Another hymn for Maundy Thursday from Marjorie Dobson (see also 'A towel and a basin')
1 At the table of communion
Jesus spoke with heavy heart
of the pain of separation,
soon to tear them all apart.
Listening without understanding,
too absorbed with food and wine,
carefree friends could read no meaning
in his simple words and sign.
2 Bread was broken, as his body:
wine, a symbol of his blood.
Yet his call to keep that memory
was not clearly understood.
Judas left, but no one noticed,
thought his business was his own.
Jesus, looking round the table,
knew himself to be alone.
3 As they sang their psalm that evening,
then went out into the night
innocent of apprehension,
unprepared for fear or flight,
how their hopes and dreams were shattered,
confidence was turned to dread
and as chaos ruled around them,
one by one they turned and fled.
4 As they witnessed pain and horror-
trial, cross and guarded tomb-
they remembered Jesus' warning
given in that upper room.
Struggling hard to find the meaning,
in symbolic word and sign.
they would find that same communion
we still share in bread and wine.
Marjorie Dobson (born 1940)
Words © 2019 © 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: 8 7 8 7 8 7 8 7
Tunes: DIM OND IESU; LEWIS FOLK MELODY
From UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERIES, along with poems and other readings.
Category: Other People’s Words
A towel and a basin? – Marjorie Dobson’s hymn for Maundy Thursday
1 A towel and a basin?
This caused them great unease.
Their Master, now a servant?
The Christ upon his knees?
In washing feet made dirty
out on the city street,
he showed the power of action
where love and duty meet.
2 Yet Peter made his protest
and missed the point again,
till Jesus told him gently
that he must share his pain.
They hardly understood him,
although his words were clear
and soon his wise example
would be wiped out by fear.
3 But later they remembered
and took his words to heart:
in sacrifice and service
they gave the church its start,
and we who follow after
take up the task today,
to show, in love and service,
we also walk Christ's way.
Marjorie Dobson (born 1940)
Words © 2012 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: PASSION CHORALE
This hymn is available in Marjorie's most recent collection of worship items: Unravelling the Mysteries and also Hymns of Hope and Healing, both available from Stainer & Bell Ltd - click here
More of Marjorie's hymns will follow here.
Andrew Donaldson from Toronto, has agreed to my sharing his hymn ‘How Can We Sing, Our Souls Aghast and Shaken?’ – appropriate at this time…
Thank you to Andrew Donaldson from Toronto, a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, who has agreed to my sharing his hymn 'How Can We Sing, Our Souls Aghast and Shaken?' here. It is particularly appropriate at this time, I feel.
1. How can we sing? – our souls aghast and shaken?
Sing, when our hope has broken like a bone?
Long-whispered schemes now rise up, proud and open.
Tyrants and kings, tyrants and kings
Now rule us from a throne.
2. How can we sing? What good will come with praises?
Songs fill the air; they soar, then soon are gone.
Hordes overturn our safe and sacred places,
Leave not a trace, leave not a trace,
Nor stone upon a stone.
3. How can we sing? – for who will hear our voices?
Why does a lie sound wiser than a psalm?
Shrewd powers lead from crisis into crisis;
None care to hear, none care to hear
Your shepherd’s voice of calm.
4. How can we sing, yet how can we stand silent?
Long-silent tongues have sung us to this day:
Saints voiced a hope both holy and defiant.
Breathe through our song, breathe through our song,
O Holy One, we pray.
Words: Andrew Donaldson
© 2025 GIA Publications, Inc. # U01906T
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your Copyright Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to GIA Publications, Inc.
Andrew suggests the following tune COMMENT VOULOIR QU’UNE PERSONNE CHANTE
French Troubadour melody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifxGjuldIko
Andrew also notes that the words fit to GENEVAN 12, but only if you don't repeat the phrase in the fourth line of text.
New progressive Christian titles worth reading
I have been made aware, by friends in Australia and the USA, of two books which may be of interest; please click below for more information:
Abundant Lives: A Progressive Christian Ethic of Flourishing. Pilgrim Press by Amanda Udis-Kessler
In Wisdom and in Passion: Comparing and Contrasting Buddha and Christ by John Queripel
A New Book of Poetry by David Lythgoe – Beside Another Sea
Beside Another Sea is David Lythgoe’s latest book of Poetry available here and other other bookshops
If you know David Lythgoe you will not be disappointed by this book of over a hundred poems. Simply read on. But if you’re tasting his work for the first time, with no spoilers, let me give you an idea of what you’re holding in your hand.
I have known David for many years. I have found him to be a quiet, self-effacing man. In consequence his writing in these poems offers an insight to a sensitive, reflective personality who, through this medium, has been able to give expression to emotion, to impressions, sometimes with humour, yet equally able to voice the grief born of love and loss.
David has won awards for his writing and our reward is this gift which I sense has been gestating for some time. His subject matter often quarries memory. He unearths feelings as much as facts. Often the description of a remembered scene becomes a metaphor for life’s conundrums. His poetry frequently spans personal thoughts, yet he is never sentimental. Often the poems originate in a particular context – a holiday, a shared experience with his wife, lockdown and the unexpected sound of birds singing, the waves of the sea or some other pattern of nature. Much of the writing is observational, reminiscent sometimes of the poetry of R.S. Thomas. David is compassionate while the narrative of his verse occasionally twists offering a political slant.
His background enables him to merge a travelogue with classical literary, and scientific linguistic devices.
From the Preface – Andrew Pratt
hymnsandbooks 