Travels / The End of World War II Stories / Hymn for funeral

We have completed some traveling just now, the latest trip having been to attend the funeral of an uncle in Vancouver. He is the husband of my father's oldest sister and he was quite old when he died.  He had lived a highly eventful life, born an ethnic German Mennonite in the Ukraine and into the time of the second World War.  I heard his stories the first time when I was nine years old and could never forget them including the moral dilemmas and traumas he faced.  He is one who told his stories over and over.  His son said at the funeral that a movie could have been made of his life, and indeed, it would be an incredible movie.--But we are almost coming to the end of burying ethnic Germans who lived through the war and can remember it.  As a great loss to world history, their lives tend to have not been made into movies.

A hymn was passed out to sing for the funeral service that I did not know.

Below it is in German, as it was sung, and in English translation, which I am providing at this time.  The text is by Arno Poetzsch , 1941.


1. Du kannst nicht tiefer fallen
als nur in Gottes Hand,
die er zum Heil uns allen,
barmherzig ausgespannt.

2. Es muenden alle Pfade
durch Schicksal, Schuld und Tod
doch ein in Gottes Gnade
trotz aller unserer Not.

3. Wir sind von Gott umgeben
auch hier in Raum und Zeit
und werden in ihm leben
und sein in Ewigkeit.

_________


1.  You cannot fall so low,
that you are not still in God's hand,
which he holds out for us all,
graciously for our salvation.

2.  All paths lead to the mercy of God,
be it through tragedy, guilt and death,
or any of our great need and trouble.

3.  God surrounds us
even here in space and time,
and we will also live in him,
in eternity.