Category: Poems

When song gives way to solitude – hymn inspired by Psalm 130

This coming Sunday is Passion Sunday. The following words were inspired by one of the Psalms, 130, appointed for this Sunday.

1	When song gives way to solitude,
	and loneliness conspires with fear;
	when walls of anguish tower around,
	and agony is sharp and shear;
	deep in the midst of our concern
	love can, love must, love will draw near.

2	When all is dark and comfortless
	and no one near can hear our sighs,
	when tears are salt with bitterness
	and all we know are jeers and lies;
	here in the midst of our despair
	love shares our pain and with us cries.

3	When all is seared with grief and loss
	and faith seems empty, or absurd,
	when life lacks purpose, shape or form,
	we find no sense, we frame no word;
	here in the furnace of our fear
	love whispers peace and will be heard.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 © 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 8 8 8 8 8
Tune: ABINGDON

This is our mother – Mothering Sunday hymn

This is our mother, the source of all being,
sharpening starlight, then raising the dawn,
singing forth sunshine, then playing with laughter,
scattering teardrops, in passion newborn.

Mother of oceans, so careful with splendour,
ground of creation and centre of life,
love in abundance, all caring, all seeing,
counter to conflict, now staying our strife.

This is our mother, the God of our parents,
source of the hope that has brought them to be,
present to hold us, then leading us onward,
loving, renewing, and setting us free.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2006 © 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..
11 10 11 10
Tunes: WAS LEBET WAS SCHWEBET; EPIPHANY HYMN

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption – hymn inspired by John 9: 1-41


A hymn inspired by John 9: 1 – 41…As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned

Tangled in prejudice, lost in presumption, 
locked in our judgments, so sure of our ground; 
others are sinful, but we are the righteous, 
this is the truth we are sure we have found.
	
This is our blindness and now we must own it, 
owning suspicion of those we deride; 
painting them wrongly, unjustly with hatred, 
side-stepping honesty, trying to hide.
	
For like the Pharisees' we are self-serving,
gaining our wealth from the ones we oppress;
sometimes we bring down the ones who would challenge, 
this we have done and now this we confess.
	
In this confession we seek your forgiveness, 
God who has touched both the broken and frail. 
We were thought strong, but we plead for compassion, 
we, the successful, have found we can fail.
	
Yet you astound us, 'your sins are forgiven', 
words that have echoed down into our time.
How can we warrant such scandalous mercy?
Only through grace can you offer this sign.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © 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: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: EPIPHANY HYMH; IN THE BEGINNING GOD PLAYED WITH THE PLANETS

When language demeans… poem

When language just demeans ones we should love 
we know that we we have lost our common sense, 
we leave the lost diminished without care,
and hatred permeates the present tense.


And in this moment evil can be felt, 
while silence is an option to avoid, 
a voiceless church denies the life of Christ, 
as neighbours face an unremitting void.

© Andrew Pratt 12/3/2023

She’s the one Christ should have hated – Jesus and a Samaritan woman – a hymn

Lent 3 The gospel reading  (John 4: 5-42) tells of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman. This hymn reflects on this story. 

1	She's the one Christ should have hated, 
	every law set her apart, 
	woman, foreign, faith betrayer, 
	yet compassion warmed his heart.
	
2	Was he thirsty? Human nature 
	giving us a reason why 
	he would cross these rules, these bound'ries, 
	does this story give the lie?
	
3	Yet whatever choice we fathom 
	Jesus talked and spoke with her;
	sought to find a new direction, 
	new found faith began to stir.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © 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
Tune: ALL FOR JESUS