Two “extreme tourists”, Guilluame Combot and Enora Nedelec, have recently made the 18-month journey by foot from Capetown to Khartoum, from south to north across sub-Saharan Africa. Surviving on about $2.00 (US) each day and with only two backpacks of supplies, the pair walked each day not knowing where they would sleep each night. You can read their story here: “Extreme Tourists Set Off To Walk Across Africa”.

Combot and Nedelec entered some areas of southern Sudan that are so remote that the local people did not even know what a “tourist” was. The locals there could only conceive of the possibility that these two travelers were really foreign aid workers.

But at one point, the very-long-distance pedestrians entered a village that is so isolated that its inhabitants had never seen white people before. The villagers forced Combot to eat something to prove that he was not a ghost.

This is a book that I had not known about until Peter at Slow Reads gave it to me as a recent birthday gift. I had not heard about it beforehand and was a bit intimidated by its large number of pages. That being said, I’m really glad that I started reading it and had no trouble staying motivated enough to complete this biography all the way through to its end.

The book by Eric Metaxas starts slowly, offering a detailed look into Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s family, even touching upon his great grandfather and great uncle. This first chapter’s detailed look at Bonhoeffer’s ancestry exceeds what is normal for most biographies. However, extended family connections would prove to be important for him throughout his life, and this chapter provides some of the needed context for this. Bonhoeffer’s upper-middle class parents taught their children to come to their own conclusions after a careful consideration of the facts at hand. They also instructed them to eschew emotionalism of any kind. These character traits would later, of course, put the family at odds with the Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s.

The pace of the book quickens when Bonhoeffer begins his theological studies. Even though his professors were strongly in the camp of the 19th century German revisionist and liberal theologians, Bonhoeffer oriented his own thinking towards the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth, whom Bonhoeffer would befriend a few years later. The end of Bonhoffer’s period as a young adult student would end with him finding his first best friend, Franz Hildebrandt.

Much of the middle part of the book centers on the split between the “German Christians“, those Lutherans in Germany who acceded to the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish policies, and the “Confessing Church“, which made several futile attempts at reconciliation but eventually ended up as a partially underground church movement. Since Germany followed the continental European model of funding church pastors and buildings via state funds, Lutheran pastors were reluctant to speak out too boldly against the Nazi state. The Confessing Church would not move fast enough for Bonhoeffer away from Nazism; he always seemed to be a few steps ahead when it came to realizing the seriousness of the evil of Hitler and his rule.

The middle part of Bonhoeffer’s short life was taken up with several foreign travels and assignments. Bonhoeffer worked as a pastor for German expatriates in Spain and England. He also spent some time in post-doctoral studies at Union seminary in New York. Bonhoeffer, intrigued by the community-life that he had heard about with Mohandas Gandhi, even made plans to visit India. Yet fate would permanently postpone Bonhoeffer’s trip to India, and the meeting of two of the 20th centuries great religious figures would never take place.

In the mid-1930’s, Bonhoeffer would return to Germany, and begin running the underground seminary at Finkenwalde in Pomerania in eastern Germany (now in western Poland). Here, Bonhoeffer would begin breaking down the usual barriers that separated a professor from his students. He would emphasize personal scripture meditation and servant-leadership and even a revival of Martin Luther’s injunction for Protestant Christians to confess their sins one to another. The Nazi state would eventually discover and shut down Finkenwalde, but the short two years that it was opened produced deep and lasting friendships, including Bonhoffer’s friendship with his second best friend Ebehard Bethge. Rural Pomerania was steadfastly anti-Nazi, so Bonhoeffer found many supporters for Finkenwalde in that region, including especially the grandmother of his future fiancee. Many of the members of Pomerania’s old aristocracy would lead the failed July 1944 assassination and coup attempt against Adolf Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was drafted into the resistance by his brother-in-law in the Abwehr, a German military intelligence operation that was filled with prominent resistance members. Bonhoeffer worked as a double agent, and the Abwehr gave him a means of resistance and the ability to escape being drafted into the military. Eventually, Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law were arrested on a minor charge of helping to smuggle Jews out of the country. For many months, the Gestapo did not realize the full extent of Bonhoeffer’s resistance activities, and, since Bonhoeffer’s uncle had authority over the prison warden, Bonhoeffer was given favorable treatment. All of this changed after the aborted July 1944 coup attempt. Eventually, Bonhoeffer’s activities were exposed and he was ordered executed by Hitler just before the end of the war.

The book only mentions in passing the later controversies over Bonhoeffer’s theology, especially the meaning of the Bonhoeffer’s term “religionless Christianity”. Bonhoeffer was already imprisoned when he coined this phrase and died before he had had a chance to expound upon it in any detail. The author offers passing criticism of more the liberal views of Bonhoeffer’s theology, but a more detailed analysis of post-mortem theological arguments are left to other books.

