{"id":690,"date":"2010-08-19T10:13:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T10:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/08\/deep-thought-thursday-1.html"},"modified":"2010-08-19T10:13:17","modified_gmt":"2010-08-19T10:13:17","slug":"deep-thought-thursday-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/deep-thought-thursday-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Deep Thought Thursday: #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first Deep Thought Thursday <\/b>entry, I wanted to bring you a little bit of writing from Rainer Maria Rilke<\/a>, an early 20th century poet and writer. In one of his letters to a younger writer experiencing great fear and sadness, he offers this advice:<\/p>\n

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting
\nto see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything
\nthat frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that
\nwants our love.  <\/i>[text of full letter<\/b><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our world is filled with dragons of all sorts. Those dragons would keep us afraid, locked safely inside, and well-armed with weapons against the dangerous world. <\/p>\n

But what if they weren’t dragons at all? What if we were only tricked into thinking they were dragons and they were really princesses crying out for love? Would we hear them over the deafening screams of our inner fears?<\/p>\n

What if, as Rilke suggests, the things which frighten us are the ones most in need of our love?<\/p>\n

What frightens you in this world? Is it possible that Satan has planted this fear inside of you because God has created you to bring Christ’s love there–into that place you fear?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first Deep Thought Thursday entry, I wanted to bring you a little bit of writing from Rainer Maria Rilke, an early 20th century poet and writer. In one of his letters to a younger writer experiencing great fear and sadness, he offers this advice: Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-thought-thursday"],"yoast_head":"\nDeep Thought Thursday: #1 - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/deep-thought-thursday-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Deep Thought Thursday: #1 - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For the first Deep Thought Thursday entry, I wanted to bring you a little bit of writing from Rainer Maria Rilke, an early 20th century poet and writer. In one of his letters to a younger writer experiencing great fear and sadness, he offers this advice: Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/deep-thought-thursday-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-19T10:13:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Deep Thought Thursday: #1 - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/08\/deep-thought-thursday-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Deep Thought Thursday: #1 - Red Letters","og_description":"For the first Deep Thought Thursday entry, I wanted to bring you a little bit of writing from Rainer Maria Rilke, an early 20th century poet and writer. 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}