It is frightening and depressing when religion is misused to enslave and to rob the soul of its every freedom. How often does this happen! Nearly always and everywhere. It is the same with love. The noblest, purest and most divine becomes the lowest and meanest and most perishable, through the demonic powers that are released when this one area becomes a law to itself. God is freedom, deliverance from all slavery. We remain true to this watchword. It becomes ever clearer to me that all unfreedom is of the devil.
- Eberhard Arnold
- 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 fact that we experience something is not what matters; whom and what we experience is alone decisive. Who God is and what He wills and does should become so great and exclusive that through it we forget the experience itself, that is, ourselves and our experience, and lose sight of it completely. The greatest experience completely reveals our own insignificance.
- Eberhard Arnold
The light shines on every human being that comes to this world. But only he who accepts it completely, and only as long as he accepts it completely, will receive power, strength and tasks.
- Eberhard Arnold