Friends

The best friends say the hard things, and that's why one can truly love and trust them, why they become best friends. Love isn't about feeling comfortable, even though it includes encouragement. It's about truth. It's about caring enough to take risks, even the risk of making one's friend sad or angry or discouraged if necessary, and then to be by her side in prayer and compassion as she walks through it. What a remarkable privilege to have such a friend.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, RIP

One of the greatest men -- perhaps the greatest man -- of the twentieth century has died.

If you aren't ready to tackle Gulag Archipelago or Cancer Ward, try One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to begin to understand the horror that was Stalinist Russia.

But Solzhenitsyn saw the wrong directions of the West, as well. Here are two of his addresses which serve as reminders of who we have become and why, and what we must do to rectify our errors:

The Templeton Address

The Harvard Commencement Address

These ideas made him unpopular after the initial warm reception which followed his exile from Russia. But he was not concerned with the praise of men; he was concerned to speak the truth as he saw and understood it, and hope that men of good will would be able to hear and embrace it, however hard it may be.

May he rest in peace with the God he served.