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Lament for Palestine and Israel – unknowing babies sleep now

A Lament for Palestine and Israel

Unknowing babies sleep now, 
exhausted without food, 
while mothers cry in anguish – 
this lottery is crude: 
when missiles, ‘with precision’,               
seek targets, hid, unseen,
as leaders point the finger
so consciences are clean.

Amid this dust and carnage 
where human life is cheap, 
where body parts are scattered 
we turn our heads and weep, 
yet this is soon forgotten, 
the image fades, has gone, 
another channel chosen 
we sing a soothing song.

In this we are immersed now, 
our pain will soon be lost,
the anguished cries diminished, 
we need not bear the cost. 
A distant drum is beating, 
we’re deaf to hear its sound 
a tiny body buried , 
in seared, unhallowed ground.

And mothers still are sobbing 
while fathers shed salt tears, 
and lives are marked by hours now, 
yet mem’ries seethe for years.
How long, O God, can terror 
be harboured in a mind? 
How long before Your children 
are nurtured to be kind?

© Andrew Pratt 14/11/2023
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.
Tune: NYLAND H&P 478II, REJOICE AND SING 529

Hymn for Remembrance

Hymn for Remembrance: This fragile, passing beauty

This fragile, passing beauty,
this autumn, red and gold,
a season’s recollection:
love never will grow cold.
The seasons change and fracture,
the leaves of green turn brown,
as life seems tinged with sadness,
as petals flutter down.

This time of our remembrance
that reaches back to pain,
the chill of recollection
can open wounds again;
But this we must remember
that human war and hate
are matters of our choosing
and not some random fate.

God let this time of grieving,
of memory and regret,
enable reparation,
in case we just forget.
Fill human hearts with courage,
frame human words with grace,
that love might flow among us,
make Earth a sacred place.

Words: Andrew Pratt © 2019 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.

Metre: 76.76.D

See Notes from Singing the Faith plus: Written with a lovely Norwegian folk melody in mind:

“Bred dina vida vingar”. This is widely available online and in Andrew Pratt’s own collection, Reclaiming Praise: hymns from a spiritual journey No.142. Arrangements of the tune can be heard at https://youtu.be/V6dDt3OJf6Q (violin).

An offered alternative is Aurelia (StF 690); but for a tune whose key change reflects the mood shift half through each verse, try Wolvercote (StF 563i).

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.

God still needs prophets – old hymn perhaps for now?

God still needs prophets who will rage,

against discrimination,

who speak God’s words amid despair,

to this and every nation;

who reach again with nail scarred hands,

into the pain we’re feeling,

to hold us when we weep at loss,

who bring a hope of healing.

 

God still needs prophets who will hold

a mirror to our blindness,

to show us, each and everyone,

how hollow is our kindness;

how empty are our words of love

when shrouded in derision,

how clever words can’t justify

unloving indecision.

 

God still needs prophets who ignore

religions that confine us,

who magnify our words of love

through actions to refine us.

May we be prophets through our words

and in our hands of healing,

that others might see Christ in us

while Christ to us revealing.

 

Andrew Pratt 23/11/2008

Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Pleaseinclude any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All widerand any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.