With this image of the Herrnhuter Christmas Star over our home on a snowy MN day in MN we greet you one last time this year. It has become our tradition in the family (and with our 12 Days of Christmas family) to meditate Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s New Year’s poem on New Year’s Eve. So we share this with you in the hopes that it will bring renewed blessing and healing to you at this thin place between the years.

BONHOEFFER’s 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-poem 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 months before Nazi Germany’s capitulation).  Bonhoeffer’s life, witness, and death give the song special resonance at the turn of the year. (Here Almut shares some of her behind-the-wall memories with the song in a former post.)

In a year filled with worry and anxiety, under siege by contagious viruses, the virus of hatred and the virus of Covid, a year we leave behind with grief and also gratitude, we cannot think of a more realistic, honest, and yet comforting text. A text that allows us to walk into the night cradling hope.

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 click on the video below to hear (and read) the English version of the 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 & Chuck with little one

Practice

Listen and ponder and sing…

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) 

This post is part of our 12 Days of Christmas Series 2021/22: “Always we begin again…”, a Contemplative Journey towards the heart of Christmas. To enter our virtual gathering space or to subscribe click here. To share your thoughts with us, write us here or comment below. To consult with us, visit our PathFinder.

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Thank you, thank you.

Peace and Blessings, Almut & Chuck