16

"Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Today was yet another reminder that imagined futures can hinder how I take in reality. I did not react the best today. Thank God for forgiveness and redemption.

4

"Dear brethren, our real trouble is not doubt about the way upon which we have set out, but our failure to be patient, to keep quiet. We still cannot imagine that today God really doesn't want anything new for us, but simply to prove us in the old way. That is too petty, too monotonous, too undemanding for us. And we simply cannot be constant with the fact that God's cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be "unsuccessful": and yet be on the right road. But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have never read the writing of someone so certain of failure and yet so sure that the direction he was going in was correct. Over and over again, I read these letters where Bonhoeffer writes to friends honest, yet inspiring words of the hope within failure. It reminds me of the song "Background" by Lecrae where it says, "'Cause if I do this by myself, I'm scared that I'll succeed/ And no longer trust in You, 'cause I only trust in me."

Success is an idol in my life. Even little successes. For example, yesterday I had decided to drive to pickup my husband from work without looking up directions. It's easy, take an exit off of 440, turn right, then turn left at the correct road. I kept reading street signs and never found the road I was supposed to turn on. I drove until the road ended. I was furious when I looked it up on my phone and found out that the road I was supposed to turn on actually changed names just before the intersection. Why? Because I sought out a small success and it couldn't even be mine. I turned around and realized the idiocy behind my frustration. I couldn't have possibly known the road changed names without research.

But life successes are also something I yearn for. Lecrae's song lyrics point out the negatives of success and honestly, I don't think I'm ready for anything close to big life successes or failures, especially if I can't handle loss of a small victory.

"We still cannot imagine that today God really doesn't want anything new for us, but simply to prove us in the old way."

3

"Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A group of my friends creates CDs of our year. At the end of each year, we come together with our playlists and go one song at a time around the circle until we've gone through them all. We explain events that caused the songs to be included. Some are happy and uplifting, and others are sad.

This line made me think of our circle last week. We told sad, hard stories about frustrations and struggles. Some of which we've overcome and others that are still weights. We'd listen and then we'd move on. I realized that moving on did not discount the events at all, but let them stand as they were. I know that day is not the end of conversations, but the beginning of them. I think that we've learned somehow that some struggles and wounds do not have words that cover them and bind them up. In fact, sometimes the attempted words only seem to cut deeper.

2

Queen Elizabeth: [Using the name "Mrs. Johnson"] My husband's work involves a great deal of public speaking.
Lionel Logue: Then he should change jobs.
Queen Elizabeth: He can't.
Lionel Logue: What is he, an indentured servant?
Queen Elizabeth: Something like that.

These days I've been interested in WWII, from reading Bonhoeffer (a biography of a pastor in Germany during WWII) to Sarah's Key (a fictional piece about the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations). Tonight I saw The King's Speech with my husband. It is about King George VI and a doctor who helps him overcome his stutter, very necessary for all of the speeches he read during during WWII. I found out about it from a blog I read. The above quote is from the film.

I find myself drawn to this war that forced people into roles beyond their comprehension. But the circumstances forced betterment of character and growth. Extreme persistence. Hope in the face of darkness.

1

We used to think that one of the inalienable rights of man was that he should be able to plan both his professional and his private life. That is a thing of the past. The force of circumstances has brought us into a situation where we have to give up being "anxious about tomorrow" (Matt. 6:34). But it makes all the difference whether we accept this willingly and in faith (as the sermon on the Mount intends), or under continual constraint. For most people, the compulsory abandonment of planning for the future means that they are forced back into living just for the moment, irresponsibly, frivolously, or resignedly; some few dream longingly of better times to come, and try to forget the present. We find both courses equally impossible, and there remains for us only the very narrow way, often extremely difficult to find, of living every day as if it were our last, and yet living in faith and responsibility as though there were to be a great future....Thinking and acting for the sake of the coming generation, but being ready to go any day without fear or anxiety--that, in practice, is the spirit in which we are forced to live. It is not easy to be brave and keep that spirit alive, but it is imperative.

"After Ten Years"- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Life is a struggle to find the middle ground. I've learned the last few years to let go of my imagined futures with a lighter heart and to hold the newly imagined ones with an open hand, willing to let them go at a moment's notice. I can't say that I've always done this and maybe I'll still discover patches of bitterness in my heart for their loss. But here is to a year of re-imagined futures and struggling to find that middle ground.