Dietrich Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Discipleship

This book The Cost of Discipleship is an exposition of Mt 5-7 the sermon on the mount and the cost of following Christ. The monastic movement later prevalent in the Catholic church became emblemized as status quo the very antithesis of costly discipleship. The narrow following of Jesus the Christ was never really understood as to cost and this book makes clearer the cost of this calling yet the yoke is easy and the burden light.

There are several excellent sound mp3 downloads I have heard on his life and thought as well as his execution at Flossenburg.

The video portions are on my other site at www.myspace.com/edwardsgallery

One of the most important parts of the book deals with the distinction
which Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. But what is "cheap"
grace? In Bonhoeffer's words: "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is
grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." Or, to put it even more
clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have
sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the
consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it
contains no demand for discipleship.
In contrast to this is costly grace:
"costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a
word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly
because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is
grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "

After his return from America, Bonhoeffer would play a large role in the
Confessing Church. Although Bonhoeffer was originally a Lutheran, he
became frustrated with its "liberal theology" after discussions with Karl
Barth, an eminent theologian. Barth believed that "liberal theology"
(understood as emphasizing personal experience and societal development)
minimized Scripture, reducing it to a mere textbook of metaphysics while
sanctioning the deification of human culture. Barth and Bonhoeffer often debated
rationalist and Hegelian-derived theology
against Reformation doctrine, and Barth won over Bonhoeffer. Although Bonhoeffer
would never totally abandon liberal theology, he did feel it was too
constraining and responsible for the lack of relevance in the church. Bonhoeffer
and Barth became main figures of the "neo-orthodox" movement
mid-20th century in German- and English-speaking Protestantism.Bonhoeffer
lectured on theology in Berlin and wrote several books. Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, Karl
Barth and others established the Confessing Church. In
August 1933, he co-authored the Bethel Confession
with Hermann Sasse and others.
Between 1933 and 1935, he served as pastor of two German-speaking Protestant
churches in London: St. Paul's and Sydenham.
He traveled to India to study non-violent resistance with Gandhi, and returned
to Germany to head a seminary for Confessing Church
pastors, first in Finkenwalde and then at
the von Blumenthal estate of Gross
Schlönwitz, which was closed at the outbreak of World War II.
The Gestapo first
banned him from preaching, then teaching, and finally any kind of public
speaking. During this time, Bonhoeffer worked closely with numerous opponents of
Adolf Hitler

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

The Stair Landing: Favorite Poem

Poetic truth and Isabel Allende

http://http://www.isabelallende.com/curious_speeches_frame.htm

The great truths are always totally fresh and perennially reborn although there is nothing new under the sun. All life events can be transformed with the use of the poetic imagination which is necessarily poetic. The tired soul can be reinvigorated. It is truly as stated below beyond the appearance of things. Isabel was truly a prolific writer employing magical realism, truth beyond the literal events themselves.To experience the mystical or the desire for mystical experience is really an obsession of a tired soul not for the novel, but for the perennial beneath the facade of the spurious and the shallow to capture the fleeting essence of the sublime. We have to be wedged out the comfort zone of our drab "existence" with the stimulus of suffering and shattering events such as war, revolution, holocausts. That may be their value ,their wedging effect. To feel a constant presence, as Allende alludes to she would have to be nurtured to that point of sensitivity.

Isn't this the playful substance of literature?... An event transformed by
poetic truth. Writers are like those good thieves, they take something that is
real, like the letters, and by a trick of magic they transform it into something
totally fresh. That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures,
giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination,
creating some kind of truth with many lies

Good fiction is not only the thrill of a plot, at its best it is an invitation to explore beyond the appearance of things, it challenges the reader's safety, it questions reality. Yes, it can be disturbing. But there may be a reward at the end. With some luck, the author and the reader, hand in hand, may stumble upon some particles of truth. Usually, however, that is not the intention of the author in the first place. The writer merely suffers from an uncontrollable need to tell the story. There is nothing more to it, believe me.

The home of my grand-parents, where I spent my childhood, was inhabited by wild pets, strange humans and benevolent ghosts.
My grandmother was a charming lady who had little interest in the material world. She spent most of her time experimenting with telepathy and talking to the souls of the dead during her séances. This clairvoyant lady who could move objects without touching them, served as model for Clara del Valle in my first novel, THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. She died long ago, at a young age, but like my daughter Paula, she is a constant presence in my life. My grand-father was a solid Basque, stubborn and strong as a mule, who gave me the gift of discipline. He could remember hundreds of folk tales and long epic poems; he spoke in proverbs. He lived to be a century old and during the last part of his life he read many times the Bible from cover to cover and the Encyclopedia Britannic from A to Z. He gave me the love of language and stories.

Mit Brennender Sorge 5

This is the clearest expression of the anathema accorded the creation or power of the state over the church and the creation of national churches which inevitably must crumble and the world church must prevail in glory. These words were written in the teeth of a vicious and growing totalitarianism, to counter the new paganism.

21. In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus
urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one
whose official position is intended to create the impression that this
infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of
loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the
threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain
classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right
and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay
so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest
interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one
alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain
of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our
Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and
Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall
say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my
death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or
threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can
reconcile exterior infidelity to one and the same Church, let them hear Our
Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the
angels of God" (Luke xii. 9).
22. Faith in the Church cannot stand pure and
true without the support of faith in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The same
moment when Peter, in the presence of all the Apostles and disciples, confesses
his faith in Christ, Son of the Living God, the answer he received in reward for
his faith and his confession was the word that built the Church, the only Church
of Christ, on the rock of Peter (Matt. xvi. 18). Thus was sealed the connection
between the faith in Christ, the Church and the Primacy. True and lawful
authority is invariably a bond of unity, a source of strength, a guarantee
against division and ruin, a pledge for the future: and this is verified in the
deepest and sublimest sense, when that authority, as in the case of the Church,
and the Church alone, is sealed by the promise and the guidance of the Holy
Ghost and His irresistible support. Should men, who are not even united by faith
in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be
convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the
evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church
alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches
with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is
sufficient evidence of the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is
severed from the trunk of the living Church. Whoever counters these erroneous
developments with an uncompromising No from the very outset, not only serves the
purity of his faith in Christ, but also the welfare and the vitality of his own
people.

Brihaspati now Jesus

http://http://www.mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/brihaspati.htm

BRIHASPATI. [Source: Dowson's
Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] In the Rigveda the names Brihaspati
and Brahmanaspati alternate, and are equivalent to each other. They are names
"of a deity in whom the action of the worshipper upon the gods is personified.
He is the suppliant, the sacrificer, the priest, who intercedes with gods on
behalf of men and protects mankind against the wicked. Hence he appears as the
prototype of the priests and priestly order; and is also designated as the
Purohita (family priest) of the divine community. He is called in one place `the
father of the gods,' and a widely extended creative power is ascribed to him. He
is also designated as `the shining' and `the gold-coloured,' and as `having the
thunder for his voice

An ancient code of law bears the name of Brihaspati, and he is also represented as being the Vyasa of the "fourth, Dwapara age." There was a Rishi of the name in the second Manwantara, and one who was founder of an heretical sect. Other epithets of Brihaspati are Jiva, `the living,' Didivis, `the bright,' Dhishana, `the intelligent,' and, for his eloquence, Gishpati, `lord of speech,'.