In April 1943, the Gestapo caught up to the conspirator. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested, without being formally charged, and sent to Tegel Prison. The Gestapo sent him to prison for his associations and teachings. At the time, they had not yet discovered his involvement in several assassination plots against Hitler.
Not only had the assassination plots failed, but Dietrich had recently become engaged.
Finding himself in prison, discouraged by failed plots, and fallen in love, one might expect to read of a forlorn or bitter man. Rather, Dietrich remained faithful to his spiritual disciplines. Through these disciplines, he found hope and even moments of joy.
Metaxas describes: “Bonhoeffer maintained the daily discipline of scriptural meditation and prayer he had been practicing for more than a decade… Once he got his Bible back he read it for hours each day. By November he had read through the Old Testament two and a half times. He also drew strength from praying the Psalms… Bonhoeffer once [taught]… it was all the more important to practice the daily disciplines when away, to give oneself a sense of grounding and continuity and clarity.” (438)
Bonhoeffer’s strength in prison did not come from a special gift of faith or courage. Rather, he found grounding, continuity, and clarity from over a decade of prayer, study, and meditation. These practices gave him light in the darkest of times. Like a well-conditioned athlete, Bonhoeffer could run with perseverance because he had been training for over a decade.
The storms of our lives are seldom forecast. When we unexpectedly find ourselves in the midst of darkness, what is the ground of our being that gives us clairity?
* Note: Bonhoeffer's reading of the Old Testament appears to me to be a subversive activity. In their effort to remove all things Jewish, the German government advocated removing the Old Testament. Dietrich's specific reading of these texts and praying of the Psalms was a protest against this anti-Semitism.
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