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This is the end. For me the beginning of life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Learning Light People Suffering
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Freedom Hope Oneself Photograph Prison Wait
Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Himself Justice Myself Peace Worth
Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Human Tears Word
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Responsibility
We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. There God dealt with us, and there he still deals with us, our needs and our sins, in judgment and grace.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence God History Judgement Need Sin
We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Death Simplicity Wound
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Achievement Easy Gratitude Hard Help Important Life Rich
The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Divine Job
While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Goodness Job Seek
The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Creation Destroy Dream Love Person
Your life as a Christian should make non believers question their disbelief in God.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe God Life Yourself
If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own?
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Appearance Myself Person Possible Recognition Serious Sin Worst
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Love Marriage Yourself
Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Death Love Man Old Reflection
Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Evil Grace Judgement Love Spiritual

This is the end. For me the beginning of life.

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This is the end. For me the beginning of life.

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