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A review by blchandler9000
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditations on Psalms by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4.0
This book reads as both meditations and mini-biography. Each chapter features a psalm (sometimes more than one), a biographical sketch of where Bonhoeffer was in his life when he wrote the homily/meditation about the aforementioned psalm. Knowing the life events surrounding Bonhoeffer's writing was actually quite helpful in the reading of both the psalms and his thoughts.
Bonhoeffer (a progressive Lutheran minister who got involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler) does not shy away from being realistic about human suffering. His sadness over Germany's transformation under the Nazi's, his own conflicted feelings about being involved with the plans to murder another human being (even if it was Hitler), and his feelings of hopelessness while in a Nazi prison all come through clear in his readings of the psalms (a book of the Bible which is no stranger to cries of suffering, sadness, isolation, hopelessness, and injustice). Having read some of Bonhoeffer's famous "The Cost of Discipleship", I know how difficult the man's style can be. This book gave me bite-sized homilies and poems which were much easier to digest than "Discipleship."
Over the past 2 months, I have struggled greatly with hope and purpose. (I think this is reflected some in my review of Robinson's tremendous novel, "Home".) It was of some comfort to me to be able to read the words of a man who struggled to find meaning in desperate and hopeless situations. In truth, both the psalmist and Bonhoeffer write about deep sadness and feeling abandoned by God. And although the sources of the psalmist's and Bonhoeffer's sadness and my own are very different things, deep sadness is deep sadness. And in that deep sadness there are promises of hope. I can only pray that I find it and hold to it as well as Bonhoeffer did, even up to his execution.
Bonhoeffer (a progressive Lutheran minister who got involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler) does not shy away from being realistic about human suffering. His sadness over Germany's transformation under the Nazi's, his own conflicted feelings about being involved with the plans to murder another human being (even if it was Hitler), and his feelings of hopelessness while in a Nazi prison all come through clear in his readings of the psalms (a book of the Bible which is no stranger to cries of suffering, sadness, isolation, hopelessness, and injustice). Having read some of Bonhoeffer's famous "The Cost of Discipleship", I know how difficult the man's style can be. This book gave me bite-sized homilies and poems which were much easier to digest than "Discipleship."
Over the past 2 months, I have struggled greatly with hope and purpose. (I think this is reflected some in my review of Robinson's tremendous novel, "Home".) It was of some comfort to me to be able to read the words of a man who struggled to find meaning in desperate and hopeless situations. In truth, both the psalmist and Bonhoeffer write about deep sadness and feeling abandoned by God. And although the sources of the psalmist's and Bonhoeffer's sadness and my own are very different things, deep sadness is deep sadness. And in that deep sadness there are promises of hope. I can only pray that I find it and hold to it as well as Bonhoeffer did, even up to his execution.