What Can We Say, What Can We Do
The time has changed, here and there. And so have the seasons.
Europe finally changed its clocks to summertime, and the hours of sunlight are lengthening. The breaking dawn comes earlier, and at night we watch gorgeous sunsets, languid and lovely. Trees are blooming with heavy pink cherry blossoms whose delicate petals take flight in the sun-warmed breeze. We’re opening our windows more to let the fresh air in, and sounds of life waft in too: laughter, chatter, babies crying, children happily squealing, shouts of young people kicking a soccer ball around in the park nearby. The tourists have arrived, like migrant birds, moving in absent-minded clots on sidewalks, gazing at life through their phones. Copenhagen sure is pretty!
A whole new season is upon us, in this still reasonably new-to-us place, yet there’s enough familiarity here to make me ponder about life elsewhere. As new waves of flowers bloom here — e.g., the daffodils are marching through; tulips are starting to shine — I wonder if the bluebells I planted out behind our house in Virginia before we moved have come up. I hope so. Virginia bluebells give me unceasing delight.
At the end of March, I made a week-long trek to the United States, first visiting one of my dearest friends while getting to know some of her other dear friends better too. Across a handful of days, we all had many good conversations together, as well as times of quiet and prayer. For all of this, I give thanks. I drove myself around in a borrowed car, realizing it was only the second time I had driven since we moved to Denmark, besides a week of driving around in Iceland in the fall. On my final night there, snowflakes danced in the night air like petals.
Then, I headed to my undergraduate alma mater Wheaton College to participate in a panel discussion about a new Bonhoeffer film released last Thanksgiving. I have no link to share. The event wasn’t recorded or live-streamed. That decision made a huge difference to the freedom it afforded all of us — panelists and audience alike — and markedly heightened its quality.
The film maker, a Bonhoeffer scholar, and I — (as I joked with some folks there, I am coming to see myself as “the Miss Marple” of the Bonhoeffer world) — led by a skilled, thoughtful moderator, entered into an honest, in-depth, and careful discussion about the film and its historical contexts. We discussed Bonhoeffer’s experiences in the United States, including how he and others in Germany viewed race relations among Americans. (Dietrich’s older brother Karl-Friedrich thought twice about raising a family in the US after his own time there because of what he saw there as “the problem, at any rate for people with a conscience,” given how appalling African Americans were treated by their fellow citizens and under the prevailing laws and tolerated social norms.) We also discussed what it is like to make decisions in the creative process, which mirrors a lot of what it is like to make responsible decisions in life. We talked about the nature of stories, both those lived and depicted on screen, and the feedback loops that they can create between screen and life — for good and for evil.
I came prepared to say some things that I discerned were responsibly mine to say but which I never discussed in my book. So to prepare, I studied up, listened deeply, engaged with scholars, and asked questions to keep exposing my ignorance to the light of others’ wisdom. I felt reasonably ready to try to address some noticeable gaps. But I did not feel confident. In fact, I wasn’t too worried about how I felt - and that was a new and good feeling for me to experience.
I aimed to raise - not solve nor condemn - some common American misperceptions about the Confessing Church and the Nazi era in Germany. I was free to do so because they were also my misperceptions. It is fair to say that I was among listeners and learners at the event, even as I sat on the panel holding a microphone. That was a fun new feeling too. Being a Miss Marple-type in life is full of fun and freedom, despite how insignificant that kind of figure appears.
As I said, what I think made the event so rich - and what allowed us to speak candidly and authentically - was that it was not performed under the digital gaze. The event was a moment in time in which real people came together to converse. We all did our best. It felt low to the earth. It was nice to hear the audience laugh at times, and even to feel their watchful quiet as we each wrestled at times to say something meaningful and true, critical and risky. The moderator invited us to step upon some difficult terrain; thanks be to God.
We need more spaces like that in the world. They are there, certainly, and they need tending, investment, and at times protection. We need to break that kind of fresh ground in places that have grown weedy with neglect and fear. The young especially need those spaces, and the young ones who come later will need it even more. A handful of students engaged me after the event to thank me for acknowledging how epistemically merciless our world has become, how hard it is to hear, much less learn, anything, with the kind of searching, curiosity, conviction, and open-hearted risk that actual learning requires. Witnessing humans in real life have difficult conversations in actual space and time while managing not to combust in contempt and general emotional incapacity is refreshing. “Otherwise, I have to search Reddit,” as one of them put it to me.
I am noticing how often the metaphor of “seeds” and “planting” pops up in conversations. What can we say today, what can we do today, to ensure that those who come after us are able to practice — even remember — that honest, respectful dialogue, authentic human interaction across differences is possible, even precious? What freedom is ours today that must be planted to ensure that freedom for the next generation will perdure, no matter the weather or other conditions?
If you are curious, one of the misperceptions that I have had roundly drummed out of me about the Confessing Church among Protestants in Germany was that it was not - period - a resistance movement against Nationalism Socialism, nor primarily a movement that assisted persecuted peoples under Nazi-era laws and under Nazi-abetted human impunity and ordinary cruelty. The hard historical fact is that there was no meaningful national resistance to the Nazis. The diverse individuals and small groups of people who mounted modest forms of disobedience did so by making use of the freedom they had — as small as it was, as tiny and insignificant and Miss Marple-like as they felt — despite the terrible, binding, and bewildering conditions they faced.
The strength of the apparently strong is not as strong as the abundant life can flow out of actual weakness, submitted to God in prayer and obedience, among those who do not lose heart in faith. This is the point, I think, of Jesus’s parables and teaching about seeds — especially the tiny ones; or his stories about weak, harassed women badgering unjust judges, far from levers of power; or his soul-exposing tales about the profit-draining efforts of nameless others who stop to care for broken, battered people they find along the highways of life. Making use of the freedom that is ours is always the task of today. What can we say in that place of true freedom? What can we do there?
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A delightful book about writing I came across on my trip, gobbled down, and want to revisit:
Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue through Our Words (IVP 2020), by Jim E. Beitler and Richard H. Gibson
A newly released Bible Study that pairs perfectly with seeds:
Ashley and Bryce Hales have just released an 8-week Bible study on fruitful living. Give this one a go; suggest it to your small group or church leadership.
A Fruitful Life: Discovering Jesus’ Invitation in the Sermon on the Mount (IVP 2025)
Peace to you in these changing times and seasons.