Blogs

Hiroshima Day – a possible hymn

Hiroshima Day is marked every year on 6 August, the day in 1945 on which the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. 
The film Oppenheimer explores some of the ethical questions related to this event. Others have questioned its rights and wrongs since 1945.

The following poem/hymn was written  in response to the photo of a little boy rescued from a bombed building in Allepo in Syria. Equally it is evocative of children everywhere suffering whenever we settle our disputes through war or violence.

It speaks as much to our vision of a destroyed city as to the cries of a single child:

A bloodied child foreshadowed by a cross,
both share their taste of evil and of loss,
and when will people ever live and learn
that hurt and harm is all that war can earn?

We hold our breath in horror as we view
this scene forever old, forever new;
amid the dust and rubble strewn around
a child cries out and parents can’t be found.

How long, O Lord we cry, each hollow word,
our pleas of peace increasingly absurd?
Good God, forgive us when inaction’s voice
speaks loudly of our violent, hurtful choice.

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 18 August 2016 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.
Metre: 10.10.10.10.
Suggested tunes: these words were written with the tune EVENTIDE (StF 141) in mind. Singing the Faith plus suggests these alternatives: THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP (StF 640) and – perhaps surprisingly – WOODLANDS  (StF 186)

Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate – a hymn inspired by a text suggested by Gordon Taylor

Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate 
Words inspired by a text suggested by Gordon Taylor at a hymn workshop of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland in Lincoln July 2023. The theme is a response to the Government’s Illegal Immigration Bill.

Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate 
that festers in a hardened, ravaged heart, 
when lives abandoned to a savage sea,
have hope denied, grace drowned out from the start.

As cold officials act with callous power
we sing the words that plead and pray for care,
to see humanity in each new face
to wipe away the tears of rank despair.

How long, O God, will we discard the lives, 
that you have birthed that we should seek to save, 
who caught by circumstance, or course of life,
we destine to a swirling, watery grave.

Yes perfect love can cast out fear and hate 
that festers in each hardened, ravaged heart, 
when we reach out to others in their need.
Through gracious words, new hope has power to start.

© Andrew Pratt 19/7/2023 Words © 2023 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: 10.10.10.10
Tune: YANWORTH

There is no clash of creeds – A hymn to remind us of our common humanity whatever our ethnicity or creed

There is no clash of creeds,
no hatred thought or said,
where love is taken seriously,
where neighbour's needs are fed.

Beliefs are put aside,
so care can take the stage;
no creed is more important here
than loving come of age.

The gamble that we take
from each religious frame,
is letting go of certainty,
of silencing our claim.

No pride in rite or creed
is ever worth a life;
for this humanity we share
transcends all human strife.

Together let us build,
and keep the end in view:
a vast community of love
for all, not just the few.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
© 2008 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Words © 2008  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: SM
Tunes: GARELOCHSIED; SANDYS

A hymn inspired by Jesus use of parables and stories

He taught in puns and riddles,
in pictures wrung from words,
of gates and fields and shepherds,
of fish and flowers and herds.
These parables are potent,
ingrained with hope and grace,
infused with love and beauty,
transcending time and place.


So Jesus, Word incarnate,
became the word he spoke,
embodied loving kindness,
in whom our faith awoke.
Not just a simple shepherd,
a gate to keep the sheep,
the image offers credence
that we may safely sleep.


And every phrase he uttered,
and every step he took,
say, this is God, this shepherd,
into whose world we look.
His parables paint pictures 
of love we strain to grasp, 
beyond our comprehension, 
this love will always last.


Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 © 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: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: DAY OF REST