Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quality.

We are witnessing the leveling down of all ranks of society, and at the same time the birth of a new sense of nobility, which is binding together a circle of men from all former social classes. Nobility arises from and exists by sacrifice, courage, and a clear sense of duty to oneself and society, by expecting due regard for itself as a matter of course; and it shows an equally natural regard for others, whether they are of higher or lower degree. We need, all along the line, to recover the lost sense of quality and a social order based on quality. Quality is the greatest enemy of any kind of mass-leveling. Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the "star", an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one’s more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Letters from Prison

Known.

The more we have known of the really good things, the more insipid the thin lemonade of later literature becomes, sometimes almost to the point of making us sick. Do you know a work of literature written in the last, say, fifteen years that you think has any lasting quality? I don't. It is partly idle chatter, partly propaganda, partly self-pitying sentimentality, but there is no insight, no ideas, no clarity, no substance and almost always the language is bad and constrained. On this subject I am quite consciously a laudator temporis acti.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Letters and Papers from Prison

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Courage.

Zurbarán, The Crucifixion, 1627

[Believers] do not believe in people or in the good in people that ultimately must triumph; they also do not believe in the church in its human power. Rather, believers believe solely in God, who creates and does the impossible, who creates life out of death, who has called the dying church to life against and in spite of us and through us. But God does it alone.

Be glad. Celebrate! Lose your mindless fear, and take courage today. No, don’t ever be afraid, no matter what’s happened to you before. That’s right, don’t be afraid, no matter what you may see coming. Take courage because Christ was crucified for you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from God Is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter

Happy Birthday, Bonhoeffer

Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, born on this day in 1906

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Deliverance.

Buoneri, The Resurrection, 1623

Speaking of Easter, do we not attach more importance nowadays to the act of dying than to death itself? We are much more concerned with getting over the act of dying than with being victorious over death. Socrates mastered the art of dying; Christ overcame death as the eschatos echtheos. There is a real difference between the two things. The one is within human capacity, the other implies resurrection.

We need not an art of dying, but the resurrection of Christ to invigorate and cleanse the world today. Here is the answer to dos moi pou stoo kai kinesoo ten gen, give me where I stand and I will move the earth. What a tremendous difference it would make if a few people really believed and acted upon that. To live in the light of the resurrection that is the meaning of Easter. Do you not also find that so few people seem to know what light it is they live by? This perturbatio animorum is exceedingly common. It is an unconscious waiting for the word of deliverance, though the time is hardly ripe yet for it to be heard. But the time will come, and perhaps this Easter is one of the last chances we shall have to prepare ourselves for our future task. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Letters and Papers from Prison

Happy Birthday, Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on this day in 1906.

Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of wholesome reserve between man and man, we shall perish in an anarchy of human values. Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the “star,” an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one’s more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Together.

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Perspective.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on this day in 1906.

There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.  We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Letters and Papers from Prison

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Learn.

Act.

Happy Birthday, Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on this date in 1906.

I'm still discovering, right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. 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. That, I think, is faith.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Alive.

Reni, St, Cecilia, 1608

Music will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Happy birthday, Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born on this day in 1906.

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quality.

The SENSE of QUALITY

Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of a wholesome reserve between man and man, all human values will be submerged in anarchy. The impudent contempt for such reserve is as much the mark of the rabble as interior uncertainty, as haggling and cringing for the favour of the insolent, as lowering oneself to the level of the rabble is the way to becoming no better than the rabble oneself. Where self-respect is abandoned, where the feeling for human quality and the power of reserve decay, chaos is at the door. Where impudence is tolerated for the sake of material comfort, self-respect is abandoned, the floodgates are opened, and chaos bursts the dams we were pledged to defend. That is a crime against humanity. In other ages it may have been the duty of Christians to champion the equality of all men. Our duty today, however, is passionately to defend the sense of reserve between man and man. We shall be accused of acting for our own interests, of being anti-social. Such cheap jibes must be placidly accepted. They are the invariable protests of the rabble against decency and order. To be pliant and uncertain is to fail to realize what is at stake, and no doubt it goes a good way to justify those jibes. We are witnessing the leveling down of all ranks of society, but at the same time we are watching the birth of a new sense of nobility, which is binding together a circle of men from all the previous classes of society. Nobility springs from and thrives on self-sacrifice and courage and an unfailing sense of duty to oneself and society. It expects due deference to itself, but shows an equally natural deference to others, whether they be of higher or of lower degree. From start to finish it demands a recovery of a lost sense of quality and of a social order based upon quality. Quality is the bitterest enemy of conceit in all its forms. Socially it implies the cessation of all place-hunting, of the cult of the 'star'. It requires an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one's closest friends. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dissipation to recollection, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation. Quantities are competitive, qualities complementary.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2011.

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer