The relationship between God and man (Christianity)

In this stage the ultimate most holy form of theory is action. The spark that leaps from generation to generation is not to be passively regarded but to be leapt on and burned with. Flesh, race, man, plants and animals have been joined in their march, light and dark have been embraced to reach this point, the beginning. This, the starting point, is arrived at with new eyes and ears, with a new sense of taste, smell and touch and with a new brain. Human duty lies not in interpreting or casting light on God's march but adjusting, as much as possible to his rhythm. In this stage, the virtues and faces other ages have given to God have been gone beyond. This is not the time to wait patiently for certain victory. It is not the time to wait smugly trusting God to pity and save. The self and God are united. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endlessness of space only one person struggles and is imperilled: the self. Within the small and earthen breast encasing the self, only one thing struggles and is imperilled: the universe.

The first stage in the action for the spiritual exercises of Nikos Kazantzakis.