Eberhard Arnold

Meeting Transcript, November 3, 1932

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - T.S.H.]

[Draft Translation by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

EA 26

Talk with Werkhof members. Brotherhood, November 3, 1932

Eberhard: Now you must also tell us something about the rolling stone . . . . We understand that you, Hans [Meier] and Max [Lezzi] are decided, for your families as well, at the same time representing Robert and, as it seems, Kaspar, and that you have the clear will for a true uniting in the Spirit for a life meant to be a witness for torn mankind and a living pointer to the other, the coming world and time. Thus we may proceed from this assumption.

Max: That is right.

Eberhard: In your last letter you wrote, among other words that are positive, that the question about uniting geographically is still causing difficulties here and there. Is that so?

Max: Yes.

Eberhard: Are there still other questions besides this one that need to be cleared up in these days?

Hans: There are still quite a number of questions, but perhaps they don't need to be cleared up in these days.

Eberhard: Maybe it would be good, though, if the questions that are being put were at least opened up in our midst, for the deeper the questions pierce, the closer we will also come to the answer, and we should not hesitate to fling open the questions.

Hans: For one thing, there is the question about uniting geographically. I believe I know for a fact that tasks such as those that await us here at the Bruderhof await us likewise at other places and that the unity of the Spirit knows no distances in the spatial sense. Now, however, the situation is that we have been called by you and we do not have the clarity not to follow this call; rather, on the contrary, we feel urged to come here, even though not very definitely; that is, in our first letter we wrote that we would go to wherever we were called. Until now it is a fact that we have been called only by you to the Bruderhof and that we have not been called from any other side. In many respects this would be the sense in which we would come to the Bruderhof and not in the sense that we see it as an absolute inner necessity to come here, but more that we see no other opportunity. We must first find out what we could do together . . . positive clarity. . . . In regard to the move, [that] could not be sufficient . . . . I would like to say how this came about. When Peter and Anni [Mathis] came home and made their decision known, we also spoke about this. They also conveyed your message again. I felt in myself a resistance to this uniting in one place, but in the course of the next day I somehow came to feel clearly that we must follow this call. However, I do not exactly know the deeper reasons.

Eberhard: Now, Max, what is your position on these practical questions and the reasons for them?

Max: About five years ago we came here for the first time. Even then the question about living in full community was moving us very much. And as early as that too, we received a great deal from the Bruderhof to take with us. But at that time the needed clarity and conviction was not there yet in me, nor in Hans either, I believe, to decide willingly and freely to live our lives here at the Bruderhof. The Bruderhof meant a great deal to me at that time; today it means even much more. But it was not so clear to me that this way alone was the way for us. The reasons are known to you in part from that time. We were moved by the questions--to express them in summary--about the Kingdom of God in the world, about working and serving in the world. That was also the reason we went back into daily life, into our professions, and were able to go on working there for two or three years. Then we began at the Werkhof. I think it is all right to say here that we had not thought it all through in every detail, but rather we were allowed to experience that there was a providence, a leading. We were then together at the Werkhof for two years--it is two years today. I don't believe any one of us would wish these two years had not been. They were important for us. They were a schooling for us in a certain sense, a necessary one.

How does it happen then that now, after these two years, we are once more standing on the selfsame spot where we were five years ago; really it isn't by chance, though. As I see it, the most recent part of the time is of particularly great importance for me. Here we have been faced with happenings that are not based on anything material. To mention just the most decisive ones perhaps: Peter and Anni's difficult decision to leave us and go to Graubünden, and then the experience that in spite of all this they were able to decide to continue on with us in community. Hans Boller was able to contribute in a special way to this great event. The way we see it, he was used as an instrument. When one has shared in such an experience, it is impossible just to have done with it by pushing it to one side. It has something to say to us.

In addition to this, Peter and Anni went to the Bruderhof with Hannes and Else; after all, they did for a long time have a resistance, an aversion, to the Bruderhof, most likely through our fault. It was a very important and great thing to us, this free decision. It was not easy for them either, but they went. And then when they came, that spoke very plainly to us. And now we are faced with the fact that we long and wish and hope in full dedication for unity, the complete unity in the Spirit with you, and want to give ourselves fully to it. And as we wrote in our first letter, if it should be necessary, we--all who wish it and have joy--would like to pack up to come here to the Bruderhof.

