Whitsunday, 1961

I don’t know Who – or what – put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.

From that moment, I have know what it means “not to look back” and “to take no thought for the morrow.”

Led by the Ariadne’s thread of my answer through the labyrinth of Life, I came to a time and place which is a catastrophe,  and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price for committing one’s life would be reproach, and that the only elevation possible to man lies in the depths of humiliation.

After that, the word “courage” lots its meaning since nothing could be taken from me.

As I continued along the Way, I learned, step by step, word by word, that behind every saying in the Gospels, stands one man and one man’s experience. Also behind the prayer that the cup might pass from him and his promise to drink it.  Also behind each of the words from the Cross.

 – Dag Hammarskjôld, Markings.