Category: Poems

While the nations guard their borders,

While the nations guard their borders, 
cherished cultures, ways of life,
people struggle for survival,
children die while fleeing strife. 
Can we hear with calm acceptance 
what the news has got to tell?
Can we claim to follow Jesus 
while the world drifts into hell?


Hell is where there’s no more loving, 
close at hand, not out of sight, 
what we make denying others 
grace of love, or hope of light.
When compassion’s drained and stranded, 
voices might as well be dumb
human cries that we’ve avoided 
fall on ears both blocked and numb.


Christ is calling in each murmur, 
in each whisper framing need, 
silence louder than God’s thunder, 
loud enough to quell our greed;
yet we close our ears, our senses, 
dreading every troubling fact,
lest we feel the pain of others 
forcing us to rise and act.

©Andrew Pratt
26/11/2021



Our borders, our walls – a hymn reflection on refugees, migrants drowning

Our borders, our walls mock the faith that we own, 
denying the Christ that we claim to enthrone, 
for Christ is our neigbour to love or reject, 
for us to disdain, or to treat with respect.


The justice of God is as real as our flesh, 
as real as each life that we drown or refresh; 
as active as righteousness seen in the cross,
where love met with hatred while bearing the loss.


And now, in this moment, we need to decide, 
our crisis of conscience to love or deride: 
to claim that some small print lets us off the hook, 
or answer, with courage, Christ's challenging look?


Andrew Pratt 14/7/2019
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. 

Tune: ST DEINIO

The world is burning – Advent after COVID & COP 26 – hymn

The world is burning, twinkling lights betray 
a damaged conscience, we have lost our way.
Our neighbours drown, we build on solid ground, 
as Jesus weeps while songs of praise resound.

Within this season darkness clouds each mind, 
consumption numbs the pain we ought to find 
when hearing news of hunger and of drought, 
a stable’s birth should soon erase all doubt:

the Christ we claim to know, born in the dirt, 
while at our doors our neighbours starve and hurt.
So put aside this carolling and praise
until compassion drives our words and ways.

Andrew Pratt 19/11/2021
Words © 2021 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.
Tune: WOODLANDS
Metre: 10.10.10.10

Hymn responding to Greta Thunberg ahead of and following COP 26 – Blue planet, rising, soaring through the cosmos – Now with a new tune by Frances S. Drake

Blue planet, rising, soaring through the cosmos,
was lent in trust for us to tend and care
while children, young in wisdom, call in anguish, 
for all they see now fills them with despair.
The wonder of the sky has drawn us upwards, 
our eyes diverted by the moon and stars, 
and as we dream we lose our moral compass, 
and in our greed we grasp creation, call it ours.


Time runs away, our life on earth is finite, 
young prophets calling, needing us to act 
are crying out, lamenting for our planet, 
while ‘adults’ sleep, denying fear and fact.
Still others stand, immune, ignore the future, 
absolved from fault for all that comes to pass.
When will we grasp the need for urgent action, 
see clearly, not net curtained, or through frosted glass?


While sands of time run down, are gone and finished, 
in fear of change we hanker for the past, 
but life on earth is threatened by inaction, 
as lethargy and greed resist and last. 
Good God forgive us for each fault and faction, 
unwillingness to change to save this earth. 
God give us ears to hear the words of wisdom 
that we might save this planet, cradle of our birth.


Andrew Pratt 29/10/2021 – Responding to Greta Thunberg 
ahead of and following COP 26.

Words © 2021 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.
Metre: 11.10.11.10.11.10.11.12
Tune: BLUE PLANET RISING; LONDONDERRY AIR
BLUE PLANET RISING – AUDIO – Copyright Frances S. Drake

Hidden Saints – a hymn for All Saints

1	She had sewn her life with sadness
	Of the thread that joined each part;
	Now she weaves the song of gladness,
	Now rejoices in her heart.
	Though her fingers, bent, were crippled,
	Though her mind was taught with pain,
	Now as heaven's ether ripples,
	She has grasped a greater gain.

2	He had plumbed the shafts of wonder,
	Dug the coal from earth's dark veins;
	Now the darkness ripped asunder,
	Tells that more than life remains.
	Though his were lungs were torn with crying,
	Though his flesh was bruised and scarred,
	Now he soars, to glory climbing,
	Shares the loud angelic chord.

3	He had worked and toiled and worried
	At the tasks he undertook,
	He had hurtled, rushed and hurried
	Giving life no second look.
	Now at last the task is finished,
	Now the day is dead and gone,
	Urgency has been relinquished,
	Satisfied he joins the song.
	
4	We had seen a body lying,
	One we loved, as still as death;
	Now by faith, that death defying,
	Through God's resurrection breath
	Heaven now is more than story,
	Love is more than want or gain.
	Saints are carolling the glory
	Of the God they know by name.
	
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 1997 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.
Metre: 8 7 8 7 D Trochaic
Tune: HYFRYDOl