Blogs

No armistice – Remembrance – every year

No armistice
and every day a memory,
not remembrance.
Survival’s guilt hangs heavy
like a shroud.
The frightened eyes,
the failing breath,
the flailing limbs,
I will never forget.
Never forget.
Decades pass,
yet nothing fades,
vivid as yesterday
the violence,
the carnage,
flamed on the retina
of my mind.
I hold his hand,
hear his voice,
he slips away,
is,
yet is no more,
And
at the going down of the sun
and in every blazing,
blinding moment
I will remember him.
God where is your victory?
Death, I feel your sting.
Christ!
hold me.

© Andrew Pratt

When will we see all people just as people

When will we see all people just as people
devoid of labels, prejudice and fear?
When can we love our neighbours without limit,
not loving just the ones to whom we’re near?

When can we share the grace of God more simply,
not clouded by theology or fudge,
in order that the world may sense the presence
of Christ in love, and not some frowning judge?

God give to us audacity and courage
to grasp each nettle, risking others’ sting,
until the love that binds us all together
will hold us in one vast unbroken ring.

Andrew Pratt

Words © 2018 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, www.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.

Written in response to the Methodist Conference Marriage and Relationships Report having been delayed, as we were informed at Synod due to ‘unforeseen circmstances’.

Dysfunctional people? The state of society witnessed by politics

Dysfunctional people still seeking direction,
still blindly pursuing our selfish desires,
we’re longing for certainty, vision distorted,
embers of hate blown to wild, raging fires.

Struggling persistently, stirring up prejudice,
fuelling the hatred that labels the poor;
storing our wealth, yet more grasping than giving,
hoarding what’s worthless in life’s endless store.

When will we learn that our Godless humanity
faults every plan, undermines every hope,
leaving us desolate, fearing the future,
putting the love that we crave beyond scope?

Good God forgive us, restore and renew us,
knit a community woven with grace,
help us to live held by love for each other,
here, in this moment, right here in this place.

Andrew Pratt (7/11/2018)

Reflecting on the state of society in the UK and USA following mid-term elections in the USA.
Words © 2018 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England,
http://www.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.