Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote
“Who Am I” just one month before he was executed. This is an English
translation of the famous text:
Who am I? They often tell me, I step out from my cell calm and cheerful and
poised, like a squire from his
manor.
Who am I? They often tell me I speak with my guards, freely, friendly and clear, as though I were the one in
charge.
Who am I? They also tell me I bear days of calamity serenely, smiling and
proud, like accustomed to victory.
Am I really what others say
of me? Or am I only what I know of
myself?
Restless, yearning, sick,
like a caged bird, struggling for life breath,
as if I were being strangled, starving for colors, for
flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness, shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult, tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,helplessly fearing for friends so far away, too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work, weary and ready to take my leave of it all?
thirsting for kind words, human closeness, shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult, tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,helplessly fearing for friends so far away, too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work, weary and ready to take my leave of it all?
Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I this one today and
tomorrow another?Am I both at once? Before
others a hypocrite and in my own eyes a
pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me
like a defeated army,Fleeing in disarray from
victory already won?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am,
thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!
