Autumn 1928
Presumably for his student and charge Karl-Heinz Köttgen
Two people met once on a country road. They didn’t know each other. One had already traveled that way once before, not long before the other; the other didn’t know where the road led. They understood each other without speaking; what was then more natural than that they continued on together, the one who seemed to ask about the way, and the other who was so glad to be taking that road again. They continued along together—how long? only until the road led the one away from the side of the other?—or perhaps for a long time yet, a long time, perhaps without them even realizing it?
Along the way, one of them asks: Where is our journey taking us? the other: Each day tells the other… [fn 3]
On Joy
You possess a fortunate talent, and I believe you can be glad. Be glad as much as you can; joy makes us strong, for it comes into us as a hand full of light from eternity. Being genuinely glad means seeing God in everything and his love, wherever things look cheerful and friendly but also wherever things are not quite as you would like them to be; and that is not very easy. Be glad as much as you can.
Remaining Pure and Maturing
You have no doubt seen a rock crystal before, or a clear mountain lake through whose water one can see all the way to the bottom. We call such things pure because light can penetrate and shine through the crystal, through the water. We call people pure if the light of God penetrates and shines through their entire being. Do you believe it is good to be pure? But do you also know that it is good to be mature? Remaining pure and becoming mature…. You already understand this now, and you will come to understand it ever more and ever more deeply. You know well that life is always trying to soil us, trying to make us base and common, and that it also often succeeds in doing this. You know that there are bad friends who drag sacred and serious things down into the dirt, friends who want you to hang out with them. They are in danger of losing the most precious gift human beings have, purity. Being pure means being clear, being upright, means taking control of one’s thoughts so they cannot run away from us. Purity of body is also closely related to purity of the heart. One must take joy in purity; indeed, one must have a passion for what is pure so that one cannot be dragged down into the muck. Remaining pure means remaining a child, even after you have become a man. My dear young man, strengthen your yearning for purity. Jesus says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Mt. 5:8).
Work
You believe that work is an unpleasant change from play; but you are growing up and must come to understand that we work for ourselves, not for someone else. Work is the means through which people make something out of themselves. Every work should basically be work on yourself. Do you know that in prison the most terrible punishment is for a prisoner to be deprived of work? Work gets you through difficult hours, comforts you and calms you; work is the last thing a stinking person can cling to. Woe to those who have not learned to work; be grateful to those who taught it to you.
Be hard toward oneself, gentle toward others; think of Jesus. Truth is from God; God loves truth. If you speak what is false, you are against God. Be clear and true. The struggle against untruth is difficult, and most people succumb; be better than most of those others and be victorious!
You know that the picture of the knight with the defiant expression, proceeding well armed through a dark valley between death and the devil toward a bright castle of the sun. Be like this knight, who is intent on attaining life and purity, who takes up the battle against the powers of darkness, whose weapons [fn 6]
Whoever would become a whole man must have been a whole child, a whole boy. Everything you are, be totally; everything you do, do totally. Being a boy means being a young sculptor who is beginning to shape the image of his inner person, of his heart, who is chiseling the unhewn stone and giving it the shape he sees before him, a sculptor who is shaping himself. Before everyone there stands an image … take the chisel and begin cutting, even if it hurts.
Being a boy means being a young smith who with all his energy forges the glowing iron; your heart is still malleable and glowing and soft. Don’t miss the opportunity! Tomorrow may be too late! Forge the iron as long as it is hot. Be a strong boy against yourself.
You need a friend. Seek him among your peers. If you want to have a friend and want to be a good friend yourself, you must be able to sacrifice, sacrifice some of your own will, some of your own wishes. You must be able to forgive, forgive when your friend does something harsh to you, when he hurts your feelings. You must be able to love your friend just as he is, with all his faults, to bear him up and support him with your love. You must be able to be loyal, in the face of gossip by those who like to blab, those who are envious, hateful, to be loyal to your friend no matter what. If you want to have a friend, you must be able to pray for him, to present his life along with your own before God and ask God to help your friendship, for your friend will need that. Only if your friendship has its basis in God can you call it “friendship.”
You must be able to trust your friend; you must be able to confide in him completely, in both happy and difficult times. He will participate in your happiness and in your pain, will be glad with you and help you bear the burdens that are too heavy for you. The one who lives the life of the other, though you should both live your lives in God;
then you will be friends.
Look people in the eye and you will know what they are about. Take note of how people laugh. Listen to how people speak about their parents. Listen to how they speak of God.
On Being Alone
Every day, put a few minutes aside to be alone, and think about the coming day or the day that has just passed, about the people you have met. Also think about yourself and about what you are lacking. But never brood excessively by yourself; rather let the One who also knows your secrets participate in your solitude. Each of us has things we never utter, things we conceal like a beloved treasure within our solitude. Only God knows them; hence draw God into your solitude.
On Prayer
The power of a human being is prayer. Accustom yourself to prayer already as a young boy. Prayer is drawing breath from God; prayer means surrendering and consecrating one’s life to God; prayer means confiding in God. When you lie down to sleep in the evening, fold your hands and become quiet within and call on God to come to you, and then tell God how you have spent the day, whether it was sanctified or whether it tainted you, whether you spent it in love or anger, in peace or hatred, in good and evil, in purity and dirt. And then pray for your soul that God make it holy and pure; be ashamed of evil and rejoice in the good. Then before God’s eyes mention the names of those who love you; thank God for giving you your mother and father, for giving you friends who love you, and ask God to abide with them all.
And if sometime you have something you don’t want to confide in anyone, then know that God does, after all, see everything and know everything, and go to Him and pour out your restless heart to Him at night, when everything is quiet and is sleeping, and God will give you rest. My dear boy, we have sometimes spoken about praying; do not forget it and don’t be led astray. Through prayer you will become strong;
you will become a
man.
Tears are one of the most sublime things a person has. Hence don’t waste them.
The beginning, the end [fn10]. Reverence.
Fn 3: Ps. 19:3. Allusion to the final verse of Tersteegen’s evening hymn that Bonhoeffer mentions as his “favorite verse” in his farewell sermon in Barcelona. Life as a sojourn and attuning one’s heart to what is eternal remain key eschatological images for Bonhoeffer.
Fn 6: This section of the text breaks off here. Albrecht Dürer’s 1513 copper engraving
Knight, Death, and the Devil, to which Bonhoeffer is alluding, was one of the most popular picture motifs in the middle-class German household.
Fn. 10: Perhaps an allusion to the headstone inscription of Fritz Reuter: “The beginning, the end, O Lord, they are yours, the span between them, life, was mine. And if I was lost in the darkness, and didn’t know where I was, with you, Lord, there is clarity, and light is your house.” Reuter, the nineteenth-century writer, was one of the authors whose work was read aloud during the evening readings in the Bonhoeffer family. Hence Bonhoeffer consciously cited Reuter and the inscription on his headstone even before his American diary entry of June 11, 1939.
Reprinted from
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 10: Barcelona, Berlin, New York, 1928-1931, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), pp. 551-555.
