The little stable in Bethlehem was the place where the love of God broke through. The mysterious men out of the East followed the Star and discovered the place of breaking-in, where the mystery of love lay in the helplessness of a human baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes in the feeding trough of an animal. They discovered the place where the love of God had broken through. That is the most important thing for every man, to discover in his own time and at his own hour the place where God’s love has broken through, and then to follow the Star that has risen for him and to remain true to the light that has fallen into his heart.
- Eberhard Arnold, 1935
- Eberhard Arnold, January 1920 From an EssayJustice and love demand that everyone take part in simple practical work with a spade, hatchet, or rake. Everyone should be ready to devote a few hours every day to this practical work; those who have done purely mental work till now will feel its humanizing effect especially. In this way it will be possible for each person’s unique gifts to be kindled. The light that flickers within each heart will then exhibit its once-hidden glow in scholarly research or in music, in expressive words, or in the craftsman’s art in wood, stone, or paint…such work will reveal the joy in life that is in each person. Only death knows idleness and tedium. Where there is life, the mind’s creative will remains alert and comes to expression in the service of the whole.
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The last prophet of the old time who was to precede the coming Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit when He was still unborn. His father and mother too became filled with the Holy Spirit for Him. Mary received the Spirit before Jesus’ life began. In this same way the apostolic Church, which from the beginning of its way followed Jesus, was full of the Holy Spirit. “When they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and all were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke God’s Word with joyful courage.”
- Eberhard Arnold
Let us enter these days of Christmas and with all our hearts ask God to move us with his thoughts: that we may think along big lines, not only in continents, not only in planets, but in the largest constellations; that we may think not only in cycles of years, but in decades, centuries, and millennia, in the dimensions of God’s thoughts, in God’s great sweeping curves.
- Eberhard Arnold, Advent 1934