I think I have also experienced this. It is not because one has once said so, but because we are ready, really ready, to do it. Certainly, what Hans said is true; this necessity to come together geographically in order to attain inner unity still gives us a good deal of trouble. Maybe we are on a really wrong track there. It is something we actually don't quite understand. But even that should not be a reason to prevent us, and for the sake of readiness we would like to lay it aside and say yes, we seek unity, full unity. In these two years we have also been seeking it, perhaps not hard enough; but now I believe we want to put ourselves in completely.

Eberhard: Let us sing “We are so base and sinful, oft drive the spirit away.”

For this evening we had thought not to continue too long since our Swiss friends are all tired from their journey; still, this is an evening we must take very seriously, for this very day is the second anniversary of the Werkhof and its true-hearted and dedicated struggle for real community. So I think we could now have a speaking around the circle for all who feel urged to do so, so as to give direction to the questions and also the confessions and the burning witnesses behind them.

The point at issue in all this is faith in the Holy Spirit. The point is the fact that God, who has created all things and without whom no created thing exists, has sent His Holy Spirit over the earth, to all men in every place on earth. The point is also that this Spirit seeks to gather everyone, to bring everyone together. It was through this Spirit that Jesus was placed in the world among men, and He in turn testified to this gathering power of the Holy Spirit when He said, "How often did I want to gather your children, how often--but you would not!" And He was taken away from those who refused to be gathered. He was killed by the spirit of scattering, the power that drives asunder. And He came back to His own people as the Living One and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit! As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. Whatever you join together on earth shall be joined, and whatever you separate on earth shall be separated; whatever you bind shall be bound." And from this moment on, those whose hearts were gripped by this Spirit were urged to stay together. And they remained together in holy expectation, in intense fear and anxiety, not for two years, but still for long weeks.

This very tense expectation was and is and remains the necessary condition for full uniting, for full uniting does not come about by combining human spirits into a unity of the spiritual beings that men, all human beings, carry within them; rather, it comes about only and solely by the coming down, the breaking in, the descending, of that Spirit who is not a human spirit and therefore cannot be created by combining people, but who alone is the power that begets and bears unity.

Into this stillness of expectation the Spirit broke in. The consequence of this breaking-in of the Spirit was that people truly repented, totally changed their life conduct, became one in faith with Jesus Christ, were immersed into His death and His resurrection, and were filled with this same Holy Spirit. And so these people became one heart and one soul. They had community in the truth of the apostles, in community of table and community of goods, in communal prayer and worship of God. They had community in the deepest depth and the widest breadth, and therefore they held together and remained together. They had to be together, for this uniting Spirit has the effect of bringing together, whereas all other spirits have the effect of separating.

So it was that they were brought together. This was the action of the Holy Spirit, and this fact of being brought together could only be altered temporarily by two different events, events that destroyed what was significant in the daily, practical striving together and living together. One of these was the hostile power that brought Jesus to the Cross and took Him away from earth because it could not tolerate . . . . This hostile power was one thing that tried to break apart the togetherness and in fact did cause separation by twice destroying Jerusalem and by the most gruesome deeds of violence, by a huge and horrible massacre. And the other power, the opposite one, which through a centrifugal energy supplements the full togetherness of unity striving together around the center--this other power is mission by the Church.

This mission, however, does not in any sense mean a loosening of the full uniting. True, mission gives the appearance of separating from one another, but this separating is nothing but the outward radiating of the light, the fire, borne to all lands by light-bearers, fire-bearers. These latter do not go out there to stay, but to return again with their torches to those gathered, followed by smaller and larger groups. They may be compared with the sun, which sends out mighty flames in enormous solar vortices into immeasurably remote spaces; yet all these flames return again to the center of the sun. If it were not for the violent ejections of light-power hurled from the innermost center of the sun, the radiation and the giving of warmth by this midpoint of our planetary system would not be possible. And the emission of these projections of light receives strength from the sun only through the faithful persistence with which these light projections return to the center of gathering. If these protuberances were to race outward into the unending distances of universal space, the sun would long since have ceased to exist.

Mission is the deepest faithfulness that there is to full Unity and full gathering around the one round table; there is no deeper loyalty to the oneness of gathering than mission. Mission is the strength to gather, the energy to radiate, that comes from uniting. If it were anything else for a single moment it would be lost.

