Stolen Out Of Gym Locker At School

Kristallnatch

"Toten ist eine Gestalt unseres wandernden Trauerns
Heitere Rest in Geist, an uns selber WAS
geschieht."
(Sonnet XI, Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke)

I do not feel German, although I am quoting Rilke in German, my grandfather has had Meyer's name, nor am I Jewish, but perhaps for that very reason is that as a Lutheran, I think Kristallnatch a historical episode as initiation as awful, as bad as the worst of nightmares.

It was the night of November 9, 1938 and both synagogues, and local and homes belonging to Jewish families were looted, broken the glass of your windows, hence the poetic name so horribly that night, and began the Jewish pogrom .

I keep asking myself what did the members of the Lutheran Church that night? Quiet sleep "maybe? What are the thoughts that went through the mind of Dietrich Bonnhoeffer subsequently hanged in a Nazi concentration camp just days before the war ended, to help escape from Jewish community members, while the Lutheran church "official" supported the Third Reich? What are the prayers sent to the Lord in these times? Would anyone not as a panic to try to prevent this disaster? What would we do instead, in place of those Lutherans, so atrocious witnessed political maneuver?

are suffering who have no name. That destroy the soul, writes the Mexican poet Roberto Arizmendi, "but the pain / shit! / Is something like / as disrupting life; / break any / everything off. "

Thousands of broken dreams. Thousands of lives lost. Torture carried out on purpose. There is no logic to it, no answer to such a loss, for a sore that humanity still bears. My brief remarks

just want to invite the thought, memory, memory. Because events like Kristallnatch , or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, or any other movement that political power is running for their interests (and, by God, have also occurred in our country), sacrificing people whose humanity is as respectable as any other, with their flaws and virtues, and I quote one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther's brother: "Simul et Peccator Iustus" - simply should not be neither accepted nor forgotten. Because events like this are why we have to work every day to make the world a better place for there to be peace and healthy living, so that, finally, the kingdom of God, a haven of peace and love , are realized on this earth. And I firmly believe that's our task, however difficult, despite the fear, despite everything. I think this is our calling.