Under Grace

"Every day I am getting to know people, at any rate their circumstances, 

and sometimes one is able to see through their stories into themselves – 

and at the same time one thing continues to impress me: 

here I meet people as they are, far from the masquerade of the "the Christian world", 

people with passions, criminal types, small people with small aims, small wages and small sins – 

all in all they are people who feel homeless in both senses, 

and who begin to thaw when on speaks to them kindness – real people; 

I can only say that I have gained the impression that it is just these people who are much more under grace than under wrath, and that is the Christian world which is more under wrath than grace."

 – Bonhoeffer, Barcelona