ChickenBones: A Journal

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Simpleness is a gift. the two things are related,

it seems to me, much as purity and moderation.

 

The Bonhoeffer family, March 1943, five days before Dietrich's arrest. Dietrich is on far left. Rüdiger Schleicher, Klaus Bonhoeffer and Friedrich Perels, also in the picture, were executed in 1945 as well.
source: Christian Kaiser Verlag

 

 

Books by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No Rusty Swords / The Cost of Discipleship / Letters and Papers from Prison  /  Sanctorum Communio

A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings  /  Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible Ethics  

No Difference in the Fare: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Racism

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Letters and Papers from Prison

Excerpts by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

edited by Eberhard Bethge / Translated by Reginald H. Fuller

Macmillan 1953

On Style

"An author's style is often by itself enough to attract or repel." [DB speaking of 19th-century German writers] Sunday, July 27th 1943

 

Prison Life

"Prison life seems to give one a certain detachment from the alarums and excitement of the day."August 17th 1943

A Lesson on Dependency

"It's a queer feeling to be so utterly dependent on the help of others, but at least it teaches one to be grateful, a lesson I hope I shall never forget. In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others." September 13th 1943

Luther's "Freedom of the Christian Man"

"He [Luther] desired a real unity both for the Church and for Western Christendom, but the consequence was the ruin of both. He sought the 'Freedom of the Christian Man', and the consequence was apathy and barbarism. He hoped to see the establishment of a genuine social order free from clerical privilege, and the outcome was the Peasant's revolt, and soon afterwards the gradual dissolution of all real cohesion and order in society. I remember from my student days a debate between Holl and Harnack as to whether in any movement it was the primary or the secondary motives which finally prevailed." October 31st 1943

Old Testament & Liberty

"Why is it that the Old Testament never punishes a man by depriving him of his liberty." November 20th 1943

On Bombings near Berlin

"It is interesting how superstition thrives in times like these and how many are ready to listen, at least with half an ear." November 28th 1943

Great Battles & Skirmishes

"Great battles are easier to fight than daily skirmishes." December 15th 1943

Bonhoeffer's cell in Tegel.

The Unexpected

"It is the unexpected that happens" December 17th 1943

Voyages of Literary Discovery

"A spiritual heritage reaching back for centuries is a wonderful support and comfort in face of all temporary stresses and strains. I believe that the man who is aware of such reserves of power need not be ashamed of the tender feelings evoked by the memory of a rich and noble past, for such feelings belong in my opinion to the better and nobler part of mankind." December 17th 1943

The Will of God

"Of course, not everything that happens is the will of God, yet in the last resort nothing happens without his will (Matt. 10:29)"  December 18th 1943

 

Longing for the Transcendent

"But, frankly speaking, to long for the transcendent when you are in your wife's arms is, to put it mildly, a lack of taste., and it is certainly not what God expects of us. We ought to find God and love him in the blessings he sends us. If he pleases to grant us some overwhelming earthly bliss, we ought not to try and be more religious than God himself. For then we should spoil that bliss by our presumption and arrogance; we should be letting our religious fantasies run riot and refusing to be satisfied with what he gives. Once a man has found God in his earthly bliss and thanked him for it, there will be plenty of opportunities for him to remind himself that these earthly pleasures are only transitory and that it is good for him to accustom himself to the idea of the eternity and there will be more hours in which he can say with all sincerity, 'I would that I were home'.

Bonhoeffer was hanged in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945

"But everything in its season, and the important thing is to keep step with God, and not get a step or two in front of him (nor for that matter, a step or two behind him either). It is arrogance to want to have everything at once--matrimonial bliss, and the cross, and the heavenly Jerusalem., where there is no marriage, nor giving in marriage. 'To everything there is a season' (Ecclesiastes 3)." December 18th 1943

Duty to the Past

"Goodness, beauty, and truth, however, and all great accomplishments need time, permanence, and memory., or lese they deteriorate. The man who has no urge to do his duty to the past and to shape the future is a man without a memory, and there seems to me no way of getting hold of such a person and bringing him to his senses. Every word, even if it impresses him for a moment, goes through one ear and out of the other. What is to be done with him? It is a tremendous pastoral problem." February 1st 1944

Simplicity & Simpleness

'Simplicity is an ethical category. Simplicity is a quality which can be acquired, simpleness is innate. Simplicty may be acquired by education and may be cultivated, and indeed it is one of the essential objects of education and culture. Simpleness is a gift. the two things are related, it seems to me, much as purity and moderation. One can only be pure in relation to one's origin or goal, i.e., in relation to baptism or forgiveness in the Eucharist. like simpleness, it is a category which denotes integrity. Once we have lost that purity and we all have lost it--it can only be granted again in faith. But in ourselves, as living and growing persons, we can no longer be pure, but only moderate and that is a proper and necessary object of education and culture." February 12th 1944

Living with Adversity 

"I think we should live even in this place as though we had no desires and no future to hope for, and just be our true selves. It is remarkable what an influence one acquires in this way over other men. . . . We can have a full life even when we haven't got everything we want--that is what I am really trying to say." March 19th 1944

 

God Out the World

"I began by saying that God is increasingly edged out of the world, now that it has come of age, knowledge and life are thought to be perfectly possible without him. Ever since Kant, he has been relegated to the realm beyond experience." June 30th 1944

Inner & Outer

"The Bible does not recognize our distinction of outer inner and 'inner."

"The discovery of inwardness, so called, derives from the renaissance, from Petrarch perhaps."

"The 'heart' in the biblical sense is not the inward life, but the whole man in relation to God"  July 8th 1944

Metanoia

"It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world. July 18th 1944

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updated 6 October 2007

 

 

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