With this image of the moon rising over the Sacred Heart Chapel at Saint Benedict's monastery, MN on New Year's Eve we greet you between the years.

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen (translated as “By gracious powers wonderfully sheltered” or “By gentle powers lovingly surrounded”) is a much-loved hymn that is widely sung in German speaking lands at the turn of the year.  The protestant theologian, church leader, and resistance member Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these inspiring and melancholic words as a prayer toward the end of his 2-year imprisonment by the Nazis.  He sent it to his family as an encouragement and profession of faith in December of 1944, just eight weeks before he was executed (and four month before Nazi Germany’s capitulation).  Bonhoeffer’s life, witness, and death give the song special resonance at the turn of the year.

In a year filled with worry and anxiety, where people have felt burdened and frightened by their personal and political situation, in a year where we have been under siege by contagious viruses, the virus of hatred and the virus of Covid, in a year we leave behind with grief and gratitude, I cannot think of a more comforting text. A text that allows us to walk into the night cradling hope: 

“The worries of the old year still torment us.
We’re troubled still by long and wicked days.
Oh Lord, give our frightened souls the healing
For which You’ve chastened us in many ways.”

Back in my little village in East Germany, behind the Iron curtain, when church attendance was sparse and life for any believer was one of constant repression, it was the courage of the philosopher-theologian Bonhoeffer and this song which gave me hope. His New Year song was always part of our end of year church service, when the little flock met in our house church on New Years Eve to receive the last blessing of the old year.

At midnight my family went outside to ring the big bells in the bell tower on the cemetery, where the church once sat before the Second World war destroyed it. We older siblings took turns pulling the ropes of the two heavy bells, to ring the village from the old into the new year. The villagers always waited until the bells turned silent to begin their fireworks - the official way Germans welcome the New Year.

So at the end of this year, whether you find yourself lonely or loved, harried or hopeful, anxious or assured, we want to send you forth into the night and into the unfolding of the New Year with the lyrics and tunes of Bonhoeffer's hymn. Do listen. Do hum or sing. Do pray along. Do come back to it at midnight. And again.

May this song comfort you at this threshold Eve and may God's gentle powers embrace you and enter with you into this New Year.

With love, Almut with Chuck

Practice

Listen with the ear of your heart, read along with the eyes of your soul…

Surrounded by such true and gentle powers.
So wondrously consoled and without fear,
Thus will I spend with you these final hours
And then together enter a new year.

By gentle powers lovingly surrounded,
with patience we’ll endure, let come what may.
God is with us at night and in the morning
and certainly on every future day.

The worries of the old year still torment us.
We’re troubled still by long and wicked days.
Oh Lord, give our frightened souls the healing
For which You’ve chastened us in many ways.
…

And though You offer us the cup so heavy.
So painful, it’s the most that we can stand.
Not faltering, with thanks we will accept it
And take it as a gift from your good hand.
…

And should it be Your will once more to grant us.
To see the world and to enjoy the sun,
Then we will all the past events remember
And finally our life with you is one.
…

D. Bonhoeffer. Dec 1944
(transl. by Ulrich Schaffer) 

(updated Jan 2022, 21, 17)

This post is part of our 12 Days of Christmas Series, a Contemplative Journey towards the heart of Christmas. To share your thoughts with us, write us here or comment below. To offer your gift for this journey, click here. If you want to work with us visit our PathFinder.

Thank you for sharing this text with some one who might enjoy it.
Peace and Blessings, Almut & Chuck