Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Wir sind nur Gast auf Erden

The other day The Flowing River sculpture at Harlow Lock by Anthony Lysycia (see photo below) was brought to my attention by a fellow narrowboater. It reminded me of the wording on my father's gravestone – see photo below. When we chose the wording for the gravestone, I knew that "Wir sind nur Gast auf Erden" is a hymn, but I didn't know much about its history/origin – it just seemed very appropriate, and it still does. I assumed that the hymn is 'quite old', and that there may be an English version, but it turns out that it was only written in 1935. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the theme is said to be critical of the Nazis, as were other works by the author, Georg Thurmair – see here, for example.