Today is the birthday of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  As mentioned in today’s “The Writer’s Almanac:”

Bonhoeffer, (books by this author) was born in Breslau, Prussia, in 1906. He finished his doctoral dissertation in theology by the time he was 21. And in 1930, he went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he studied theology by reading the work of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance. He went to a black church and taught Sunday school there. Then he went back to Berlin and recognized the extreme anti-Semitism there. Bonhoeffer became an active opponent of Hitler’s new government. He published an influential book on the theology of social justice called The Cost of Discipleship (1937). Bonhoeffer joined a plot to assassinate Hitler, and he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. He spent years in jail and was executed just weeks before the end of the war.

Some quotes from Bonhoeffer follow.

“One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons”

“To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ”

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray and gather my thoughts to you, I cannot do it alone.
In me it is dark, but with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not desert me;
My courage fails me, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace;
in me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways, but you know the way for me.
Father in Heaven praise and thanks be to you for the night’s rest,
Praise and thanks be to you for the new day.
Praise and thanks be to you for all your loving-kindness and faithfulness in my past life.
You have shown me so much goodness; let me also accept what is hard to bear from your hand.
You will not lay a heavier burden on me than I can carry.
You make all things serve for the best for your children.
Lord, whatever this day brings, your name be praised.

- prayer written in Tegel prison, Berlin

The prayer above is a beautiful one and, I think, appropriate for most any morning, and one I said myself today as the day began.

Three other short notes about today:

• On this day in 1789, Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States of America.
• On this day in 1913, the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.
• On this day in 1938, the Thornton Wilder play "Our Town" opened on Broadway.