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TimesLIVE
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
‘The Sinners' Bench' by Maren Bodenstein
The Sinners' Bench weaves an artful tapestry of the arrival of German missionary families in South Africa, and the stories of succeeding generations. It is radiant with history, humour and poignancy, all captured with delightful obliquity. I have not read a family memoir with greater enjoyment. — Michael Titlestad, Professor department of English, Wits ABOUT THE BOOK Just before she dies, Maren Bodenstein's mother leaves her with a difficult secret and an urge to retrieve the past. After years of trawling through family archives, she realises the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of doing so. However, what Bodenstein does discover is a passionate and moving love story, which becomes the core of this book. The Sinners' Bench uses different modes and tones to tell a story. There are extracts from letters, homespun publications, family myths and stories, childhood memories and photographs. The personal story is conveyed as memoir, which in turn is embedded in family history. This history is explored as part of the history and culture of the German Lutheran missionaries in SA. The story is imbued with a sense of everything arising and passing. Wars are started and peace is made, people migrate and find a new home, kittens are born and drowned, new generations take centre stage and make space for the next one. EXTRACT The Treasure of My Mother's Sadness It's been a while since my mother died, and her weird little sayings still pop into my head. And her hearty laughter, and the bottomless sorrow that craved constant comfort. She was so heavy. Always on a diet, then secretly eating. And then a diet again. And again. A hungry ghost, she craved to be fed. She trained Trudel and me from a young age to prepare food. Lizzy somehow escaped domestication until she married. She married such a traditional man. Somewhere in the middle of my parents' marriage they decided to take a break from their endless squabbling and lived apart. During this time Christel grew and grew until her eyes receded into the folds of her face. At night she drank large quantities of Old Brown Sherry and phoned her children to complain about the affairs she suspected our father of having. After a year she relented and followed him to Rustenburg where they lived fairly happily together in a house with many passages. One day Christel, still very heavy, was walking her nasty French poodle on a glittering road that led to a chrome mine, and she fell. Her knees became infected and the next day they were oozing plasma. 'Is that fat coming out of your knees?' asked the tactless doctor. Christel laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks. The rest of the day she repeated – 'Is that fat coming out of your knees?' And laughed again. Then she went on a strict diet, losing kilogram after kilogram. But the fat kept finding its way back onto her body. Our mother was an adventurous eater. She was one of the first in her circle to use garlic in cooking. When a Chinese restaurant opened in Hillbrow, she immediately bought a white and blue dinner set with rice grains baked into the porcelain. She also bought a mahjong set, chopsticks and a Chinese cookbook. Her father had just died and she was spending her inheritance recklessly on furniture, crockery, new clothes, a blonde wig and a harpsichord. Guests were invited for a Chinese dinner party. My cousin and I were wrapped up in material and lipsticked to make us look like prepubescent geishas. We were to serve the food. I can't remember if the food was delicious, but the guests became drunk on sake. My cousin and I must have got hold of some and were giggling our way through the evening as our geisha garments kept slipping off our bodies. My mother's body was soft and large. She loved five-course hotel meals, long luxurious baths and bobbing around in a warm, lazy ocean. Over the years, she persuaded our thrifty and reluctant father to travel all over Europe with her. They would return from these journeys happy and relaxed. Once, when they came back from Greece, they told us how some tout had lured them into a strip show in Athens. 'Did you know,' they said excitedly, 'that red-haired women have red pubic hair?' My mother's sadness would often emerge at Christmas. To a German immigrant family, Christmas was an endless assertion of identity. It kicked off with exhausting hours in a hot December kitchen, baking elaborate spicy, nutty cookies, which the boys carelessly shovelled into their ever-hungry mouths. Then there were the four Sundays of Advent, marked by four candles on the cedar wreath. The night before, we would put out our shoes in the passage and decorate them with cypress foliage so that St Nicholas could come and fill them with sweets and nuts and little gifts. Like socks or a pen. On the Sundays of Advent the candles on the wreath would be lit and the family gathered to sing carols. Our mother accompanied us on the piano. Finally, when Christmas eve arrived the lounge door would be locked so that Father Christmas and our own father could prepare the Christmas room. Mama was always over-ambitious in her preparations, and exhausted, and her daughters