At this time of the year when we traditionally wish each other both a merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year, I was interested in the following from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and pastor who was executed in 1945 for his opposition to the Nazi regime:
'There is no way to peace along the path of safety, for peace must be dared. It is in itself a great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrust in turn brings forth war. To look for guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving yourself completely to God's commandment.'
For me, every word sounds a bell, every sentence is profound though simple, and the whole is a proclamation of the ideal Christian life. Not only Christian, there are peacemakers in every religion and in every generation. But Bonhoeffer was a Christian, living in extraordinarily difficult times, and his willingness and courage to bear witness and to lead the best Christian life led also to his execution. As has occurred before, his death did not seal him from the living. Rather, it opened the door so that his words and example spread forth.
'Peace is the opposite of security' carves a path right through the fuzzy undergrowth littering my emotional ground. Understand that, my heart tells me, and you may begin to understand God's commandment.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Dare to peace
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5 comments:
Laura, may I tack this on to your Christmas message ?
Christmas is about gifts, and gratitude; and this blog is centred around His Holiness.
So I'd like to record gratitude for the gifts from HH - whom I regard as my lifelong friend -- this term..
Two points in particular :
First, his expounding of the close relation between love, knowledge, and law -- that's giving me a mental workout every day at the moment;
And one evening when I admitted that I tend to divide actions into those requiring full attention, and 'chores' -- which, mentally labelled as such, may be done without full attention..
"No more 'chores'!" it was suggested..and you know what, life has become more interesting...
These are the season's gifts which I am most grateful for, right now, and hope to follow and pass on.. and I hope others also had special personal gifts likewise. Happy Christmas and a truly prosperous New Year.
Great stuff.
I've just started reading Lewis Hyde THE GIFT: HOW THE CREATIVE SPIRIT TRANSFORMS THE WORLD (this was recommended to me some years ago by his namesake, last seen in Vladivostok...)
Anyway, it's a classic that has been reprinted. The thrust of it is that there is an economics of gift-giving that is totally different to standard economics. For example, the gift cannot be treated as a commercial item, but has to be given on in some way. The increase of spirit (he explores a number of tribal traditions of gift-giving) occurs not with the first gift, but when the gift makes its second move.
That's what I love about philosophy, as I experience it. The teaching is given by someone for free, and when you have got something of it, then you must give it on to someone else.
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