Bonhoeffer's Prayer for His Nation

When asked how he prayed, Bonhoeffer replied to Visser't hooft in Geneva, "I pray for my nation's defeat."

It was for Bonhoeffer a monumental decision ... he loved his homeland, he was worried that the Allies would repeat Versailles, he was already planning for what the church must be and do after the war and Germany's role in world Christianity.

Bonhoeffer was a servant of Christ, and that guided his patriotism.

And for me, I hope it's true, as well - that my faith in Christ is what guides my patriotism, and not the other way around, as it seems to be, as I see it, for some who claim to follow Christ.

These are difficult times, and our difficulties are mounting every moment, as a feckless leader bumbles and blusters his way from one crisis and failure to another.

Everyone who cheers for him furthers the chaos and damage, and every Christian who sides with him fails, I believe, to honor Christ.

It's a huge thing to say, but I believe I'm in good company with Israel's 8th Century prophets who were often accused of faithlessness to God and being traitors to their nation.

History has proven them right, and the same judgment for Bonhoeffer.

Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When all else is said and done, America's refusal to help the Republic, while Hitler, Mussolini, and Texaco (yes, that's right), poured arms and oil into Franco's Nationalist effort, because the Republic was revolutionary and "red," with tremendous pressure on FDR exerted by the Roman Catholic Church, will remain in history as one of our greatest blunders. Like it or not, we "choose" fascism because we thought the Republic was red, and then, when Hitler moved into Poland, it was too late.

Hochschild has done a remarkable job of putting a human face on the Civil War, and the thousands of young men and women, from America and around the world, a number of whom were Communists, who understood the threat of fascism and decided to cast their lot with the Republic.

Those who made it home were forever tainted and held in suspicion, targets of the anti-red hysteria that gripped this nation, and still does - a most foolish, self-inflicted blindness.

Hochschild's writing is wonderfully clear, taking us to the war through the eyes of those who were there. Some of the best and the brightest put their lives on the line for the cause of freedom and hope - that Spain might well free itself from centuries of brutal feudal rule, and the cruelty of the Roman Catholic Church. But the western democracies, already afraid of revolution, and afraid of the Roman Church, refused to help.

If you want to know more about the Spanish Civil War, no better book than this.


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Ten Thousand Graves - Normandy

Ten Thousand Graves - Normandy

Ten thousand graves ... 

Tended with care ... lush grass precisely trimmed.

Crosses mostly ... and Stars of David ...

Young men and women cut down in the prime of life.

They were brave and they were afraid ...

Their pictures reveal that haunted look ...

Of soldiers too tired to be afraid, 

And too frightened to find sleep.

Seasick and wet, 

They hit the beach …

Under the cover of …

Steel and smoke.

Death and tears abound …

Ahead, my friends, ahead.

There’s no going back now.

No stopping for any of us.

A continent enslaved awaits the charge.

Nations, yes, and then some, to be unshackled …

And the years pass us by quickly …

Memories roll beyond the reach of words …

Silent tears still shed …

By those who made it home.

Slowly, now, they join their comrades,

As we all do … with the passage of time.

Hand-in-hand; arm-in-arm … a band of brothers …

A chorus of sisters …

Smoke and steel … 

And a victory in hand.

And may those 

Ten thousand graves remain ever well-tended!

© Tom Eggebeen, 2010