Egregious Reader

Nearly 1,000 pages on the life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I loved it. Eberhard keeps an objective tone, rarely referring to himself in the first person, though on occasion it is necessary, yet, knowing their deep friendship it was easy to feel his affection for the man behind the story he is telling. This is a story of someone going beyond all borders in an effort to take responsibility for his actions. From a very early age Bonhoeffer wanted to be theologian, which surprised his family (his father was a psychiatrist). But after completing his PHD at 21 and writing a dissertation that is still read today, he turned toward pastoral work as more meaningful than mere academic study. He never left behind this pastoral drive and even when his Finkenwalde students were scattered through military conscription and mass printing was illegal, he would hand copy letters in mass to continue to encourage and inform his old students. But he went beyond the church work as well. His

Now burn, new born to the world, Doubled-naturèd name,  The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame, Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne! Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came; Kind, but royally reclaiming his own; A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fire hard-hurled. From Wreck of the Deutschland by GM Hopkins