would have to work extra hard to get the food ready and make things generally agreeable for her. I don't know what our brothers were up to. Around six o'clock the whole family, all spruced up, would walk up to the stone church. The brass band played, the choir sang. Sometimes there was a nativity play or a little orchestra dragged along by violins, fumbling recorders and an anxious cello. On one occasion the huge Christmas tree caught fire and one of the church elders had to quickly put out the flames, and a delicious incense of burnt pine needles filled the church. The traditional meal was herring salad and crisp white rolls. Then came the tortuous wait for Papa to finish tweaking the Christmas room, or to wrap his presents and write little rhymes for each one. And then we had to stand around the piano again and sing more hymns. Finally the little silver bell would ring, the door opened and we walked reverently into the darkened lounge. From the candle-lit tree hung stars and lametta. The shelter made of sticks, where a carved Joseph and Mary looked at the Christ child, was illuminated by large red candles, while angels and shepherds kneeled at a respectful distance. The donkey and a sheep would make their way towards the scene of the miracle. Once more we sang, but now our eyes kept sliding towards the presents piled, away from the holy scene. On the table was Großmutter Gertrud's tablecloth with the blue cross-stitched angels and a large plate of cookies and marzipan and uncracked nuts. And then somewhere, probably during the Bach carol, Ich Steh an Deiner Krippe Hier, Mama would choke up and we knew that Gertrud's ghost had slipped in and was luring her away. The magic would drain from the Christmas room and be replaced by a forced cheerfulness. And every year we worked harder and harder to keep her with us. Entice her from her sadness. Christel always surrounded herself with images of her mother. Gertrud striding down the East London high street with her friend. Caught by a street photographer, they are wearing heels and fashionable hats. In one picture the women are unaware of the photographer. When they discover him, they smile weakly. 'My mother was stylish,' our mother used to say. What would her love have looked like? In the last photograph taken of her, Gertrud wears a two-piece outfit with polka-dots. She looks at the camera, exhausted. She is ill already. Behind her is a large conifer from amongst whose branches her children step out like ghosts. Christel has monkey-swing plaits and wears a short dress with long socks. She looks much older than ten. Peter wears a white shirt, black shorts and shiny shoes. But the treasure of our mother's sorrow was the Book that lay hidden in the heart of the kist – a sixty-page memoir, densely typed by Heini during his internment in Kimberley. On the now yellowing cover of the book is a stylised drawing of a mother holding her two children and, on the last page, a little blonde boy sits on a swing under a pepper tree. The introduction reads – For my children Christel and Peter With love and gratitude. I have written these memories of your mother firstly because Christel once asked me to. Secondly, I myself have felt the need to leave you a portrait of your mother and of those times which will probably remain with you as precious loving memories. Perhaps they will also be useful to you in later life. These memories consist of events and dates that might seem insignificant to strangers ... But to you they speak of a person, your mother, who was to us the most precious and loved one that we had. That is why these memories are meant exclusively for you and for our descendants. I ask you to bear with the literary inadequacies and with the many other errors. In the period I have described you, my dear children, contributed to the fulfilment of our marital happiness. Never have parents had so much joy from their children as we did. Since then fate has dealt you hard blows. And now your dear second mother is interned as well. I can only trust in providence and pray that you will be guided through and strengthened by these times of trial. May you be guided into the better future we are fighting for, and for which much blood is flowing. You too are carrying your little burden.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Our Savior Lutheran Church near Sterling to celebrate 150th anniversary April 13
Apr. 2—STERLING — Our Savior Lutheran Church in rural Sterling is inviting the public to celebrate its 150th anniversary with the congregation Sunday, April 13. The Rev. Phil Heuser said the celebration begins at 9 a.m. with a special church service followed by a light lunch and cake in the basement. The Rev. Allan Buss will be the guest speaker. Buss is president of the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Heuser said the church, which stands at 21496 Hazel Road, was established in 1875 mostly by German immigrants who settled in the area. "The church's first leader was a German Lutheran pastor who came here from Clinton, Iowa, on horseback," Heuser said. "Most of the original sanctuary building is still intact. However, the church's steeple was replaced in 1921 after it was blown away, and we've added on a fellowship hall since then." For more information, call the church at 815-772-4345.