The author also clearly comes down on the side of being in favor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decision to involve himself in the plot to kill and overthrow Hitler. The decision to undertake regicide is one that many of Bonhoeffer’s fellow Christians would disagree with. If you’re looking for an in-depth analysis of how Bonhoeffer weighed the pros and cons of this fateful decision, you will need to look at other books and sources.

The surprising parts of this book for me: Bonhoeffer’s deep sense of connectedness to family and friends. Bonhoeffer, a bachelor for most of his life until his engagement just before his imprisonment, believed in fully integrating his life between his family and his friends. Bonhoeffer’s friends often became closely linked to his parents and other family members. Bonhoeffer treated his former students like family. Bethge helped Bonhoeffer with the particularly sensitive mission of helping get Bonhoeffer’s twin sister, her Jewish husband, and their daughters out of Germany, and Bethge eventually married his niece. Bonhoeffer’s lifelong struggle with depression is also a surprise. Additionally, Bonhoeffer’s willingness to explore forms of community life in Protestant Christianity, including New Monasticism, make Bonhoeffer a man who was 50 or 60 years ahead of his time.

The book includes extensive excerpts from Bonhoeffer’s correspondence with family and friends. Some readers may not like switching between the narrative and these letters. Others may appreciate reading from these important original source materials.

All in all, this is a great book and one that I would highly recommend reading.

For the last few months, I and some friends been discussing the concepts of spiritual families and spiritual communities. Combining the two words together led us to coin the new word “fammunity”.

Spiritual families are formed when a spiritual father is connected to spiritual sons. The reemphasis on spiritual families is an expression of what the book of Malachi talks about when it mentions God’s desire to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and vice versa. Families take time to build, and spiritual families provide for intergenerational building blocks of spiritual growth.

The roots of community life in Christianity go back all the way to the book of Acts, where the first followers of Jesus lived together in Jerusalem and held all things in common with one another. Spiritual communities continued through the centuries, usually on the edges of society, first, in the lives of persecuted believers, then, in monasteries and friars and, later, in networks of rural believers like the Amish and Mennonites. “Community” is where a group of people make the choice to share their lives with one another in an organic way. This often involves living together in some type of communal setting. These spiritual communities often include service to the poor and disadvantaged in their local neighborhoods. The younger generation, those now in their 20s and early 30s, in particular, is embracing community life. Several communities together form what is called a “community of communities”.

In later posts, I’ll talk about more about spiritual families, spiritual communities, and what they have in common with one another.

Recently deceased 98-year old Verna Oller of Long Beach, Washington, USA, had quietly amassed a fortune of (U.S.) $4.5 million that almost no one knew about. Ms. Oller’s lifestyle betrayed nothing about her wealth. As the ABC News video shows (please see the link below), Ms. Oller was so frugal that she once cut out the zipper lining from an old jacket and used it as replacement shoe laces. Ms. Oller also had no college education nor formal training in business nor finance.

As stated in her will, Ms. Oller decided to bequeath all of her fortune to her home town.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/frugal-millionaire-leaves-fortune-to-home-town-20253023

Don’t despair.

If you’re in a place in your life where you’re not sure where to go next: first and foremost, don’t despair.

Perhaps you’re at a stage where you know that change needs to come,- but you’re not quite sure what to do about it. Yet first of all,- be at peace.

The former things are but shadows and symbols of what lies ahead for each of us. They are harbingers of the new beginnings. New thoughts, new ideas, and new loves- sprouting up to greet us all.

CNN had a very good article recently about monks: “Monks making money: A business beyond prayer”. The article covers the history of Western monasticism and how monks today in the United States earn money to support themselves and their monasteries.

As the article points out, monks have some of the same concerns that we all do, including a slumping economy and rising health care costs. The monks also face a need to be entrepreneurial with their side businesses and yet also maintain a solitary of life of prayer.

For more than 150 years, the insignia of rank for officers in the United States military has consisted of stars, eagles, oak leaves, and bars. Veterans and current service members are well aware of these insignia and their significance as per authority and responsibility. These insignia is also where the past meets the present: History buffs of the American Civil War can see the same insignia for the same ranks on the officer uniforms from the Civil War Era as they would see on military uniforms today (with the exception of the gold insignia as discussed in a moment …). Insignia are living symbols, tying the officers today to the rich military tradition of the past.

What many people may not be aware of is that the origin of these symbols is not entirely clear. We do know that the gold insignia (2nd lieutenant and major in the U.S. Army, USAF, and USMC), as opposed to silver with all of the others, came after the Civil War in order to give these two ranks specific insignia like all of the other officers. We also know the years in which colonels received their eagles and captains and 1st lieutenants their bars. What we don’t know is the exact origin of the stars, eagles, oak leaves, and bars.

