Abendlied

Today my heart is with my granpa, who is my hero and the smartest, well-read, brave man I know. He is very old and not doing well and my heart is breaking because I can’t be with him right now.  

I pray to God that I get to see him again  to hold his hand and I keep thinking of a letter he sent me a couple of years ago, containing the words to ‘Abendlied’ by Matthias Claudius

It is used as a lullaby here in Germany but is actually a very beautiful prayer about the beauty of life and our inability to understand anything without faith. 

Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
Die goldnen Sternlein prangen
Am Himmel hell und klar;
Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
Und aus den Wiesen steiget
Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

Wie ist die Welt so stille,
Und in der Dämmrung Hülle
So traulich und so hold!
Als eine stille Kammer,
Wo ihr des Tages Jammer
Verschlafen und vergessen sollt.

Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen?
Er ist nur halb zu sehen,
Und ist doch rund und schön!
So sind wohl manche Sachen,
Die wir getrost belachen,
Weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.

Wir stolze Menschenkinder
Sind eitel arme Sünder
Und wissen gar nicht viel;
Wir spinnen Luftgespinste
Und suchen viele Künste
Und kommen weiter von dem Ziel.

Gott, laß uns dein Heil schauen,
Auf nichts Vergänglichs trauen,
Nicht Eitelkeit uns freun!
Laß uns einfältig werden
Und vor dir hier auf Erden
Wie Kinder fromm und fröhlich sein!

Wollst endlich sonder Grämen
Aus dieser Welt uns nehmen
Durch einen sanften Tod!
Und, wenn du uns genommen,
Laß uns in Himmel kommen,
Du unser Herr und unser Gott!

So legt euch denn, ihr Brüder,
In Gottes Namen nieder;
Kalt ist der Abendhauch.
Verschon uns, Gott! mit Strafen,
Und laß uns ruhig schlafen!
Und unsern kranken Nachbar auch!

what’s in my heart today

I wrote this a while ago, moved by the feeling of losing someone. It is one of the few things I feel I do not have to revise a couple of months later, exactly 4 months to be precise…it don’t matter where I am, it stays the same. Tonight it is true just as it will be tomorrow though the motivation changes. Thank you for inspiring me, you know who you are. 

 

i am the last person you’d expect this from. i’m the crazy tattooed chick. time to drop your prejudice. for good.                 somewhere someone in this world is breathing their last breath as you are reading this. young, old, sick or healthy.

i am incapable of grasping how somebody i knew, somebody who was very much alive and breathing the last time i saw them, can just stop existing. hadn’t it been on the news i never would have known.                                                                                            

i have been confronted with death ever since my mother passed and everyday i am terrified of losing someone or seeing someone i like losing a loved one. time runs and we are too small to understand. we are tiny and unimportant, yet if you pay attention every moment of every day your mood changes because of the tiniest encounters…a text, a song, a call, a smile, a piece of chocolate, a moment of silence, a tear in someone else’s eye. they are all important to you in this life today and maybe for years to come. at this point, once more i realize the only way for me to live life without being overwhelmed by the pain and joy it brings, is to have faith.

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The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’ sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

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no matter if i know you well, you are my closest friend or someone i just met: you are in my heart and you have changed my life-

if only the slightest bit, for a minute, a look on your face, a thought or even a fight that i’ve grown from.

God bless you.