Letters And Papers From Prison (1997) - Plot & Excerpts
This is kind of a sad book, but also quite uplifting and inspiring. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian preacher put in prison and then killed in Germany during World War II. This book is a record of his letters and writings smuggled out of prison to his family and friends, many of which include some beautiful Christian teachings. In addition to these words, Dietrich's positive and uplifting attitude is very inspiring, as well as his family's support during trials of their own.Here are a few of my favorite quotes:"Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God--the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people (p. 5)?""I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us resist in all time of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future. I believe that even our mistakes and shortcomings are turned to good account, and that it is no harder for God to deal with them than with our supposedly good deeds. I believe that God is no timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions (p. 11).""Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety - that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative (p. 15).""People outside find it difficult to imagine what prison life is like. The situation in itself is perhaps not so very different here from anywhere else; I read, meditate, write, pace up and down my cell - without rubbing myself sore against the walls like a polar bear. The great thing is to stick to what one still has and can do - there is still plenty left - and not to be dominated by the thought of what one cannot do, and by feelings of resentment and discontent (p. 38).""Every wedding must be an occasion of joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been given such immense freedom and power to take the helm in their life's journey. The children of the earth are rightly proud of being allowed to take a hand in shaping their own destinies, and something of this pride must contribute to the happiness of a bride and bridegroom....you have all the responsibility for the success of your venture, with all the happiness that such responsibility involves (p. 41).""God is guiding your marriage. Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher degree and power, for it is God's holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man...so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God...it is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love (p. 42).""God has laid on marriage a blessing and a burden. The blessing is the promise of children. God allows man to share in his continual work of creations; but it is always God himself who blesses marriage with children. 'Children are a heritage from the Lord' (Ps. 127:3), and they should be acknowledged as such. It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to God that they should lead them. Parents therefore have divine authority in respect of their children (p. 45).""That is God's word for marriage. Thank him for it; thank him for leading you thus far; ask him to establish your marriage, to confirm it, sanctify it, and preserve it. So your marriage will be 'for the praise of his glory (p. 47).'""It's remarkable how we think at such times about the people that we should not like to live without, and almost or entirely forget about ourselves. It is only then that we feel how closely our own lives are bound up with other people's, and in fact how the centre of our own lives is outside ourselves, and how little we are separate entities (p. 105).""It's a strange feeling to be so completely dependent on other people; but at least it teaches one to be grateful, and I hope I shall never forget that. In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. Its very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe to others...I wish I could be doing useful service somewhere or other, but at present that 'somewhere' must be in the prison cell, and what I can do here makes its contribution in the unseen world, a sphere where the word 'do' is quite unsuitable (p. 109).""O God, early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray and to concentrate my thoughts on you; I cannot do this alone. In me there is darkness, But with you there is light; I am lonely, but you do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help; I am restless, but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience; I do not understand your ways, but you know the way for me. O heavenly Father, I praise and thank you for the peace of the night; I praise and thank you for this new day; I praise and thank you for all your goodness and faithfulness throughout my life. You have granted me many blessings; Now let me also accept what is hard from your hard. You will lay on me no more than I can bear. You make all things work together for good for your children (p. 139).""Of course, not everything that happens is simply 'God's will'; yet in the last resort nothing happens 'without God's will' (Matt. 10:29), i.e. through every event, however untoward, there is access to God. When a man enters on a supremely happy marriage and has thanked God for it, it is a terrible blow to discover that the same God who established the marriage now demands of us a period of such great deprivation (p. 167).""Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us (p. 176).""Friendship, in contrast to marriage and kinship, has no generally recognized rights, and therefore depends entirely on its own inherent quality (p. 192).""When people suggest in their letters...that I'm 'suffering' here, I reject the thought. It seems to be a profanation. There things mustn't be dramatized. I doubt very much whether I'm 'suffering' any more than you, or most people, are suffering today. Of course, a great deal here is horrible, but where isn't it? Perhaps we've made too much of this question of suffering, and been too solemn about it (p. 231).""Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer. Lack of desire is poverty. Almost all the people that I find in my present surroundings cling to their own desires, and so have no interest in others; they no longer listen, and they're incapable of loving their neighbour. I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves. It's remarkable then how others come to rely on us, confide in us, and let us talk to them (p. 233).""In revolutionary times ahead the greatest gift will be to know the security of a good home. It will be a bulwark against all dangers from within and without. The time when children broke away in arrogance from their parents will be past. Children will be drawn into their parents' protection, and they will seek refuge, counsel, peace, and enlightenment. You are lucky to have parents who know at first hand what it means to have a parental home in stormy times. In the general impoverishment of intellectual life you will find your parents' home a storehouse of spiritual values and a source of intellectual stimulation (p. 295).""Christianity puts us into many different dimensions of life at the same time; we make room in ourselves, to some extent, for God and the whole world. We rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep; we are anxious about our life, but at the same time we must think about things much more important to us than life itself. When the alert goes, for instance: as soon as we turn our minds from worrying about our own safety to the task of helping other people to keep calm, the situation is completely changed; life isn't pushed back into a single dimension, but is kept multi-dimensional and polyphonous (p. 310).""The displacement of God from the world, and from the public part of human life, led to the attempt to keep his place secure at least in the sphere of the 'personal', the 'inner', and the 'private'. And as every man still has a private sphere somewhere, that is where he was thought to be the most valuable (p. 344).""I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. But this-world-liness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith (p. 369).""Simplicity is an intellectual achievement, one of the greatest (p. 385).""There is hardly anything that can make one happier than to feel that one counts for something with other people. What matters here is not numbers, but intensity. In the long run, human relationships are the most important thing in life....God uses us in his dealings with others (p. 386).""All that we may rightly expect from God, and ask him for, is to be found in Jesus Christ (p. 391).""What is happiness and unhappiness? It depends so little on the circumstances; it depends really only on that which happens inside a person. I am grateful every day that I have you, and that makes me happy (p. 419)."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters & Papers from Prison was a most edifying read, primarily because it stripped away the mystery and mythical aura that surrounded him, before and after his murder by the Nazis in 1945. The fact that his reputation is so universally well known is greatly due in part to his brother-in-law, the late Eberhard Bethge.Having been raised in a very German household myself, I would hear occasional stories from my own father, who grew up in Germany at that time, about the German pastor who was a part of the plot to kill Hitler, the one who was the moral conscience who aided the conspirators while they tried to rid Germany of the diabolical dictator and his vile atrocities that were sweeping throughout the land, for nothing was sacrosanct.Bonhoeffer, known throughout the Christian world for his books, The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics, among other treaties, pamphlets and sermons, was a great example in respects to how a man or woman can truly live an independent Christian life while working in the world and that heroism does not necessarily come from preaching the Gospel, but rather, living it or trying to. It also comes from incorporating nuances of those truths, big or small, into the daily activities of ones life and sharing that Christian goodness (in a healthy and practical manner) with people from all walks of life, irrelevant of class structure, education, ethnic background, et cetera.In this book, Bonhoeffer's theological musings move from the act of suffering to the meaning of love, whether human, religious or even material, and the insights that he shares with some of his correspondents, especially Eberhard Bethge, is sometimes profoundly compelling, and one can endlessly cite the abundant source material to back that up. But while he was accepting his cross of suffering, knowing in a way that it was a gift, he had an agony for those whom he was separated from, specificially his fiance, Maria von Wedemeyer-Weller.The overall profile of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as presented in this work, showcases an all too human man, sometimes short-tempered and impatient yet very religious, contemplative, moral, ethical and surprisingly creative. For an example of that, read his short fiction piece entitled: "Lance-Corporal Berg: A narrative" which is almost similarly reminiscent, style-wise, to that of the writer and author Erich Maria Remarque. His poems, however, were not that great, but it made him only more real.Though I am Catholic and my interpretation of Scripture is slightly different, much of what Bonhoeffer wrote spoke volumes to me, especially in tackling the day-to-day challenges and experiences that life has to offer. I think he speaks to many people, and that is good, for what he has to say, by his life, writings, choices, down to his martyrdom can cross all ecumenical boundaries. And that is indeed a remarkable witness.
What do You think about Letters And Papers From Prison (1997)?