Yet a simple examination of the insignia, taken together as a whole, gives the right context for us. The highest ranks are the generals and admirals who wear stars. The more stars, the higher the rank. Stars are high up in the night sky. Multiple stars form constellations. Eagles, the rank of colonels, soar high above most other birds, but they are less high than the stars, of course. Oak leaves are next down the list of ranks, and leaves are the highest and most visible part of any tree. The remaining ranks consist of bars, which could be comparable to branches, the part of the tree that is lower and less visible than its leaves.

It’s this “symbolic height” that can give even the casual observer a sense of the rank of each officer.

The newspaper USA Today had a good article recently about the new phenomena called “crop mobs”: “Crop Mobs Sprout up on Farms”. Wikipedia also has a short article about crop mobs.

Evidently, crop mobs are a rural version of flash mobs. With crop mobs, people from suburban or urban regions network together, usually via social networking via the Internet, to congregate at a rural farm. They then spend the day working together as a team to help the farmer do things that he would not be able to do by himself. The farms are often organic; therefore, they are more labor intensive since they can’t use pesticides. The farmer therefore gets labor that he couldn’t otherwise afford, and the crop mob gets the chance to experience rural farm work and community.

Perhaps this renewal of love for the agrarian life is a symbol of the times in the Western world. Shadows and Symbols recently made an attempt to see one of the most famous agrarian authors, Wendell Berry, speak in person, but the venue was packed full so was unable to attend. Perhaps this too is is a harbinger of a return to an appreciation for farms and the rural lifestyle.

This Spring is the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, which was the last major battle in the American strategy of “island hopping” by capturing successive islands in the western Pacific Ocean from the Japanese Imperial Army. The battle lasted for two and a half months and resulted in the defeat of the Japanese by mid-June 1945. A total of 1/4-million combatants and civilians died on the island during the 82 days of fighting.

By this late stage of the war, the Japanese fighting forces had been reduced to a fraction of their capabilities four years earlier. Stepping into this increasingly bleak situation for the Japanese was the man who would become the primary strategist for the Japanese army on Okinawa. His name was Lt. Col. Hiromichi Yahara. Col. Yahara, a war college professor for most of World War II, knew that victory over the Americans on Okinawa was not possible. Therefore, the best strategy for his side was to use Okinawa simply to wear down the American and British forces as much as possible in order to make their eventual invasion of the Japanese home islands more difficult. In support of this strategic goal, Col. Yahara planned for a “defense in depth” strategy. With this plan, Japanese soldiers would engage the Americans only in defensive ways, even to the point of retreating backward to more defendable positions. Col. Yahara’s superior officers did not always listen to his recommendations, but his overall suggestions were adhered to throughout much of the battle.

In spite of Col. Yahara’s strategies, the Americans did succeed in securing most of Okinawa by the beginning of the Summer of 1945. By that point, Col. Yahara and his commanding generals were reduced to living in a cave. They were then each faced with the choice of surrendering, taking off their uniforms and trying to blend into the civilian population, or committing suicide. The cultural norm of the Japanese army was for its field commanders to kill themselves rather than accept the shame and embarrassment of being captured, so each of the senior officers in the cave were prepared to end their own lives.

But before Col. Yahara could take his own life, his superior officers ordered him not to. In the future, someone would need to tell the story of the battle from the Japanese side, and the generals in charge knew that Col. Yahara, as their strategist for the battle, was the best man to record that story for future generations. One of the generals told Col. Yahara that, yes, this would mean that he would have to bear the shame of being captured by the enemy. However, that shame would pass away in time, and that shame would be outweighed by the colonel’s chance to write down the stories of the battle for the sake of history.

Col. Yahara obeyed the order of his generals, even after they themselves had committed suicide. He took off his uniform, went out of his cave, and attempted to blend in with the surrounding population. Eventually, Col. Yahara was recognized and taken prisoner.

Years later, in 1973, he published his book on the battle of Okinawa. His book is now available in English as well as in Japanese. Col. Yahara died in 1981.

My apologies for my long absence. It’s now time to get back to more shadows and symbols …

There is no question that the words body and house have symbolic significance. The terms “a house divided” and “royal house” come from ages past, and “body politic” and “body of knowledge”, “… of water”, etc. describe the completeness of things. As symbols, with both bodies and houses, one is either in or out but not both. And, if there is more than one person in a house, there can only be one head of that house, as there can only be one head directing the body. A house cannot be divided. There is an order in the household, and there is a brain on top of the body.

Yet, as you consider these words, … you may not have considered how these two terms, symbolically, can be interrelated.

For each of us personally, our bodies are not merely the physical display of our being in this world. They are the location in time and space of our spirits (our spiritual being). One could say that our bodies are not primarily who we are but, rather, where we are. Our bodies are, essentially, the mobile houses for our spirits. One could say that who we each are is a spirit (spiritual being) stuffed into a house of clay (our physical being), and if our temporal bodies die, our spirits go on into timeless eternity.

Just something to think about in the days ahead.

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