DeLiCiOuS aMbIGuItY

Its funny how life works. Four years ago, I came across Dietrich Bonhoeffer because of a quote that I read online - it was an excerpt about separation and loss - and at that time, that quote gave me some sense of identification with my then suffering, and also some comfort. Of course, back then, I didn't know much about this man - who he was or what he did. Some time later, when I was still a young university student (it must have been my second year, I think), I saw a book authored by him in Ramsey library, and I stopped and glanced at it for a while. "This was the guy who wrote that quote!" was my first thought.

4 years later, in a bookshop in Christchurch (somehow I always have amazing revelations in Christchurch. Maybe Ps. B was right - Christchurch is the promise land!), I came across Eric Metaxas' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and for some reason, I thought the biography important enough to buy - and that if I buy nothing else from Christchurch, I must have that book. I read the book, and I think I finally understood, at least a little more than before, the radicalism of Christianity - it demands totality, loyalty and unswerving dedication & love, even at the face of ugly evil and certain death, and death is certain for all. This led me to want to read some of his other books. So I borrowed "Letters & Papers from Prison" from the Wellington City Library. And there, 4 years later, I came across the same quote, but this time, understanding the context from which it was written, and knowing the man behind the quote a little bit better than before.

He wrote the said quote when he was in Tegel Prison, charged and later executed for his involvement with the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), led by Wihelm Canaris, who used this legitimate face as a means to send out Nazi-party information to British intelligence. He was roped into this by his friend and brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi. Bonhoeffer was also involved in Operation Valkyrie - this operation was an close-but-unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler. Looking at the legacy that he and his band of brothers left behind - I wonder at the price that they have paid to stand strong for Jesus - nothing was too much. And I found out today that Bonhoeffer's nephew (and son of Hans von Dohnanyi), Klaus von Dohnanyi, followed the footsteps of his unjustly-murdered father to become a lawyer, and eventually entered politics: he served as the mayor of Hamburg and work for the rehabilitation and restructuring of East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Bonhoeffer wrote the quote to his best friend, pastor and confidant, Eberhard Bethge. While Bonhoeffer was in prison, Bethge was in the front lines of war:

Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; He doesn't fill it, but on the contrary, He keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain. The dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves.

"The Cost of Discipleship" will be arriving in the mail, and I've already started reading "Ethics". The hope is to be able to read all of his works in German, which was his native tongue, so that nothing will get lost in translation.

The hope is to able to read the Bible that way too (in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek).