Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Poetry:
- Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's
- Who Am I?
- from D. Bonhoeffer's, The Cost of Discipleship:
"... during political trials ... men ... ten or twenty were
sentenced to death by a military court every week in 1943 and 1944. Some of these (among
them a British soldier), charged with sabotage, were saved by [Bonhoeffer] from certain
death. We have heard that his fellow prisoners were deeply impressed by the calmness and
self-control which Bonhoeffer displayed even in the most terrible situations. For
instance, during the very heavy bombings of Berlin, when the explosions were accompanied
by the howling of his fellow prisoners, who beat with their fists against the locked doors
of their cells clamouring to be transferred to the safe bunkers, Bonhoeffer stood, we have
been told, like a giant before men.
"But this is only the one side of the picture. The other side is that Bonhoeffer was
a man who lived in, and loved, this world. He, a giant before man, was but a child before
God. While he was in the body, the fight between flesh and spirit, Adam and Christ, was
going on in him. Sometimes he seemed to have become a riddle to himself. One day he gave
expression to this conflict in his soul in a moving poem written from the prison-cell and
entitled:
Who Am I?
Who
am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a country squire from his country house.
Who
am I? They often tell me
I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.
Who
am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.
Am I then
really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who
am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
-
- Who am I?
- They
mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
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