Reflections on Thomas à Kempis

The Character of a Peaceable Man

“How is it you are so glib in excusing yourself, putting a good color on your own actions, and won’t listen when excuses are offered to you? Honesty should make you accuse yourself, excuse your neighbor; bear with him, when you expect him to bear so much from you. Believe me, you’ve got a long way to go before you can lay claim to real charity, real humility. There should be only one target for all this angry resentment — yourself.

You get on well with gentle, good-natured folk? Why, so does everybody; we all like to have friends around us, we all have a soft spot for the man who agrees with us. But when people are difficult and cross-grained, when they get out of hand and keep on contradicting us, to keep on good terms with them — ah, that needs a lot of grace; that’s a man’s job, and you can’t praise it too highly.”  Thomas à Kempis

I am a proud man. I think highly of myself, scattered in the thoughts of my imagination. Up there, in the secret realm of my mind, I am infallible - it is…