the discourse may be at ease. If such a person does not want to understand himself, the discourse at any rate has understood him. If, however, there is some person whose youth no loving solicitude has preserved for him, if he had gone out into life poorer than the son of poverty to whom the parents left their poverty, poorer than the one to whom the father at least left a blessing and the mother an admonition, helpless, forsaken, forsaken by himself because he had had no youth—oh, there is no youth so godforsaken but that the fragments, if collected so carefully that nothing is wasted, would not by the blessing of God135 become an overabundant compensation, and there certainly was no youth, however short it was, so godforgotten that the recollection or the deep and sorrowful longing for it would not be able to rejuvenate the person who was never young. Spiritually, the fulfillment is always in the wish, the calming of the concern in the concern, just as God is even in the sorrowful longing that is for him.136 And spiritually he did indeed understand his lack, and spiritually he longed for youth. In another sense, youth is but vanity, and longing for it even more vanity, “for charm is deceptive, and beauty is vain” (Proverbs 31:30), and the fickle mind dashes away with fleeting hope, and the dance ends, and the joke is forgotten, and strength vanishes, and youth is past, and its place knows it no more;137 but youth’s thought of the Creator is a rosebud that does not wither, because it does not know the time of the year or of the years, and it is the child’s most beautiful ornament, and the bride’s most beautiful jewel, and the dying person’s best garment.