It seems to me therefore that the question of whether a geographical uniting at one place on the map is necessary or perhaps even questionable is a misguided one. The Spirit that unites does not ask whether coming together is necessary or questionable; it only asks how the joining can be achieved in the quickest and most thorough way. And the Spirit that unites knows that this coming together signifies the deepest preparation for that mission which is a sending out to all the world, and that this sending out into the world is possible only through the concentrated joining together in the white-glowing heat of the central sun. For this reason Jesus spoke of the City on the Hill as the light upon its stand. For this reason He who called Himself the Light of the World said to His own people, "You are the light of the world."

Hans Boller [spoke about providential encounters that had moved the Werkhof group and compared the Church to a mother who sends a child out.]

Hans Meier [said that freedom was no longer a question for them, but their concern was the fact that there is only one Spirit; he was not yet able to respond positively to the call to unite on one place even though he felt in unity.]

? [spoke about the need to experience the Spirit of unity.]

Fritz Kleiner: We are living in an era of decline nowadays. There is no religion and no politics that can show a solution or a way out of this era, and we, like the Werkhof members, have come to feel clearly that nothing but a genuine community will lead us out of this world. And it is clear to us that it can only lead the way out through unity. Where there is no unity, there is no community. Whether it is here or there is not important; the unity is the only important thing.

Georg Barth: When all of you were here that time five years ago, one could sense that you wished to help, but in those days you didn't know yet what direction would be helpful. But this time, after you have been trying to set up something that would help, you will surely have realized what it is that can help--not just any work, but the sense in which it is done. The only thing that helps is unity. If we have anything at all to say to people, then it is this one thing only: unity. And if this is not present, nothing else will do any good.

Father Fischli: I received a friendly word of invitation from Trautel, and I thank you for this meeting . . . . I would have liked to say something at the table, but I had better say it now. There are two things. I know what I owe to the Bruderhof. There is not one member of my family who is not connected with it and a part of it in some way. I know, for myself and Mother Fischli, what we both owe to that which is in the Bruderhof. Both of us have found something that also is part of this unity, and that is a great deal. And today is my third time among you. When I met Karl today, immediately a comparison struck me which is true for me as well. And what I encountered was people who had something written on their foreheads, something deep, something I believed in but could not account for; but it was something sublime and it drew me. And I sought to choose that way which would give me the greatest freedom from outward ties. Anyway, I must have missed this, for I do not see it before me so intensely as I did . . . . [etc.; spoke very inconclusively.]

Emmy: The problem that occupies us is freedom and unity and how it is possible to bring them into harmony . . . . We have been concerning ourselves with this problem off and on for years. What we have learned is that freedom can only be given through unity. But freedom sometimes also contains something that strives to separate. To bring these two things into harmony, that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is the issue.

[At this point Manfred, Hans Meier, and Roland spoke (their words are not recorded)]

Emi-Margret [not verbatim]: if unity is what is truly willed and if we are really called, then whether it should be here or there is no problem at all any more. Unity is fully at one with itself, and uniting in place cannot be separated from uniting in spirit.

Eberhard: That is the crucial truth. The question whether we are really called is not even up for discussion. We are not the ones who have called you to the Bruderhof at the Sparhof; it is the Holy Spirit who has called us and you because this Spirit always brings about gathering at one place. Please understand that we have a witness to bear. It is this: wherever the Holy Spirit brings what He wills, wherever the Holy Spirit acts in the way He wills, all strive together. This striving together is the nature of the Spirit. It is a doubting of the Spirit of Jesus Christ even merely to ask the question whether we should come together in one place. It is already a resisting of the Holy Spirit as the power that strives for togetherness. You must understand that what we have here is a fundamental doubting of truth. Truth brings together, but this question separates. You must understand that this question cannot possibly be born of the Spirit of unity.

The necessity to be at different places can come up as an unavoidable fate. But the question that ponders whether or not coming together is necessary is a resistance toward the Holy Spirit; it is a deep-seated doubting of the Spirit's nature. He brings together, He never separates. It is as Emi-Margret said; in this gathering action by the Spirit one cannot make a distinction between events of a purely spiritual nature and those that are geographical or historical. This spirit brings together everything in past history that was united with everything in present history that is united. In the same way, this Spirit knows no boundaries in place. He is unlimited in regard to the problem of limitations. He simply has to bring together. So you did not quite understand our letter where I made a comparison with America; what I meant in our letters was just this: In connection with the Bruderhofs in America, we are prepared to come together in one place. We are decided, as soon as the opportunity is given. We feel urged and pressed to do this and we have no objections to make to it. We are only held up by very specific things that make it impossible for the time being to come together locally, geographically. One is that at present we do not yet have permission to emigrate; but that could possibly be overcome. The deeper one is that we are in the midst of mission work that we must not interrupt at the present moment; we would not be able to do this work from the center of North America, whereas from Switzerland we would be able to do it just as well as here, from Fulda. For this reason the Brothers over there feel we should still remain here. This is how Joseph Stahl expresses it in his letter.

