life together… pt. 1
just began re-reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. struck by it’s profound nature and the confidence with which Bonhoeffer writes. prophetic in nature, and cutting to the heart of what community is and what we dilute it into so often.
here are some notes, written mainly for my own rememberance, but for others benefit as well.
from the intro…
- “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
- imprisoned in April 1943, with his sister and her husband.
- excerpt: “Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive… He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real adn always near… On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the right words to express teh spirit of our imprisonment, the thoughts and the resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us.” That had only one meaning for all prisoners-the gallows. We said good-by to him. He took me aside: “This is the end, but for me it is the beginning of life.” The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg.”