OS wishes everyone a restful Memorial Day weekend.
We need a respite in confusing times, and indeed we live in confusing times. Don't have the quote at hand, but Bonhoeffer observed that the phenomenon of darkness parading as light, vice claiming to be virtue, etc/, 'only confirms the wickedness of evil'.
Now there's a turn of phrase, from a man who lived during the darkest time of the 20th Century. OS has few heroes, but Bonhoeffer is definitely one of them. In spite of it all, he remained an optimist, one reason he is on that short list of heroes.
Hug the ones you love extry-good, and enjoy these days. The world will be waiting for us again on Tuesday morning, no doubt.
OS
Showing posts with label Bonhoeffer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bonhoeffer. Show all posts
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Good Friday 2010: Bonhoeffer Reminds Us
Quotes from a much better mind than the one who types away here:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer--'After Ten Years'--from Letters and Papers from Prison:
The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.
He details the futility of standing up to evil on one's own. By the time he penned these words in December of 1942, he had seen much, and worse was yet to come.
Still, he affirms:
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. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.
OS never ceases to scratch his grey head in wonder at how Providence works its will.
'Good Friday': The day the politicians, clergy, lawyers and bankers all got together and arranged the public murder of the greatest man who ever walked the earth, the man who threatened to pull their world apart just by showing up and being himself.
All done legally, cleanly, and at arm's length of course. By day's end, the Nazarene rabbi was dead and gone, his posse scattered and awaiting the inevitable mopping-up operation, and the soldier in charge of the execution detail wondering aloud if perhaps a tragic mistake had been made. Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate all slept well, a good day's work done, if a bit unpleasant at points. Pilate's wife probably less so, remembering her premonition that had been ignored by her husband. She rightly sensed that history itself would cave in upon them all as a result of this day, with no place to hide in all of eternity.
For the rabbi's family and friends, a day of horrific tragedy, all hopes dashed, all plans in ruins, all faith shattered, with a close friend's betrayal followed by suicide thrown in for good measure. Their entire world had been turned upside down, with evil masquerading as light, charity, historical necessity, social justice. Moreover, they had no place to hide where Rome could not find them.
No one could have suspected what was about to follow.
That is our basis and definition of Hope. Not based on our own desires or wishes, fears and dreams, or even our secular take upon the events of the day, but upon what we know occurred in time and space. Good Friday is not the end of the story. Not then, and not now.
These are dark days, to be certain. But not hopeless days.
So, while we're here, let's make the best use of everything.
From Christ's final discourse in the Gospel of John:
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer--'After Ten Years'--from Letters and Papers from Prison:
The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.
He details the futility of standing up to evil on one's own. By the time he penned these words in December of 1942, he had seen much, and worse was yet to come.
Still, he affirms:
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. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future.
OS never ceases to scratch his grey head in wonder at how Providence works its will.
'Good Friday': The day the politicians, clergy, lawyers and bankers all got together and arranged the public murder of the greatest man who ever walked the earth, the man who threatened to pull their world apart just by showing up and being himself.
All done legally, cleanly, and at arm's length of course. By day's end, the Nazarene rabbi was dead and gone, his posse scattered and awaiting the inevitable mopping-up operation, and the soldier in charge of the execution detail wondering aloud if perhaps a tragic mistake had been made. Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate all slept well, a good day's work done, if a bit unpleasant at points. Pilate's wife probably less so, remembering her premonition that had been ignored by her husband. She rightly sensed that history itself would cave in upon them all as a result of this day, with no place to hide in all of eternity.
For the rabbi's family and friends, a day of horrific tragedy, all hopes dashed, all plans in ruins, all faith shattered, with a close friend's betrayal followed by suicide thrown in for good measure. Their entire world had been turned upside down, with evil masquerading as light, charity, historical necessity, social justice. Moreover, they had no place to hide where Rome could not find them.
No one could have suspected what was about to follow.
That is our basis and definition of Hope. Not based on our own desires or wishes, fears and dreams, or even our secular take upon the events of the day, but upon what we know occurred in time and space. Good Friday is not the end of the story. Not then, and not now.
These are dark days, to be certain. But not hopeless days.
So, while we're here, let's make the best use of everything.
From Christ's final discourse in the Gospel of John:
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Politics Of The Memory Hole, And The Value Of Memory
People with memories, and who know how to write, are a problem for totalitarians.
