Last week I finished reading this book. It is absolutely, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. Metaxas, an excellent writer, shares the incredible life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer while weaving in important details of the history of Germany before and during the second world war. I've been challenged in so many ways by reading this book. Not only have I been thinking about my laziness as a follower of Christ (compared to someone who risked his own for what he knew was right), I've also been more interested in my heritage, as my own grandfather (my mom's dad) emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1927. I bought this book for my dad for his 80th birthday and a week later he had finished the 542 pages! We've had some really great conversations about Bonhoeffer, the Holocaust, our pasts, and the time my dad spent in Germany in the 1950s, which is where he met my mother when she was just a teenager. (My grandfather returned to Germany with my American grandmother, my mother and her little brother to work for the U.S. as a civil servant. My mom attended an American high school there for two years and then returned to the U.S. to start college, marrying my dad the year after she returned.) I'm really surprised, and embarrassed, about how little I really know of my heritage. I think for a long time I just thought it wasn't that big of a deal to me. I've really loved hearing stories from my dad and learning more.
There's so much to say about Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I'm not really sure where to start. I'm still chewing on some of the information and thoughts that were shared. Instead of trying to summarize a 500+ page book, I'll just say that I highly recommend reading it. Here are a few quotes from the book:
"It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
"Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death.
"Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God - the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.
"Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is what is so marvelous, that we can transform death." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
