As I march along through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, I’m also marching along through the history of the rise of Nazism, Adolf Hitler, and the concept and eventual application of genocide to entire groups of people with enough documentation and anecdotal history to make my stomach sick.
It’s been a rough read.
Rougher still, is when I see parallels between then and now.
It’s disheartening to see we, as a world, as a society haven’t learned much. In fact, as the days fall away, I see even less Christendom in the United States now than Germany had when Hitler got started in 1933.
We won’t be able to withstand a madman here either, I don’t think. It will just be a matter of which group will be exterminated this go around.
But just as I was preparing myself for more spycraft and deception and the inevitable fall of Bonhoeffer at the hands of the Gestapo, a flower popped up from the rubble.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer falls in love!
Maria Von Wedemeyer, was the 18 year old granddaughter of a friend of the family who was around when Bonhoeffer performed his pastoral duties to comfort her grandmother in her hospital room.
Bonhoeffer was 36; she was 18.
I’m sure there is much to say there (and well, Maria’s mother did have MUCH to say later about their age difference) but I chalk this up to the stresses of wartime.
When I was dating, after Dawn passed, 15 years younger than me was insurmountable–so I can’t imagine what Dietrich and a girl 18 years younger than him would have to talk about.
But again, war time and Bonhoeffer was particularly serious. So was Maria.
Maria was present when Dietrich preached Ephesians as morning devotion to her grandmother:
Ephesians 5:15-16 15 So then, be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
Heh. Make the most of your time.
And so they did–after fits and starts and some fairly tortured letters back and forth.
Eric Metaxas quotes Bonhoeffer’s letter to Maria after she lost her brother at the Eastern Front in Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy:
“Only from a peaceful, free, healed heart can anything good and right take place. I have experienced that repeatedly in life, and I pray (forgive me for speaking thus) that God may grant us this, soon and very soon. Can you understand all this? Might you experience it just as I do? I hope so, in fact, I cannot conceive of anything else. But how difficult this is for you too!”
Shared stress and grief is rocket fuel for romance.
Or Christian opportunism, as Christopher J.H. Wright notes in Hearing the Message of Ecclesiastes: Questioning Faith in a Baffling World:
“We should live as enthusiastically and productively as we can while we can. There is a perfectly proper kind of Christian opportunism, in view of the shortness of our life on earth.”
They didn’t know it yet, but Bonhoeffer’s time on earth was particularly short at this time. He had inklings that the Gestapo was on to him.
The clock was ticking on the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and Maria and Dietrich’s foray into love.
Why not love?
Why the heck not?
Dallas Willard explains verses 15-16 in Renovation of the Heart:
“No talk here of the “crushing burden of piety” as it has been called, or of religion as a life sentence instead of a life. Our walk with Christ, well learned, is a burden only as wings are to a bird or the engines are to an airplane.”
Yesterday, on the beach, Karen and I met a young couple from Newberry, SC (that little town we visited about 3 weeks ago when our biopsy results consultation kept getting postponed and we decided we WERE NOT going to sit around and stew in anxiety), and I was struck by their seriousness to be married and start a home in a place that has about 3 restaurants and 2 stoplights.
They aren’t waiting for the next big thing to happen to them. THEY are the next big thing in their lives.
Oswald Chambers writes:
“Grace is for right now. It is not the process toward some future goal, but an end in and of itself. If we would only realize this, then each moment would become rich with meaning and purpose.”
Karen and I are trekking to Charleston, SC today, after church, for a lecture at the North Charleston Coliseum by Dr. Jordan Peterson.
A lecture!
This could be wonderful or terrible, I don’t know, but I feel like we will have our Discernment Radar on.
If nothing else, we’ll eat well somewhere before the show. 🙂
But are we wasting our time?
We bought the tickets BEFORE Karen went to the emergency room. We thought, depending on what was going to happen with her tumor that we would have to eat the tickets.
We’ll go on to Duke University on Monday for her Tuesday appointment with the oncologic surgeon.
Is driving to Charleston, SC, the best use of our time?
We think we are “making the most of our time”.
Like Dietrich and Maria, we know how evil the days are.
Lord, grant us the discernment to live wisely, making choices that reflect Your will and purpose for our lives.
Lord, help us be vigilant and mindful of our actions, words, and thoughts, ensuring they align with Your truth.
Amen.