Our feeling as of now is that we are drawn with great force to full uniting, but we cannot do it as yet. And that gives us pain. So if you were able to speak this way: "We feel the necessity to be united at one place with all who want unity with all their hearts and are filled with faith in the Spirit of unity, but there are insurmountable obstacles so that we with our human thinking must regard it as impossible"--if you spoke like that, we could understand it.

This doubting question, on the other hand, is something we reject. It does not exist for us. It does not come out of faith, out of the urge of the Spirit, the enthusiasm of the united Church, Jesus' power to draw, the radiation of God's future Kingdom; only one sole urge comes out of all this, and that is the urge to come together, and from now on to bring together just as many people as possible. That is what God's Spirit wills.

Else Boller: It seems to me that a childlike trust needs to come in here instead of these questions. We people at the Bruderhof should be left out of it entirely. "Unless you become like children . . . ."

Eberhard: The questions are too human . . . . God's Spirit has called you and called us. We are not the ones who have called you, not in the least--we would consider that wrong--any more than Hans Boller has called you; and Peter and Anni have only expressed the call that went forth from the Spirit of complete unity. We here are not a group composed of people each of whom has a good enough will toward unity, with the idea that the combination of these many wills, directed to the good, will then produce something like unity in the Spirit. That is not what we believe, but that in spite of our incapacity for community, in spite of human beings and nevertheless, in spite of the weaknesses in our characters and our shortcomings in gifts, in spite of being the way we are, the Spirit of complete unity, who is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, has called us to come together and bring together. That is what we have to confess.

Trautel: [Words not recorded]

Leo [spoke of faithfulness].

Hans Meier: The only thing I can answer to this is that it was not a doubting question; it is that you called us to come here and I do not feel inwardly called to this.

Eberhard: I call that doubting. And I can only advise you not to come here. If that is the way you feel, you certainly cannot open yourself to the Spirit of unity in faith and love. That is a good human decision, but it is not faith in the Spirit who brings together. Good human decision is not enough for community. It would do no good at all if quite a large number of people were to gather together with their good decisions and their will to community, if such people were to gather near Fulda now instead of near Zurich.

That is not unity; that is not how unity comes to be. Never. Unity only comes out of unconditional dedication to that gathering which is not called forth by men, but which is reality through Christ's birth of Mary, through Christ's death on the Cross, through His resurrection, His rulership, through the outpouring of His Holy Spirit and through the coming of God's Kingdom, and which comes about only when this reality grips us. Then we will no longer answer, "It is Thy will, but we did not want it," but instead from now on we will answer, "Thou gatherest us, and we follow." This is unconditional faith: that a gathering is called, and comes into being, that is not willed by men, but is willed by God. That is not religion of the head but of the heart. And we can recognize it very clearly with our hearts. That is something that hearts recognize--that this picture alone is what can help the world.

The world is falling apart all over. It is going to pieces. It is decaying. Its whole process is one of disintegrating. This is its death. And now, right in the midst of this fearful time, Christ, through His Holy Spirit, places His City, His Church, in the midst of the world as full, unconditional uniting. The only help that can be given to the world is to have a place of gathering here, a will to bring together and come together, to unite, a will that is absolute and knows no more doubt.

Max Lezzi: I am sorry that you, Eberhard, are now actually rejecting this absolute will for gathering that we have. To me the important thing seems to be the actual will to unity. And as we expressed this in the first letter, not only by stating this but also by having already acted and being in fact ready for the start, neither you nor we can doubt that we have this will to unity and that we are ready for all the consequences.

Eberhard: I am not rejecting anything. I really am so happy for every spark; but I just see that these are two completely different things. Without a doubt I recognize your faithful good will. But good will is not enough for full community. I wish we could win through to that absoluteness which no human being can produce; this absoluteness is only in God; it knows no distracting question. I see all the things that led you to mutual forgiveness as a great reality. I only must point out for truth's sake that this question contains something that transgresses against that reality, that this question does not correspond to the absoluteness that is alive and working in you; it did not come out of that. The way we put it was like this . . . .

