Bonhoeffer: A Spirituality for Lock-Down?

I've been searching for something spiritually nourishing during the Covid lock-down and alighted on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letter and Papers from Prison. B was famously involved (peripherally) in the plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler but was captured in April 1943 (finally executed just before the end of the war). He spent the intervening years in a prison cell. It seemed to me that the themes of trying to remain faithful and hopeful during captivity; of trying to keep hold of the bigger Kingdom picture; and the question of how to act from day to day seemed pertinent. I'll share passages as I come across them. Today the following struck me:

The great thing is to stick to what one still has and can do - there is still plenty left - and not be dominated by the thought of what one cannot do, and by feelings of resentment and discontent. I'm sure I never realized as clearly as I do here what the Bible and Luther mean by 'temptation'. Quite suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the peace and composure that were supporting one are jarred, and the heart becomes, in Jeremiah's expressive phrase, 'deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?' It feels like an invasion from outside, as if by evil powers trying to rob one of what is most vital. But no doubt these experiences are good and necessary, as they teach one to understand human life better. (From a letter to his parents, 15 May 1943)

Voices

There are voices.

Some stand over you: Uncle Sam pointing his finger (the ‘oughts’).

The godlike voice of the headmaster, ‘You boy!’

Pinning you down, bearing the image you have missed.

There is the voice at 4am: while the birds sing their hearts out,

inside, under the bed clothes, you eat yours.

(Like a coiled snake, its voice slides under the pillow to your hidden head

bearing a basket of worry - a ridiculous image, but then it,

too, is ridiculous in the light of day).

There is the voice of the knife, underhand, unseen, that gets the guts:

the self-doubt that deflates you and you collapse.

And there is the voice of panic: the frenetic utter loss of reason

which has fled the room, seemingly. The mind runs from wall to wall

checking again and again, ‘are you still there?’.

There are other voices, too.

The quiet smile that, virus-like, rises from the heart

and spreads a rash, unbidden, across your face. You catch

it in a mirror and are surprised: where did this joy come from?

All the ingredients are there, I see, but who the chef?

There is the voice of the well-oiled machine the craftsman made,

whose cogs cut by hand have lain about the workshop for years,

and now, put together with a drop of oil, begin to move with smooth

efficiency as if they were meant.

And there is the descending stillness, like a diaphanous cloth dropping from

heaven knows where, which rests upon your shoulders, nobly clothing you

with a peace like Rublev’s angels, sitting patiently

with nothing to do but gaze attentively.

On Water Weeds.

Look perpendicular: not across but down,
straight down. Your gaze will pierce
the incessant flow (by the crashing weir).
By the grace of today’s light you may
perceive, deep below the surface,
fixed, impossibly anchored:
green strands of life. As tender as
grass stalks in a meadow (which tomorrow
will be gathered and thrown into the fire)
but even now steady,
slowly swaying like easy dancers, unselfconscious,
the music in their blood playing in their souls:
here is nature at prayer.

Haiku for uncertain times

Slow canal shimmers,

curves, dives to weir: crush, uprush,

turbulence and change.

Arrival at the monastery

Greeted by rowan
holding their improbable
berries like baskets.

Journey to the monastery

Cars ford the stream.
Disproving Heraclitus,
a kite pipes and I snooze.

Surah 100 - The Cavalry

Even with the cavalry snorting,
and the sparks flying
as the zealots at dawn
make the dust rise
as they pass through the midst of the host...
Really, humanity is ungrateful to its Master.
They themselves prove this:
their own love of wealth is intense.
Do they not understand that when the graves are emptied
and what is in their hearts is revealed,
of course, their Master will know everything?

Commentary

This is a particularly difficult surah to translate due to some very unusual vocabulary ('zealots' is an imaginative guess for a word that features only once in the entire Qur'an) and some very tight repetitive rhymes.

The poetic scheme in this surah includes both internal and end rhyme:

Three lines of -ati ... -han.
Two lines consisting of -n ... bihi ... -'an.
A single transitional line of -ood.
Two lines then ending in -eed.
Two lines of ma fee ... -oor (a nice parallel: 'what is in graves/heart')
And a final line ending -eer.

What this surah appears to do is to juxtapose the successes of a raiding party with a lack of gratitude for the divine aid that brought it about.