{"id":1627,"date":"2005-12-07T09:36:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-07T08:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/2005\/12\/07\/an-advent-calendar-for-my-friends-december-7"},"modified":"2009-01-24T23:59:47","modified_gmt":"2009-01-24T22:59:47","slug":"an-advent-calendar-for-my-friends-december-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/2005\/12\/07\/an-advent-calendar-for-my-friends-december-7","title":{"rendered":"An Advent Calendar for my Friends – December 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Angel
\nGIOTTO di Bondone: No. 36 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 20.
\nLamentation (detail), 1304-06;
\nFresco, 200 x 185 cm, Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua<\/small><\/center><\/p>\n

The Angel of Risk<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

by Anselm Gr\u00c3\u00bcn<\/p>\n

\n

Many think that the most important thing today is not to attract attention, not to make any mistakes. Then the career is not in danger. Then you won’t be criticized in your community. Then you don’t have to step down from your office. Then life will be a success. But this attitude of not being prepared to take any risks actually inhibits life. Who does not want to make any mistake at all, makes the biggest mistake of all. Because she doesn’t take chances, she doesn’t take risks. And thus nothing new can come into existence. In economy as well as in politics, in the Church as well as in society no one is willing to take risks any more. Because in that case they would be vulnerable. Things could go wrong. And that would be the catastrophe. Then you would be forced to leave your soft cushions and you would have to stand up for yourself and your mistakes in public. Many are afraid they would not survive that. They are so fixated on the approval and attention of other people that they don’t trust their instincts any more and don’t risk anything.<\/p>\n

Psychology tells us that missing the courage to take risks is connected with missing a father, a condition common in our society. Under normal circumstances, it ought to be the father, who encourages us to dare something, to take a risk. If this positive experience of having a father is missing, if there is no father to encourage you, you need a substitute. This is the ideology, the unchangeable rule you hide behind. Security is everything. You don’t want experiments. Everything is supposed to stay the way it is. You don’t permit yourself to think of something new, much less to do something new. After all there is no guarantee that the new idea will work. So you don’t do it. Our times are characterized by a marked lack of fantasy as well as of courage to risk something. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Risk\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is Italian originally and means danger and peril. Many demand a life without danger. You ought to get insurance against all kinds of dangers, so that nothing can happen to you. But the more effort you put in being safe, the more insecure you become. And slowly you lose your confidence. Everything has to be insured. No venture without sufficient safety. This leads to torpidity, as the current economic and political situation shows. We will only be able to get out of this dead end if we take a chance, if we risk making mistakes.<\/p>\n

I wish that the Angel of Risk<\/b> may encourage you to take your chance with life and to risk new ways for yourself and people around you. The Angel of Risk <\/b> may back you up and bolster you so you are free to take a risk with yourself and to trust your impulses without trying to develop safeguards for everything. The world will be grateful to you, if you dare to do something new, if you don’t ask everyone and his brother for permission to implement your ideas. Because we experience every day that old solutions are failing. No one dares to go new ways in employment policy. Instead you hide behind platitudes and blame the others. Everyone is just waiting for the other to make a misstep. Then you can criticize them. But no one dares to take the first step. You are waiting to catch mistakes in others instead of risking a mistake yourself. I wish that the Angel of Risk<\/b> may empower you with the freedom to also risk mistakes in order to open up new ways for yourself and people around you. Only if you trust the Angel of Risk<\/b> you will make it possible for something new to grow into this world through you, can people discover new opportunities because of you.<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a9<\/font> by Anselm Gr\u00c3\u00bcn, 50 Engel f\u00c3\u00bcr das Jahr, 1997;
\ntranslation by JunoMagic.<\/small><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Song for December 7:<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Angel<\/p>\n

Die Fl\u00c3\u00bcgel des Schutzengels (“The Wings of the Guardianangel”<\/i>)
\nby Hans-J\u00c3\u00bcrgen Hufeisen,
\nalbum “Engelskonzert” (“Concert of Angels”<\/i>)<\/center><\/lj-cut><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GIOTTO di Bondone: No. 36 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 20. Lamentation (detail), 1304-06; Fresco, 200 x 185 cm, Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua The Angel of Risk by Anselm Gr\u00c3\u00bcn Many think that the most important thing today … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[87,220],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-junomagic","tag-advent-calendar","tag-advent-calendar-2005"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/juno-magic.fancrone.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}