let my love be heard.

Angels
where you soar
up to God’s own light
take my own lost bird
on your hearts tonight
and as grief once more
mounts to heaven and sings,
let my love be heard
whispering in your wings.

A Prayer by Alfred Noyes
Music by Jake Runestad

I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in Germany in 1945, but I can imagine that there were probably few moments where the tension wasn’t tangible. I have no doubt that it shaped daily life. It shaped the life and legacy of those who lived it. It changed families, worldviews, politics, beliefs. So I can only imagine what day-to-day life was like.

If you travel west of Nuremburg you’ll find the small town of Brettheim nestled in the German countryside. It’s a blip on the radar, a tiny, unobtrusive town, but 73 years ago the small town was rocked to its core.

The long, bloody war was finally coming to an end in 1945. One evening in April, Hitler Youth arrived in Brettheim to defend against the oncoming American forces. The town knew that the boys were marching into nothing more than a bloody slaughter that would only prolong the war. The townspeople disarmed four of the boys of their guns, and all but threatened to give them a spanking for being so foolish. They threw the boys’ weapons into the pond and essentially publicly chastised the boys for their childishness.

The Hitler Youth reported the incident to their commanding officer, and that same night the SS showed up in Brettheim and began asking questions. One man confessed – a local farmer named Friedrich Hanselmann. He was almost immediately sentenced to death, but the mayor of the town refused to sign the death sentence – so he too was hastily condemned, as was a local schoolteacher who also refused to sign.

They were hanged from tall trees that stood at the entrance of the town’s cemetery. The commanding officer ordered that the bodies be left hanging for four days – on pain of death.

A year ago, a tall, solemn man named Father Michael led a group of travel-weary college students up a cobbled hill to Brettheim’s cemetery. It was a blue, hazy day – a day that made you feel as though nothing in the world could go wrong. The view was pastoral – beyond the quiet stones of the cemetery was rolling countryside dotted by small homes and criss-crosses of backroads. On that hill, Father Michael told us the story of the three men who lost their lives for throwing weapons in a pond.

“And if you look up,” he said, “these were the trees they were hanged on.”

I felt so many things at that moment, but more than anything I felt numb. I felt like I was standing there watching the swinging bodies of faces I’d seen, lived with, in my everyday life. Maybe numb isn’t the right word. Maybe it was surreal. How am I supposed to feel? 

I was in Brettheim on a choral tour, so that night we sang at Father Michael’s church. One of our pieces was based on a poem simply titled “A Prayer,” though it had soul-stirring words that went much deeper than mere prayer. It was a song of the human heart when it aches. Our director began telling our audience that the song was dedicated to the three men who sacrificed themselves for the dignity of their town and their own humanity. Our director could barely finish, and hardly any of us could sing. Tears were welling in my eyes and spilling down my cheeks. The music connected me to the strong emotions I could barely feel earlier that day. Now I couldn’t help but feel them.

In that small German town, my life changed. The way I looked at history changed. Instead of seeing it as a sentence in a textbook, I saw the towns. The people. The real tragedy, even in the everyday. How even the tiniest town can change history in the worst or the best way.

And what do we do with that heaviness – dare I say, that guilt? How do we let our love be heard? It may be through tears, deep and bitter. Love can be spoken in weeping. Love has many languages – we need only speak it.

I knew that day how important it is to let my love be heard. In the midst of pain, tragedy, and heartache. You may never know the story of a person, or a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. There is sometimes deep sadness behind people’s smiles.

Whatever your song is, sing it with love. Whether you sing joy, or grief, or a mixture of both, sing it with love. Let your love be heard.

Since I’ve got you here, I wrote a book. Think Game of Thrones meets Robin Hood. Check it out here.