An Occasional Glimmer of Light

On 28 December 1944, Dietrich Bonhoffer was permitted to write his mother a letter from his prison cell at the Gestapo prison on Prince-Albrecht-Strasse. He told her he had to write quickly, as the post was about to go out.

"Dear Mother, I want you to know that I am constantly thinking of you and Father every day, and that I thank God for all that you are to me and the whole family. I know you have always lived for us and have not lived a life of your own. That is why you are the only one with whom I can share all that I am going through...Thank you for all the love that has come to me in my cell from you during the past year, and has made every day easier for me...My wish for you and Father...and for us all is that the New Year may bring us at least an occasional glimmer of light, and that we may once more have the joy of being together."

There are some, in the inscrutible will of God, who are vouchsafed those occasional glimmerings of light, and those who are not. I remember first reading these beautiful and simple words of Bonhoffer to his dear Mother in juvenile hall, then again in County Jail, and again in prison. They have always meant much more to me than a simple expression of a son's maternal devotion. They resonate in my soul in a special way that I have never really been able to come to terms with.

I wrote a letter the day before my release, a release which was by no means certain, wherein I tried to express what those glimmerings have taught me over my long captivity:

"My hand trembles as I write. The anticipation, the longing, the fear. I pour my soul out to God this night--in gratitude as much as in supplication. I had this realization today--it fell out of the sky. Blessing amidst the pain. Joy in the midst of sorrow. Today, tonight, this last night, the words are all gone. I am rendered speechless by His Face. He has been teaching me this moment, what it means to love as He loves. The love of God--as simple as that. To live amongst, share the plight of, the very life of, the unlovable, in order to see wahat love means and how it feels in His eyes, in His heart...in the Dark Face of God there is joy, limitless joy..."

The ecstasy of light. Light swallowed up by the Dark Face of God. Why me? Why have I been spared? Why am I spared while others are sacrificed to Evil?

The depth of this question...so deep it threatens to swallow the light from those glimmerings that have ignited my soul and have kept it burning through a very dark night indeed.