Blogs

Slow sailing – reflecting on aging

In age, so often, life, it seems,
is like a leaky boat.
Our forward progress slows and swings
with the tide,
its ebb and flow.
For want of caulking
bilges seep and timbers creak
with every swing and turn
but still we cut between the waves,
while tacking with the flow.
And though it may seem strange to some
who wish to race ahead,
the more I travel now, I think,
I’d rather travel slow.
The harbour will come soon enough,
to moor and come to rest,
for now a passage,
calm and slow,
would seem much better blessed.

© Andrew Pratt 9/3/2020 – in response to an email from Claire Wilson

Inderjit Bhogal – The Wilberforce Way – interview with Clare Balding – BBC

This is pertinent to the situation that we live in. Today people in this country who are different live in fear. The best we can offer to those who are different from ourselves, in whatever way, is to enable them to feel accepted and welcome and not afraid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fpbq

A Hymn for Pilgrims – ‘A scallop shell the badge of our devotion’ – written to mark the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth, England.

A scallop shell the badge of our devotion,
as, travelling on where other steps have led,
we trust in God for all our life’s provision,
for love and joy, and for our daily bread.

We seek the path wherever Christ may lead us,
held firm by love and grounded in God’s grace,
we share companionship with those who join us,
and in each one we meet Christ face to face.

The past has witnessed, through our history’s pages,
to life-long sacrifice, to faith and praise;
as pilgrims let us vow to future ages
we’ll walk in hope and love through all our days.

Andrew Pratt (b.1948), 1/2/2020
Words © 2020 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.
Tune: INTERCESSOR (Parry, 1848-1918; public domain)

The Mayflower set sail on 16th September 1620 from Plymouth, UK, to voyage to America, known to English explorers at the time as the New World.
See https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/the-mayflower-story/