The following are two quotations from the writings of Getrude von Petzold.
From “The Cross of Christ” :
“Study the religions of the world, hearken devoutly to the psalms of the East and to the songs of the West, kneel silently in the temple of the Buddhist, join in the worship of the Jewish synagogue, or . listen to the prayers of the Christian Church; in its essence all worship is one, for all religion is one, for all worship, all religion leads to God. In whatever varying forms the pious souls of humanity _have sought and found God, what matters it? For as all language is symbolic, is more or less the imperfect expression of our thoughts and feelings, so the names also we give to God … are at best symbols only, imperfect human signs by which we know Him and know ourselves in Him. Yet Jesus was sure that harmony with God can only be obtained through perfect love and that such love can never be free from pain, for it is never free from effort and failure; and the way of perfect love is the way of the cross … reflecting the deepest law of life, wherein peace comes out of strife, harmony out of disorder and joy out of suffering, the crown after the cross … what greater devotion, what deeper consecration than in the life of Jesus?”
From “The Vision of Paul” :
“Every. spiritual experience is in its essential nature a mystery, every yearning after things Divine, every prayer sent up to the Infinite, every aspiration after eternity. … We can only understand the Divine language if we attune our minds to it; only by looking for the essence and reality of things shall we become aware that there is a Divine Reality in all things … and only if we listen to its voice in awed silence, review our lives in its light and shape our nature in accordance with that Divine Reality. … And the poets.– the inspirers and harmonizers of life — have given us moving and lovely pictures of the Divine Vision. We have such pictures in Browning’s beautiful poems, — especially in “Abt Vogler” at the organ, pouring out his soul in melody, longing to build a structure of music as Solomon of old erected a palace with the help of ministering spirits, that his music shall touch the very heavens, and spirits come and dwell in the building of sound which he rears. … A poet or painter may be able to fix his inspirations, but the musician cannot. Yet he has the glorious gift of framing out of three sounds “not a fourth but a star”, that is the Divine idea. Only he cannot hold it; the palace of music, as soon as it has reached its highest point, vanishes. Nevertheless he has this assurance that He from , whom all inspiration flows is there, ever working in the souls of men, rousing them to new efforts and consoling them over past failures. Therefore if the artist only turns to Him he will learn to take both success and failure as being in the great plan of things and working towards some ultimate goal:
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the ‘ ,weal and woe; But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear, The rest may reason and welcome; ’tis we musicians know.
Let us be amongst the few, let us gain the Divine Vision and never lose it; let us shape our lives in harmony with that vision. We may not have revelations like the Apostles of old, we may not have experiences as the Poets sing of, but we all have. solemn times and seasons when the grandeur of the universe opens itself to our view, when we seem to be overwhelmed by the majestic harmony of the world in which we live, when the sea and air and sky seem to call forth in us infinite longings after a “world not realized”. Yes, and there are those moments when we withdraw within ourselves — in the hush and silence of the night — when we review the past, remembering our successes and failures. When we realize how we have fallen short of the ideals of our youth and aspirations of our manhood.
Ah, friends, here and now let us swear allegiance to the Vision beautiful, through doubt and sorrow, through success and failure — let us look to the Infinite and Eternal whom no one has seen at any time, except through the inspirations of beauty and the intuitions of the heart.”
In the attached address the Rev Geoff Usher gives us an insight into who Gertrude von Petzold was, her life and her importance in the history of Universalism.
The full address can be read by clicking here.
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