Conversation

Sep 18, 2019

It was only after his death, from a ms called “Marking,” that the world learned of the deeply private faith that underlay Dag Hammarskjold’s life of public service. In aphoristic reflections he described his “negotiations with God and myself.”

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@RobertEllsberg

Sep 18, 2018

9/18/61 Dag Hammarskjold, Sec Gen of the UN, died in the Congo when his plane crashed (shot down?). The rare global leader who combined public service with a sense of religious vocation: "Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment."

@RobertEllsberg

“I don’t know Who—or what—put the question...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...

11:52 AM · Sep 18, 2019

“I came to Realize that the Way leads to a triumph which is a catastrophe and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price for committing one’s life would be reproach...After that, the word “courage” lost its meaning, since nothing could be taken from me.”