And he pitched his tent having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he builded an altar. Genesis 12:8
Hans Calmeyer saw himself as a “Hans im Glück” which in English means a happy-go-lucky journeyman who takes life and opportunity as it is given to him, somewhat passively but always with great enthusiasm and cheer in making the best of a situation. When Abram in the above allusion to Godliness and Worldliness (Bethel and Ai) chose to pitch his tent between the two places and extremes, he respected both and had access to and roles in both, he neither avoided the world nor did he avoid God. Calmeyer lived in both extremes, an intense Nazi time and environment with lots of crucial decisions and dangers and wrong, and acted as if in a spiritual place set above, a more God-pleasing place of ethics and right, that righteousness that Yad Vashem awarded him.
|