[May 2000 journal entry]
Note: If Bonhoeffer had survived the war, no one would have yet read any of Bonhoeffer’s smuggled prison letters -- other than the Bethges -- thus making it conceivable he would have attempted to suppress/disregard/forget the radical ideas he had expressed in the smuggled prison letters.
Note: For both Bonhoeffer and the ‘scrapheap’ Job, they would have faced many re-entry opportunities into societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere). Some of these opportunities would have been pressed on them, whether or not they would have been drawn to them (analogous to Augustine of Hippo being pressed into the priesthood). Other of these opportunities would have been attractive to them.
Note: Bonhoeffer would have been misunderstood, pressured, and/or inwardly drawn back onto the ‘religious’ path (and, therefore, away/back from a ‘non-religious’ path). Note: Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1939 in order to be in a position to participate in the postwar reconstruction. To what degree (if to any significant degree) had he begun to consider the radical/seminal ideas expressed in his smuggled prison letters at the time he returned in 1939?
Note: How might Bonhoeffer and the ‘scrapheap’ Job have sustained a ‘wilderness’, ‘prison’, ‘isolation’ experience? How much of the initial/extremity experience needs to be sustained? What are the dynamics that need to be retained?
Note: With whom would Bonhoeffer or the ‘scrapheap’ Job have been able to talk re this experience/task and the related ideas? Eberhard mentioned several times in our conversations his struggle after the war with how to respond to the radical ‘non-religious’ ideas in the smuggled letters he received from Dietrich.
Note: If Bonhoeffer had survived the war, no one would have yet read any of Bonhoeffer’s smuggled prison letters -- other than the Bethges -- thus making it conceivable he would have attempted to suppress/disregard/forget the radical ideas he had expressed in the smuggled prison letters.
Note: For both Bonhoeffer and the ‘scrapheap’ Job, they would have faced many re-entry opportunities into societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere). Some of these opportunities would have been pressed on them, whether or not they would have been drawn to them (analogous to Augustine of Hippo being pressed into the priesthood). Other of these opportunities would have been attractive to them.
Note: Bonhoeffer would have been misunderstood, pressured, and/or inwardly drawn back onto the ‘religious’ path (and, therefore, away/back from a ‘non-religious’ path). Note: Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1939 in order to be in a position to participate in the postwar reconstruction. To what degree (if to any significant degree) had he begun to consider the radical/seminal ideas expressed in his smuggled prison letters at the time he returned in 1939?
Note: How might Bonhoeffer and the ‘scrapheap’ Job have sustained a ‘wilderness’, ‘prison’, ‘isolation’ experience? How much of the initial/extremity experience needs to be sustained? What are the dynamics that need to be retained?
Note: With whom would Bonhoeffer or the ‘scrapheap’ Job have been able to talk re this experience/task and the related ideas? Eberhard mentioned several times in our conversations his struggle after the war with how to respond to the radical ‘non-religious’ ideas in the smuggled letters he received from Dietrich.
