Bonhoeffer and the Psalms

Over the weekend I also pulled out a little book I got some years ago called My Soul Finds Rest – Reflections on the Psalms by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I love Bonhoeffer. It contains some of his reflections on the Psalms (obviously!) as well as historical details about his life and Germany at that time. I was also reading The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. And it seems that now World War II and the Psalms are all intertwined in my head. That would have been a time in history when I’d imagine they’d have “hit the spot” for many, who wore their pages thin.

Much of Bonhoeffer’s prison poetry is considered to be inspired by the Psalms. Here is a snippet from the last poem he wrote before his execution, closely linked to Psalm 47:

Let candles burn, both warm and bright,

Which to our darkness thou has brought,

When we are wrapped in silence most profound,

May we hear that song most fully raised

From all the unseen world that lies around

And thou art by all thy children praised.

Night and morning, God is by us faithfully

And surely at each newborn day.

And here’s a rousing snippet from his “Stages on the Way to Freedom”:

Come now, highest feast on the way to everlasting freedom,

death. Lay waste the burdens of chains and walls

which confine our earthly bodies and blinded souls,

that we see at last what here we could not see.

Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action

    and suffering.

Dying, we recognize you now in the face of God.