Power

From "oxymoronica"

The greatest power available to man is not to use it.

Meister Eckhart

Paradoxically, those who serve others are the most powerful. They build 'political capital'. Political capital is not power, however. Those that lead from their political capital and not by power earn the greatest will of the people.

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Public service is a calling

From "365 Daily Treasures of Wisdom"

... Thou, Almighty, Who art with me, yea, before I am with Thee. To such then whom Thou commandest me to serve will I discover, not what I have been, but what I now am and what I yet am. But neither do I judge myself. Thus therefore I would be heard.

Saint Augustine (354-430A.D.)

Service is the highest calling of God. Jesus exhorts, "Love God with your whole heart, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Hence, the term for our own legislators as 'public servants'. All eligible candidates for- and holders of- public office feel a calling to serve their community; and by serving others they, creatures of God, serves themselves. By serving others we do not judge ourselves but speak to God.

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Faith and the Roman Empire

From "The World's Great Letters"

Well may we be unhappy, for it is our sins that have made the barbarians strong; as in the days of Hezekiah, so today is God using the fury of the barbarian to execute His fierce anger. Rome's army, once the lord of the world, trembles today at sight of the foe.

Saint Jerome, letter to a friend, 410A.D.

"... the wolves of the North have been let loose..." writes Saint Jerome as he hears of the first sack of Rome. Among his accomplishments was the first translation of the Holy Bible into latin, the Vulgate; Saint Jerome had lived much of the first 70 years of his life under the safe and wealthy governance of the "mother of nations." And yet his Christian faith assures his eternal service to the one eternal God- he tells this tale after the second sack "to those that come after..."

"... so that they may know that even in the midst of swords and deserts and wild beasts virtue is never made a captive, and that he who has surrendered himself to Christ may be slain but cannot be conquered."

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