Letters and Papers From Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Author:Dietrich Bonhoeffer [Bonhoeffer, Dietrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Collections, General
ISBN: 9780334028369
Google: i_Uw29O_DLgC
Amazon: 0684838273
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 1997-07-01T23:00:00+00:00

By the way, I’ve sometimes listened lately to the Sunday evening concert from 6 to 7, though on an atrocious wireless set…

Easter? We’re paying more attention to dying than to death. We’re more concerned to get over the act of dying than to overcome death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; Christ overcame death as ‘the last enemy’ (I Cor. 15.26). There is a real difference between the two things; the one is within the scope of human possibilities, the other means resurrection. It’s not from ars moriendi, the art of dying, but from the resurrection of Christ, that a new and purifying wind can blow through our present world. Here is the answer to δòς μoì πoυ στŵ και κινήσω την γην.175 If a few people really believed that and acted on it in their daily lives, a great deal would be changed. To live in the light of the resurrection - that is what Easter means. Do you find, too, that most people don’t know what they really live by? This perturbatio animorum spreads amazingly. It’s an unconscious waiting for the word of deliverance, though the time is probably not yet ripe for it to be heard. But the time will come, and this Easter may be one of our last chances to prepare ourselves for our great task of the future. I hope you will be able to enjoy it, in spite of all the hardships that you’re having to bear. Good-bye; I must close now, as the letter has to go.

With all my heart, your Dietrich

From Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer

[at Charlottenburg] 26 March 1944

Dear Dietrich,

When you get this letter it will probably be exactly a year that you’ve been in prison. Inconceivable for any of us who has not experienced it. Your letters still keep circulating round our whole family and are a great joy to us. But I would very much like to see you again and talk to you. So I’ve applied again for permission to visit. With so many members of the family, each individual can only come rarely, and parents and fiancée have priority.

I’m sitting here in the parents’ living room. They’re now in Pätzig and getting to know the house of your future mother-in-law. I’m very glad that they’ve finally managed to make the journey. Mother in particular went with a great inner conflict, though she needed the change quite urgently. It’s simply too much for her; she must relax. During the bomb attacks she doesn’t take the slightest notice, and if anyone advises her to take care in any way she almost regards it as an insult. But of course on top of everything else it will be some relaxation. Unfortunately they don’t intend to stay much longer than a week; partly they’ll feel they have to come back because they’ve got permission to visit you. So I expect that you will see them in the week before Easter, even before you get this letter from me.

Meanwhile I’ve become half a Berliner again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.