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New Year's Eve. A Blessing for the night

New Year's Eve. A Blessing for the night

Almut | The Weary Pilgrim's avatar
Almut | The Weary Pilgrim
Dec 31, 2021
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Cloister Notes
Cloister Notes
New Year's Eve. A Blessing for the night
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The Herrnhuter Christmas Star on a snowy day

“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.”

— D. Bonhoeffer

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 melancholi…

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