The Guardian
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bonhoeffer review – solid biopic of German pacifist pastor murdered by the Nazis
Earnest to a fault, this biopic of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who resisted the Nazis and was eventually murdered by them in a concentration camp mere weeks before Adolf Hitler's suicide, is old-school moviemaking of the sort that would have been up for Oscars 10 years ago. (Well, maybe. It would perhaps have needed a starrier cast; the actors here are solid stalwarts of German cinema, of the sort that Hollywood largely remains unenthusiastic about.) Contributing to this slight sense of the passé is the decision to have everyone speak English but in a German accent, a curious choice that was standard practice for years but is now largely avoided. In a film aspiring to moral seriousness, it strikes a slightly odd note. It's hard to take a line like, 'I can see you standing here with a grass stain on your new lederhosen,' quite as seriously as perhaps the film-makers would like. The film takes some liberties with the truth, which has caused a flurry of controversy among groups more au fait with the details of Bonhoeffer's life than your average viewer. Giving the facts a bit of added dazzle is pretty much expected and not necessarily a problem, but when your subject is primarily remembered for their pacifist beliefs and theological writings, it does feel faintly counterintuitive to have them participate in various pieces of active dissent (plots with bombs and so on) – a narrative bolstering that risks missing the point of why they are of interest in the first place. As a thriller, this is not really thrilling enough. And as a biopic, it's not necessarily representative of the spirit of the man. But it's solid enough film-making in a traditional no-frills mode that will always find an audience – even if it's not particularly trendy. Bonhoeffer is in UK and Irish cinemas from 7 March.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Letters to the Editor: 'Bring God back?' America is a secular country, no matter what Trump says
To the editor: German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled to understand how German society could possibly support Nazism, which was so inimical to the values that country's people had demonstrated in the arts, music and literature. ("Trump says at prayer breakfast he wants to root out 'anti-Christian bias,' urging: 'Bring God back,'" Feb. 6) He concluded it was because of stupidity, which he defined as the refusal to learn. This is separate from ignorance, or the lack of knowledge but a willingness to learn. The loss of civics classes in public education fosters an ignorance of our country's unique origin story and the extraordinary meaningfulness of our Constitution. The indisputable fact is that the United States was founded solely as a secular nation. The unambiguous statements of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams, among others, support this fact. A wall of separation must be kept between church and state. In fact, the best guarantee of the free practice of any religion is the assiduous support of secularism. Those ignorant of this fact can learn from civics classes; those who persist in their refusal to learn support the destruction of our very foundational principles. Religion is a private matter and has no place in our government's functioning. Sheldon H. Kardener, Santa Monica .. To the editor: Trump wasn't clear how he would "bring God back." Is he going to accomplish this by inspiring us through personal example? Because there's nothing in Trump's arsenal of hating the stranger, oppressing people because of the color of their skin and adjudicated sexual abusing that has anything to do with Jesus. This is simply Christian nationalism, making America white and right again. President Trump, please leave Jesus out of it, like you've been doing all along. Linda Falcao, North Wales, Pa. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: ‘Bring God back?' America is a secular country, no matter what Trump says
To the editor: German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled to understand how German society could possibly support Nazism, which was so inimical to the values that country's people had demonstrated in the arts, music and literature. ('Trump says at prayer breakfast he wants to root out 'anti-Christian bias,' urging: 'Bring God back,'' Feb. 6) He concluded it was because of stupidity, which he defined as the refusal to learn. This is separate from ignorance, or the lack of knowledge but a willingness to learn. The loss of civics classes in public education fosters an ignorance of our country's unique origin story and the extraordinary meaningfulness of our Constitution. The indisputable fact is that the United States was founded solely as a secular nation. The unambiguous statements of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams, among others, support this fact. A wall of separation must be kept between church and state. In fact, the best guarantee of the free practice of any religion is the assiduous support of secularism. Those ignorant of this fact can learn from civics classes; those who persist in their refusal to learn support the destruction of our very foundational principles. Religion is a private matter and has no place in our government's functioning. Sheldon H. Kardener, Santa Monica .. To the editor: Trump wasn't clear how he would 'bring God back.' Is he going to accomplish this by inspiring us through personal example? Because there's nothing in Trump's arsenal of hating the stranger, oppressing people because of the color of their skin and adjudicated sexual abusing that has anything to do with Jesus. This is simply Christian nationalism, making America white and right again. President Trump, please leave Jesus out of it, like you've been doing all along. Linda Falcao, North Wales, Pa.
