makes no difference at all, God be praised, how big or how little the task. Oh, how merciful the eternal is to us human beings! Soren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Hong p. 79–80 Later, in Works of Love, Kierkegaard sums up the essence of what it means to have a pure heart using a metaphors from Archimedes and the New Testament. What we Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds in the Air The first discourse (To Be Contented with Being a Human Being) deals with comparison and choice and how to trust God with the choice once made. He may have been echoing Goethe's Propylaen in which Goethe had written "The youth, when Nature and Art attract him, thinks that with a vigorous effort he can soon penetrate into the innermost sanctuary; the man, after long wanderings, finds himself still in the outer court. Such an observation has suggested our title. It is only on the step, in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends." Kierkegaard writes about nature differently than Goethe but similarly because both see Nature as teachers of human kind and Kierkegaard wrote very much about "the inner being"; the soul. Kierkegaard wrote a great story about a lily and a naughty bird. It begins like this: The second discourse deals with diverting oneself from worries by "learning from the bird how glorious it is to be a human being." David F. Swenson translated several of Kierkegaard's discourses which were published in 1958 through the efforts of Paul L Holmer. Kierkegaard wrote of The Glory of Our Common Humanity. This was the second of three discourses that were all based on the text from Matthew 6 verses 24 to the end. It was titled How Glorious It Is to Be a Human Being by Howard V Hong when he translated Kierkegaard's book in 1993. The structure of the three discourses about the lilies and the birds is as follows: the first is esthetic, the second ethical, the third religious. Journal and Papers of Soren Kierkegaard VIII A 1 1847 Kierkegaard writes about the gift given to human beings that nature doesn't have, conscience. With the use of conscience we can know about time and the future. Something nature