h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah, a snowy Saturday. Determined for once to think my own thoughts, and get a rest from the stresses of moving, and winter, and whatnot, I've been rabbit chasing all afternoon. I won't bore you with the links in the daisy chain, but here are a few titbits I've gleaned that you might enjoy:

- None of this modern religious music can hold a cnadle to a simple song, lyrics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN7dGz6NH5M
(I know, I was trying to get ready for choir practice, and I used 'Von guten Maechten' as a mental palate cleanser.) Roughly translated, Bonhoeffer's song's chorus goes, 'Wonderfully surrounded by good powers, we await, comforted, whatever may happen. God is with us, night and morning, and certainly on each new day.' He should know - he wrote that from a Nazi prison, so there. Hitler only outlived him by about three weeks.

- Speaking of Bonhoeffer, which I was, here's a great poem inspired by him, but written by WH Auden:
http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/FridaysChild.htm
That poem makes me laugh in all the right places. It might make your head hurt, but in a good way, I think.

- Auden, of course, was the great poet who got fired by Dale Wasserman as lyricist for 'Man of La Mancha'. This is because you can't SING stuff like that.

Think about it. Would you rather sing:

'Once the voice has quietly spoken, every knight
Must ride alone
On the quest appointed him into the unknown.'

Or:

'...that one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars...'?

I rest my case. Come to think of it, that song pretty much describes Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

- Bonhoeffer dodged the draft by joining the Abwehr. O-kay...that kind of sounds odd. Kind of like avoiding going to Vietnam by joining the CIA. Of course, the CIA probably doesn't usually hire theologians, anyway. Of course, it was 1944 before Hitler found out the Abwehr's main objective WASN'T to defeat the Allies. It was to kill Hitler. (They weren't very good at it, unfortunately.) When Hitler read Admiral Canaris' diary (You're head of a secret service. You keep a diary? And it's not in unbreakable CODE? I'm speechless. Couldn't you score a spare Enigma machine, Herr Admiral?), the Fuehrer apparently had a conniption fit.

- Two days after Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer went on the radio and made a very good pun about their Fearless Leader. He said Germans had better watch out: the Fuehrer might become a Verfuehrer. Get a German to explain this to you...

Oh, and Bonhoeffer's broadcast was cut off in mid-sentence. I guess Goebbels was listening.

- On the memorial to those executed in Flossenburg, including Bonhoeffer and Canaris, is inscribed 2 Timothy 1:7, 'For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.' I always liked that verse, for personal reasons. You know, if everyone around you is worried you might not be too tightly wrapped, you appreciate the offer of 'a sound mind' from a spiritual quarter. 'Von guten Maechten wunderbar geborgen,' indeed...

Yawn. I really ought to move. It's cold outside, and I'd better check on the snow situation...

May the invisible spirit that guided Bonhoeffer be with you all, in saecula saeculorum.

Synchronicity - I read a bit about Bonhoeffer just last week, but I'd not heard of him before.