"By gracious powers wonderfully sheltered." A Blessing at the turn of the year.

Bonhoeffer's hymn is sung widely in German lands at the year's turning. May it also bring you peace and hope.

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.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear fellow traveler,

With this image of the moon gazing over our Moravian star at dawn we greet you one last time this year from our home in Minnesota. The snow has melted away, giving the dirt of the old year one last hurrah, dipping the landscape in washed-out gray.

It might capture a bit how we feel about the state of the world at this year’s turning.

Thus, I always come back to the tradition of the “watch night” service I grew up with. These services have probably been started by the Moravians in Germany around 1732 as a service at the end of the year. These hours where the old and the new year meet have always been eased for me by the consoling words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, widely sung at watch night services across German lands.

So today I invite you into a reflection on the hymn, to join us in spirit while listening to it, perhaps to hum along, to meditate on Bonhoeffer’s words as a shared blessing for the new year. And finally, to resolve to send them forth into this aching world.

We are grateful to all who have been traveling with us through this year and to all who just found us in the last days. We are particularly grateful for the support from our paid subscribers and all who are walking with us through the 12 Days of Christmas this season. You can still join this contemplative journey to the deeper self by upgrading your subscription. Because Christmas is when you make it :-)

And may this blessing find you where you are, Almut with Chuck and Hannah

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 his hymn, written at the turn of the year, which gave me hope. His New Year hymn was always part of our end of year church service, when the little flock met in our house church on New Year’s Eve to receive the last blessing of the old year.

At midnight, my family went outside to ring the big bells housed in a modest steeple near the old cemetery, where the church had once stood before being destroyed in the war.

Oh, how I miss those bells.

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.

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, and it has guided us into the New Year also here also during our New Years’ retreats and 12 Days of Christmas Contemplations since.

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 months before Nazi Germany’s capitulation) at a time when much of Germany had been turned to rubble by the allied powers.  Bonhoeffer’s life, witness, and death gives the song special resonance at the turn of the year.

Especially in a year such as this.

In another year filled with worry and war, where people are burdened and frightened by their personal and political situation, when whole families are buried under rubble and children are orphaned every single day somewhere in this world, in a year that we leave behind with grief and gratitude, I cannot think of a more comforting text. It acknowledges the pain and offers comfort and courage.

It allows us to both hold our sorrows and cradle 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.”

— D. Bonhoeffer

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 tune of Bonhoeffer's hymn. Do listen. Do hum or sing. Do pray along. Do come back to it at midnight. And again in the new year’s beginning.

As you listen, reflect on what these words mean for you at this threshold of the year. Let them guide your heart toward both gratitude and courage as we step into the unknown.

May these gentle powers embrace us all and carry us forward into the unfolding New Year.

With love, Almut, with Chuck and little one

Here is an English version of the German song performed by Sigfried Fietz, a German musician and song writer, who wrote the musical setting of Bonhoeffer’s prayer in 1977. It comes with the English text to meditate on while listening.

Below is a German version with Sigfried Fietz at the piano:

“

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) 

”

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About Cloister Notes

A letter for dancing monks and weary pilgrims in the intersection of psychology, philosophy and spirituality. Contemplations on being human to deepen your path, nourish your heart and build wisdom within.

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About Almut & Chuck

Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych., OblSB is a German American psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a kindergartener. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.

Her husband Chuck Huff , PhD is a social psychologist who just retired from a long teaching career. He will look after their five year old during the 12 Days of Christmas so Almut can write, but he often also adds a reflection, a poem or some other surprise to the journey.