On this day in 1906 the cleric, theologian and anti-Nazi pacifist Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born into a large and loving family in Germany. With the rise to power of the Nazis, he found himself under pressure to switch from the intellectual to the practical side of Christianity. Twice in the 1930s he left Germany on the offer of work in safer countries but chose to return because his conscience told him to. He became an active opponent of the regime and was involved in the German resistance movement.

In the later stages of the war he was involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 and was imprisoned. In 1945 he was tried and executed only weeks before the end of the war.

Bonhoeffer remains today a shining example of a man prepared to listen to his conscience and to choose to stand up for his beliefs, whatever the cost.

Today’s poem, To Be a Pilgrim, is by John Bunyan, a good choice for a very brave man:

Who would true Valour see
Let him come hither;
One here will Constant be,
Come Wind, come Weather.
There’s no Discouragement,
Shall make him once Relent,
His first avow’d Intent,
To be a Pilgrim.
Who so beset him round,
With dismal Storys,
Do but themselves Confound;
His Strength the more is.
No Lyon can him fright,
He’ll with a Gyant Fight,
But he will have a right,
To be a Pilgrim.
Hobgoblin, nor foul Fiend,
Can daunt his Spirit:
He knows, he at the end,
Shall Life Inherit.
Then Fancies fly away,
He’ll fear not what men say,
He’ll labour Night and Day,
To be a Pilgrim.

Today I give thanks for all brave men and women who stand up and fight against the powers of evil.