[The transcription breaks off here. Page 13 of EA 26 says, "Continuation in shorthand notes." These notes were not found at time of re-transcription. The re-transcription continues: ]

Father Fischli: . . . When the Werkhof came to the point of "We must go to you," there was no thought, not a word was said by anybody, about outward things. And I felt there that the people meant it sincerely. If it hadn't been that way, we would have been repelled from again giving up something dear, something I have grown to love. I know the people are faithful and want it and are not thinking of outward things.

Eberhard: We really have not understood each other here. I don't believe the character of our life as a life of faith has been recognized yet. We are firmly convinced that the will is an unequivocally dedicated one. We believe even more: that in the hour when the first letter was written, the Spirit of unity really and truly spoke so convincingly that everybody placed himself under the call of God's Spirit. And in the face of this fact we point out that a spirit of temptation has arisen, opposing this basic experience. And this spirit puts the kind of question that could never lead to a coming together if it were followed up. This question can never bring about a leading together. That is not possible. The only thing that can lead to a bringing together and a coming together is the longing to leap completely over all obstacles so as to accomplish the uniting. And certainly, as we do believe in common, what we call community and uniting and social consequence is a matter of faith in the purely spiritual sphere just as much as it is a matter of faith in the economic sphere.

You must understand that the problem of faith is a different thing from the problem of the faithful will. The faithful will is a pre-condition for faith. Yet faith is something else again, different from the faithful will. That is a direct gift. Faith is so absolute that it does not put such questions.

Hans Boller [spoke about not forgetting the powerful experiences and falling away from faith.]

Eberhard: That is what I mean. The passion of our hearts touches our love so that we now struggle with you to reach out in order that this may take place with the right faith.

We need to have faith, like Abraham, in a call from God, even for a change of location.

? : The way I stand is this: the first thing Hans Meier said really speaks to our hearts; yes, that is what we want too. But something that Hans Meier said, the final remark, to that we say there is no reason for it.

Eberhard: It has no reason in God, but in men. That is not enough, for man is still too widely separated from what is of God. Therefore this reason cannot suffice. We are so full of longing because none of us has confidence in himself. Here is the crucial thing in this situation. This is why we have such deep, ardent longing for the Holy Spirit to visit us. And this does happen . . . . This word spoken by the Holy Spirit is always unanimity, and this is true in economic, temporal problems just as much as in purely inner problems. When the Spirit fills us, then there is only one Spirit among us, not a variety. That is the innermost concern of our faith. And the Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself--never. He is in full accord with Himself. That is our basic faith; it is what makes us united. Isn't that so, Anni and Peter?

Peter: Yes. That is why we are so happy to come back home. We both have a good mother, but never have we gone home so joyfully as we have come here today.

Hans Zumpe [spoke about following the voice of the Spirit and disregarding one's personal opinions; about the task of opposing the powers then threatening world war.]

Emmy: We are completely in agreement with those from the Werkhof that words are of no use, that they are worn out and have no strength; that nothing but a symbolic life that points out ways can help the world. And then surely any unity that leads together, that leads to uniting, to the flame and to strengthening, is absolutely needful and indispensable today.

Max Lezzi: The things that happened, which were marvelous and still are and remain so now, have led us to surrender unconditionally to the call of unity, accepting all the consequences for ourselves. And this is why these steps have been taken too. And I see that the differing concepts of the Bruderhof and the Werkhof lie in the fact that the Bruderhof assumes that the Spirit also calls upon us to draw together in the sense of locality but not of geography [?]. To be honest, I must say in behalf of us all that we certainly must surrender completely to full unity, but that we cannot just simply assume that the Spirit must bring us together in place, but rather that this uniting Spirit [goes] into the entire world.

Eberhard: Yes, He passes through the whole world. But what happens in case of death? Where then is the uniting of the eternal Kingdom? You understand, it is possible to live that direction scattered apart . . . , while the tendency . . . .

Think of the Revelation of John; the Wedding Banquet--the one Bride waits for her one Betrothed; think of the Lord's Supper--everyone sits in one room at one table; think of the Sermon on the Mount--the one City . . . .

Max Lezzi: Symbolic pictures.

Eberhard: Your life too should be just as symbolic.

[Transcriber's note: A number of pages are missing here in the shorthand notebook. So possibly this was not the close.]

[This translation also replaces the earlier translation of EA 178 entitled "On Mission" as it translates a more complete transcription of EA 26 and EA 178, which were actually the same brotherhood meeting. See note at end.]