A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the interdependence between the strong and the weak in a community.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer highlights the essential connection within Christian communities, stating that strength and weakness are mutually dependent. The quote suggests that the strong individuals have a responsibility towards the weak, as their existence fosters fellowship and community; without this harmony, the very essence of togetherness is compromised.
In practice
In a discussion about teamwork, this quote can remind us of the importance of supporting each other.
A home is a kingdom of it's own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life's storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.
In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.
Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants. An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then let’s see something to prove it.
It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ
...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all.
Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and for his own follies.
They can see their neighbors. Roosters and dogs can be heard from there. Still, they will age and die without visiting one another.
I'm very fortunate to have a coach that I got to stay with all this time. Every year the bond gets stronger and better, and we understand each other more. And it's like she can tell if I walk into the gym what kind of mood I'm in, what she has to fix for the practice I need, or how I'm feeling.
Sure, on a larger scale, it was healthy to have people out there you cared about more than yourself. She knew that. But then there was the abject fear you would lose it. They say possessions own you. Not so. Loved ones own you. You are forever held hostage once you care so much.
...though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she could not avert.
Not afraid of poverty and drabness and who is untouched by it, untouched by the drunkenness of her friends; (she) who judges, selects, discards people with severity, who knows, when she is telling her endless anecdotes, that they are ways of escape, keeping herself all the more secret behind that profuse talk.
You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.
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