Category: Hymns

The ancient path – a hymn for Lent

Word, wisdom, song: the grounding of creation;
a rhythmic, rhyming, rhythm from the past
that weaves a mystic saintliness of being,
compelling sense of God, un-built to last.

The ancient path will lead our footsteps forward,
the future beckons us – as yet unseen,
the lapping sea of love will yet enfold us,
for every way  we go the Christ has been.

The heavens that encompass us while waiting,
the gentle touch enfolding us in death,
this warming spirit deep within our being,
is intimate as every living breath.

At every crossing woven through our seeing,
our sensing of the myriad stars of light,
give glances of a God beyond our being
still standing high in love beyond death’s night.

Yet on and on the circle is still turning,
a rhythmic, rhyming rhythm from our past:
Words, wisdom, song, the grounding of creation:
encircling love will hold, will always last.
Andrew Pratt 6/6/2015 © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2015
Tune: INTERCESSOR

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Here to eternity pilgrims meander – Pilgrim’s hymn

Here to eternity pilgrims meander.
Purposeless? Wondering? Listless, yet loved.
Eyes on the distance, we measure reality,
gently held, graciously, like a hand gloved.

Led by a passion, move onwards and upwards,
follow our destiny, seek after grace;
reach beyond limits society renders,
focussing freedom in this time and space.

Lives are not bounded by creed or religion,
life not constrained by tradition or fate;
grasp opportunity, balancing blessing,
rise above hatred before it’s too late.

Andrew Pratt 25/2/2019
Tune: THE BARD OF ARMAGH/STREETS OF LAREDO
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.

We dedicate ourselves to exploration – science/worship compared in a hymn

We dedicate ourselves to exploration,
to sound the height and depth of Godly love,
but if we lock ourselves within our churches
what worth is it to raise our hands above?

Like those who seek in scientific research,
behind closed doors committed to their task,
we find ourselves as lost to human pleading
until we hear the things that others ask.

Each theory bears its fruit in application,
our praise makes sense when others feel God’s grace;
until that time our search, it seems, is wasted,
a stark, unholy vacuum fills this place.
Andrew Pratt 19/2/2019
Tune: INTERCESSOR

After ‘When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door’, Fred Pratt Green, and Jim Al-Khalili’s interview in The Life Scientific of Sir Gregory Winter.

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.

Galactic clouds that surf through space – Hymn

Galactic clouds that surf through space,
remote from time and art;
beyond our sense of God or grace,
can make us freeze or start.

Collisions in a cosmic void
disturb our sense of peace,
set spinning hopes and fears and dreams
distorting our belief.

For earth-bound concepts tie our minds
to this material earth,
while metaphysical extremes
are wombed, then come to birth.

A new perspective shifts and shines,
a thousand stars give light,
a supernova come and gone
to brighten faith’s dark night.

Andrew Pratt 8/1/2019 & 2/2/2019
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.

Note: A catastrophic galaxy collision could send our solar system flying into space. That’s the conclusion of new research conducted via the EAGLE Project – a comprehensive computer simulation aimed at understanding how galaxies form and evolve – conducted on some of the world’s largest supercomputers. Astrophysicists at Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, working with the University of Helsinki in Finland, use data from the Eagle Project to predict a collision between our Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. The collision might dislodge our solar system, and send it flying, some two billion years from now. (Accessed 3/12/2019 https://earthsky.org/space/galaxy-collision-milky-way-lmc-solar-system )