My Summer Crush

Do you remember this music video? If you went to high school in  the late nineties, you probably do. Every afternoon we rushed home from class to see what songs made it onto the day's episode of TRL (Total Request Live in case you didn't know) hosted by Carson Daly on MTV.

I'd love to tell you how many times I've seen the music video for "Tearin' Up My Heart," but I can't. I didn't count. Let's just say a lot, a whole lot.

My friend discovered them first. NSYNC aired a special concert on the Disney channel, and she met me at the door when I came over to spend the night. She said,"You've got to see this." At first I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as she was, but then it was like I'd been stricken with a virus. We were NSYNC crazy!

Looking back now it was a case of teenage girl mania; I'd never had so much fun in my life. We video taped every TV appearance (yes, with an old-school VCR) , listened to the songs repeatedly, and collected every single piece of media that even mentioned them. What did we do when we swam in my friend's pool? Listened to NSYNC. What did we do when we got our driver's licenses? Listen to NSYNC. What did we write our notes to each other about? You guessed it -- NSYNC. We spent our money on issues of Tiger Beat and BOP. We rolled change. I'm serious.

Something happened this year that reminded me of those good old days. I developed a little summer crush.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I know what you're thinking. He's certainly not Robert Pattinson, and don't worry about the health of my marriage because he's also dead.

All this started at the beginning of the summer when I read a newly released biography by Eric Metaxas.

 

 

I'd heard Bonhoeffer's name before and read some of his quotes in my religious and philosophical studies, but I really didn't know anything about him or his life. I had no idea. I devoured every single word of the biography and kept telling myself in awe, "This is a true story. This really happened. This guy is a real person."

 

I've taught my students about the Holocaust over and over again, so I've read tons of things about the different perspectives of people persecuted by Hitler, but the book brought out a whole new perspective --  Hitler's attitude toward the church and the church's attitude toward Hitler -- very illuminating. In the midst of corruption and innocent-seeming compromise was a small group of people resisting Hitler, and at the center of that group was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his family, and friends.

 

I developed a serious crush. You ask why?

• He took Jesus seriously.
• He was unwilling to compromise what was right even when it would have been easy and acceptable to do so.
• He devoted his time to really helping people, yet also found the time to seek out Truth, think deeply, and write about it.
• He was extremely loyal.
•  When he visited the United States, he condemned unfair treatment of African Americans years before the Civil Rights Movement.
• He and his family were part of the Valkyrie plot to take Hitler's life.
•  He managed to keep his faith while he was afraid, even in the face of death.

Hitler had Bonhoeffer executed just before the concentration camps were liberated by the Allies. Like so many others, his death was heartbreakingly close to the end of the war. As I read about it, I found myself thinking,"If only..." Not only did he live his faith well, but he also found the courage to say what needed to be said when he needed to say it no matter what it cost him.

 

In his book Ethics, the last work he completed with the intent to publish, he said:

Today there are once more saints and villains. Instead of the uniform grayness of the rainy day, we have the black storm cloud and brilliant lightning flash. Outlines stand out with exaggerated sharpness. Shakespeare's characters walk among us. The villain and the saint emerge from primeval depths and by their appearance they tear open the infernal or the divine abyss from which they come and enable us to see for a moment into the mysteries of which we had never dreamed.
 

He understood his own time in a way many of his contemporaries could not. Some of his fellow Germans didn't know how the war would end and were caught up in the glory of the moment. Bonhoeffer didn't allow himself to be similarly blinded.  He understood that choosing sides wasn't an option but a necessity.

May we all be that honest with ourselves when we face the same challenge in our own lives.

 

 

Image Credits: Wikipedia, http://www.ericmetaxas.com/books/bonhoeffer-pastor-martyr-prophet-spy-a-righteous-gentile-vs-the-third-reich/