Blogs

Hymn books or projectors and screens?

Worth a reading – noted by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/18/churches-should-ditch-projector-screens-bring-back-hymnals/?fbclid=IwAR0YIzvlJnY9o1nAm6k3JCDecSgldplR138Ra0ZMvqFZ8JCEIZ9_TbjJZv8

Communion with our God in prayer – https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/

Communion with our God in prayer
may be explained in mystic ways:
a prophet’s dream, a shining light,
that flashes through the darkest night.

Yet that same sense of harmony
can be explained in other ways,
as neurones channel, pulse and play,
the darkest night can seem like day.

We question, is this God or self?
Can God in spirit fire each mind?
Is prayer a myth we ought to shelve,
as we experiment and delve?

A deeper wisdom might explain
that neural pulses we detect
show prayer and science can equate,
as cause and symptom correlate.

So it should not seem odd or strange,
that when we meditate or pray,
a God incarnate offers grace,
inspires each neural interface.
Andrew Pratt 19/10/2019

Tune: O WALY WALY
Metre: LM
Written in response to Rev’d Canon Dr Joanna Collicutt seminar on The Psychology of Neuroscience and Prayer
Words © 2019 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.