This is our mother – Mothering Sunday hymn

This is our mother, the source of all being,
sharpening starlight, then raising the dawn,
singing forth sunshine, then playing with laughter,
scattering teardrops, in passion newborn.

Mother of oceans, so careful with splendour,
ground of creation and centre of life,
love in abundance, all caring, all seeing,
counter to conflict, now staying our strife.

This is our mother, the God of our parents,
source of the hope that has brought them to be,
present to hold us, then leading us onward,
loving, renewing, and setting us free.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . 
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. 
All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd..
11 10 11 10
Tunes: WAS LEBET WAS SCHWEBET; EPIPHANY HYMN

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption – hymn inspired by John 9: 1-41

A hymn inspired by John 9: 1 – 41…As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption,
locked in our judgments, so sure of our ground;
others are sinful, but we are the righteous,
this is the truth we are sure we have found.

This is our blindness and now we must own it,
owning suspicion of those we deride;
painting them wrongly, unjustly with hatred,
side-stepping honesty, trying to hide.

For like the Pharisees' we are self-serving,
gaining our wealth from the ones we oppress;
sometimes we bring down the ones who would challenge,
this we have done and now this we confess.

In this confession we seek your forgiveness,
God who has touched both the broken and frail.
We were thought strong, but we plead for compassion,
we, the successful, have found we can fail.

Yet you astound us, 'your sins are forgiven',
words that have echoed down into our time.
How can we warrant such scandalous mercy?
Only through grace can you offer this sign.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: EPIPHANY HYMH; IN THE BEGINNING GOD PLAYED WITH THE PLANETS

When language demeans… poem

When language just demeans ones we should love 
we know that we we have lost our common sense, 
we leave the lost diminished without care,
and hatred permeates the present tense.


And in this moment evil can be felt, 
while silence is an option to avoid, 
a voiceless church denies the life of Christ, 
as neighbours face an unremitting void.

© Andrew Pratt 12/3/2023

Illegal Migration Bill

Methodist News

The “Illegal Migration Bill”

“We are appalled by the proposals in the government’s ‘Illegal Migration Bill’ to detain, punish and reject thousands of people seeking safety. They are completely incompatible with our Christian conviction that all human beings are made in the image of God, and are therefore inherently worthy of treatment which honours their dignity.“

Church Leaders from the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Union have signed a joint statement expressing opposition to the government’s new ‘Illegal Migration Bill’.

Author: Andrew Pratt