Pat Buchanan is one of those troublesome people. He addresses the hysteria about 'right-wing fanatics' that the Left is attempting to foment, in order to silence any and all who might object to their leadership. He takes on Frank Rich's assertion that the right 'went off the rails' in the mid-60's in the wake of civil rights legislation.
Was Rich awake in 1964? Because it wasn't the right that went off the rails. The really big riot in 1964 was in Harlem, lasting five days, with 500 injured and as many arrested. The Watts riot in 1965, Detroit and Newark in 1967, Washington, D.C., and 100 other cities in 1968, all bringing troops into American cities, were not the work of George Wallace populists or Barry Goldwater conservatives. They were the work of folks who went "all the way with LBJ."
Buchanan cites several more examples, all damning of the Left, because it was the Left that embraced political violence as the generation that now leads the majority in Congress was in its formative years.
OS remembers those years too, as a young person, watching the country come unwound, and attending the funeral of a young friend of the family, a Marine killed by the Viet Cong during a 'Christmas Truce' called by the Viet Cong. In those days, the Left was referring to young men like him as 'murderers'. He was anything but, but it little mattered to the totalitarians in training, who idolized Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, mass murderers all.
It is a cultural issue, at bottom, is it not? At the underpinnings of the discipline, history needs to be taught in terms of 'This happened on such a date, and these particular people performed these acts'. Without the ideology or hysteria, just the facts, ma'am. These things, although unromantic, really matter. It's more fun to opine than research and report accurately.
Otherwise, everything goes down the 'memory hole', history is re-written to suit today's exigencies, and the entire concept that words have meaning deteriorates rapidly. Entire chapters of the past vanish. People vanish as well, as if they never existed.
A quick review of the fate of Russia as the USSR should be an object lesson. The few souls like Solzhenitsyn, who carefully preserved history with specificity, ended up underground and/or dead or exiled, their work passed hand-to-hand in dark of night. Bonhoeffer's great essay 'After Ten Years' lived buried in his back garden, unearthed after he was hanged a few days before the collapse of Nazi Germany.
The cultural collapses long predated the political ones. They always do.
Pat Buchanan is one of those troublesome people. He addresses the hysteria about 'right-wing fanatics' that the Left is attempting to foment, in order to silence any and all who might object to their leadership. He takes on Frank Rich's assertion that the right 'went off the rails' in the mid-60's in the wake of civil rights legislation.
Was Rich awake in 1964? Because it wasn't the right that went off the rails. The really big riot in 1964 was in Harlem, lasting five days, with 500 injured and as many arrested. The Watts riot in 1965, Detroit and Newark in 1967, Washington, D.C., and 100 other cities in 1968, all bringing troops into American cities, were not the work of George Wallace populists or Barry Goldwater conservatives. They were the work of folks who went "all the way with LBJ."
Buchanan cites several more examples, all damning of the Left, because it was the Left that embraced political violence as the generation that now leads the majority in Congress was in its formative years.
OS remembers those years too, as a young person, watching the country come unwound, and attending the funeral of a young friend of the family, a Marine killed by the Viet Cong during a 'Christmas Truce' called by the Viet Cong. In those days, the Left was referring to young men like him as 'murderers'. He was anything but, but it little mattered to the totalitarians in training, who idolized Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara, mass murderers all.
It is a cultural issue, at bottom, is it not? At the underpinnings of the discipline, history needs to be taught in terms of 'This happened on such a date, and these particular people performed these acts'. Without the ideology or hysteria, just the facts, ma'am. These things, although unromantic, really matter. It's more fun to opine than research and report accurately.
Otherwise, everything goes down the 'memory hole', history is re-written to suit today's exigencies, and the entire concept that words have meaning deteriorates rapidly. Entire chapters of the past vanish. People vanish as well, as if they never existed.
A quick review of the fate of Russia as the USSR should be an object lesson. The few souls like Solzhenitsyn, who carefully preserved history with specificity, ended up underground and/or dead or exiled, their work passed hand-to-hand in dark of night. Bonhoeffer's great essay 'After Ten Years' lived buried in his back garden, unearthed after he was hanged a few days before the collapse of Nazi Germany.
The cultural collapses long predated the political ones. They always do.
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