The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air

The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air is a book written by Søren Kierkegaard. Søren Kierkegaard published The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air as three Godly discourses, differing from his Upbuilding and Various Discourses, on May 14, 1849. This is one of the four books he published that year. It was first translated by Walter Lowrie in 1940 and then again by Bruce Kirmmse in 2016. Kierkegaard said in his journals that the structure of these "indescribably uplifting" discourses would be: the first is esthetic, the second ethical, the third religious. Kierkegaard uses Matthew 6 verse 24 and following as the text for these sermons for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. He zeroes in on these verses from the Sermon on the Mount in particular: Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they read, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them all. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; and they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. The discourses are dedicated to ‘that single individual whom I with joy and gratitude call my reader’ in a Preface written on his birthday, May 5. The second edition of Either/or was published on the very same day as this book was published. He said this in his Journals, "It will never do to let the second edition of Either/Or be published without something accompanying it. Somehow the accent must be that I have made up my mind about being a religious author." He had hinted at silence by using Johannes de silentio (John of the Silence) as his pseudonym to his 1843 book Fear and Trembling. And he wrote about the birds in the air in 1847 in his Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits Kierkegaard emphasized finding God in the "darkness" and the "stillness" in a previous discourse.