01/05/2026
The Tortoise and the Hare Reading Club
The Hiding Place
By Corrie Ten Boom
Entry by Tracy Ong
If a N**i felt he was doing the good by following orders, wouldn’t he feel just all right if he was punished for his acts when a new moral order set in after the war? I mean, we are just talking about obedience here. Deferment to a present authority. Out with the old; in with the new. That would seem so by the same order of thinking. But if punishment seems unjust to him, then ultimately, the self reigns supreme. So, if there are people in comfortable positions who endanger their lives for a cause, then, why, they must be angels. And there must be a good beyond the preservation of the self.
I vaguely remember a discussion of the fundamental option (a core, abiding, life-orientation) we adopt as humans in theology class in college. Would I have exerted or manifested my fundamental option? Would I have had the courage to do what Corrie did? And if I didn’t but remained neutral and law-abiding – what did that make of me? What would have become of me? It can be so convenient to be deliberately nonchalant today, how much more before?
I haven’t read of a personal account of a political prisoner in a concentration camp until this book. Defend a Jew; die a Jew. I have to marvel at what makes the woman be able to thank God and say at her barest, you are God even of Ravensbrück.
Picked this book up at Holy Week and was blessed by it. Very simply written. Isn’t there more punch that way?
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