Another fantastic one for my quote series:“Please don’t ever get anxious or worry about me, but don’t forget to pray for me – I’m sure you don’t. I am so sure of God’s guiding hand that I hope I shall always be kept in that certainty. You must never doubt that I’m traveling with gratitude and cheerfulness along the road where I’m being led. My past life is brim-full of God’s goodness and my sins are covered by the forgiving love of Christ crucified.”One of my favorite research papers to write was one on Christian German resistance during World War II. While I could go on for days discussing it (which I’m sure you find shocking), I’ll just stick to one of the main players from that: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was arrested and later executed (23 days before Berlin was captured by the allies) for the discovery of his connection to anti-Hitler conspiracies (think the movie Valkyrie). Prior to being moved to a concentration camp, he was in prison where he wrote numerous letters.Above is from one of them. Incredible. Knowing there was a high possibility he would die at the hands of people who lived by hate, he was about honoring God and forgiveness. As Timothy Keller concluded: “Bonhoeffer uses divine forgiveness to help him understand human forgiveness… As Bonhoeffer says, everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sins.” So much to take from both of those quotes!Have you read any of Bonhoeffer? What are your thoughts? You can join in here!http://booksandbeverages.wordpress.co...
—Jamie
This collection of World War II diaries by Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a thought-provoking window into the extraordinary suffering of a prominent German pastor, thinker and philosopher, struggling in confinement under threat of his own imminent execution to understand how a good citizen may find himself called on to act when his own nation has been taken over by a government gone mad. To whom or what does such a man owe his patriotic duty under such dire circumstances? To his beloved Fatherland and its leaders, right or wrong? Or to a higher moral authority, up to and including participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the most evil of those leaders? For those of us in America watching our own country's governance crumbling into paralyzing deadlock and demagoguery, it's not hard to see cautionary warnings in "Letters & Papers from Prison."
—Nick Monsarrat
Letters and Papers from Prison (LPP) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a fascinating creation of desperation and subtle suffering wrapped up within an understanding and reliance upon the Judeo-Christian God. Bonhoeffer is a Lutheran Theologian who was arrested by the Gestapo during the Second World War, due to his resistance to the Nazi Germany Regime. Bonhoeffer was executed by the way of hanging 23 days before the capture of Berlin, as someone that under no-circumstances, was to be allowed to survive. The horrors that occurred in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, can only be a reflection of the true nature of humanity. As humans, we must ask ourselves, whether we are capable of what the Nazi’s were. I believe that the answer would be yes. Therefore, would the next question we ask ourselves, not be; “Could we be capable of accosting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and executing him, without charging him with anything?” The answer is once again, fairly obvious; yes. The depravity of humankind is such, that this would be no small feat.LPP has done little in the way to challenge me. While retaining my interest in the beginning, it held it for far too short of a time, such that reading it became more of a chore than anything else. In a rather personal reflection, I feel greatly disappointed by a book, which I hoped for much from. I hoped to gather a greater knowledge into, not only a great man’s life, but also, into the prison life of the Second World War Nazi Germany prisons. I unfortunately failed to procure such an insight. Instead, I have learnt that prison is a wonderful place to get some good reading done, to fashion some essays of great thought, and to complain about the fact that you had not received face cloths and towels with a gift that your family procured for you. While this is a man’s life, I found that it was rather boring and disinteresting, and have come to the personal conclusion, that the letters should never have been included in it. LPP has done little more than encourage me to step up my reading habits.While a few months’ worth of letters were lost, with his remaining time on Earth being spent in a concentration camp (preventing further writings), Bonhoeffer's prison life is documented in an un-endearing way. The trivialities which so populate his writings to friends and family, detract from the knowledge that he would otherwise have imparted. The letters were overall, very uninteresting. Occasional sparks of brilliance made them partially worth their while to read. Overall it was a challenging read; but not for the reasons of intellectually challenging. Rather, it was hard to get through, and failed to hold a continual interest. The ‘papers’ on the other hand that Bonhoeffer wrote, certainly held much more of a fascination, to my interest. The ‘papers’ certainly had a greater attraction, as they covered more than what books Bonhoeffer wanted to read next. Bonhoeffer certainly discussed some incredible topics through these ‘papers’. Such a topic is one of his opening statements in his paper; After Ten Years: “Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back on time we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavour, enjoyment and suffering. Time lost is time we have not filled, time left empty.” Bonhoeffer's poetry that is displayed later in the book, is lacking in quality, but I am quite happy to put that up to the fact it was translated from German. Bonhoeffer's prayers are interesting, but I would much rather stick to the prayers that come from the Bible.From my veracious statements so far, it would be axiomatic to presume that I disliked the book you would be right, if that were the case. While LPP was a book that I struggled through, and gained little in the way of personal gratification or knowledge, LPP is at the end of the proverbial day, a self-history on a Lutheran theologian, and the life that he held while being imprisoned. If one could read just the ‘papers’ section, then much more could be gained from a mediocre book, on the life of a man who deserved more than this.
—Laurence
