Micah and I have been discussing Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer as we’re half way through an eight hour layover at Heathrow Airport in London.
I pulled up Bonhoeffer’s poem, “Who Am I?”, as an example of his existential side. Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard both shared similar views on the cost of discipleship, or what Bonhoeffer called “Costly Grace,” but spoke into radically different contexts using different styles of writing. At first glance, it can look like they’re saying different things, but I argue they are actually very similar in their core themes and beliefs.
Here’s Bonhoeffer’s poem written while he was in a Berlin prison.
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Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!
March 4,1946