Dear Friends,
I know one of the criteria for being a well-educated person is that I am supposed to like poetry. From the carefully crafted words of soliloquy I am to find transcendental peace for my soul. I don’t. Most of it, I actually find annoying and better for solving the world’s sleep deprivation epidemic. I would say that I am sorry for offending those of you who find pleasure in rhyme, but I really am not.
One poem stands out to me as different than all the others. Words written by the German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer from within the confine of a Nazi concentration camp. Bonhoeffer would pen these words one month before he could be executed. They speak to the depth of the human struggle in our soul. The tension between who we convey to the world on the outside and who we see ourselves to be on the inside. These words haunt me and challenge me. They convey an authentic life that is rarely ever allowed to be seen and expose raw hope as it should be.
Who Am I?
by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
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
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really 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 expectations 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 contemptible 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, O God, I am thine!