A hymn that might be used to mark the Anniversary of the Queen’s Accession and Platinum Jubilee.
While some people question the concept of Monarchy, whatever our perspective, many have found Queen Elizabeth II to be a person who has engendered respect. These words are written in that light and from that perspective.
Once a woman heard a message,
telling of her father’s death,
spinning life round on a pinhead -
causing her to catch her breath.
From that day a life of service,
putting others first of all,
meant a change of her direction,
yet she saw this as God’s call.
Celebrate her tour of duty,
duty built on faith and love,
ceaseless run since her Accession,
life committed, hand in glove.
Even though some question kingship,
they would witness cov’nant grace,
promise made, tasks undertaken,
never knowing what she’d face.
So today, in celebration,
we will stand to recognise,
age and wisdom, dedication,
pray that peace may be her prize;
then, whatever our perspective,
may we be forever bound
in communion with our neighbours,
finding grace on heaven’s ground.
Andrew Pratt (4/2/2022)
Words © 2022 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 D
Tune: MARATHON (Vaughan Williams)This tune can be heard with different words here it is printed at Songs Of Praise No.302; RUSTINGTON; BETHANY (Smart)
Published in the Methodist Recorder June 3rd 2022
Category: worship
Discipleship, justice and mercy – a hymn
This last week some of us have remembered Jesus being presented in the temple. Soon our readings turn to the calling of disciples. We follow in their footsteps. As we do we are presented, not just with things we should believe, but how we live, the values we should hold.
1 God's commandments link together justice, mercy, love and grace; elements to guide the framing of our laws within this place. Yet the laws and legal judgments that we form through human thought, all too easily diminish values that the Christ had sought.
2 As we follow in his footsteps as disciples, let us find, ways to live in peace together, ways that bring God's grace to mind; ways of gracious peaceful living, that might spread throughout the earth, ways of God's audacious giving: let the spirit find new birth.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2015 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 D Tune: BETHANY (Smart)
A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day
A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January, and going forward. Today we still need to remember our human capacity for inhumanity, that the Holocaust took place in a democratic country with a democratically elected government, and still within living memory. Remember, many of the perpetrators saw themselves as ‘Christian’.
1 As we remember holocaust,
in horror disbelieving
the history of the human race,
we share each other's grieving;
God purge us of hypocrisy,
of all our self-deceiving.
2 Our language is inadequate,
unfit for the expression
of hatred that we visualise,
humanity's confession;
we hurry headlong into hell,
we witness love's regression.
3 The deepest, distant agony
that throbs through all creation,
the silent tears that quietly fall
in every generation,
are signs of our humanity,
our need for re-creation.
4 God give us strength to make a pledge
to move beyond contention,
to see, in each, humanity.
Through greater good intention,
God, move us toward a purer love,
a gracious intervention.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2003 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.
Hymn remembered thinking of Tonga and the Pacific
Tectonic plates beneath the ocean's surface,
uplifted, twisting life and limb and wave.
The landscape that was home has lost its features,
we wonder there are any left to save.
An empty chair amid such devastation
where cars like toys, are lifted, spun about;
and here we wait and pray in helpless anguish;
and 'where is God' we want to cry and shout.
Incarnate God we need your present spirit
to live within your people at this time,
to energise our prayerful words and actions,
to offer grace to life's discordant rhyme.
God offer hope to those who feel forsaken,
to those whose lives have spun and turned around;
to those whose grief defies all consolation,
bring grace and love and hope and solid ground.
Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 2011 (alt by author 2022) Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, 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.
Suggested tunes: Highwood (StF 3; H&P 236); Intercessor (H&P 411)
Hymn for Holocaust Memorial Day – 27th January
1 Deep contradictions, not cosy solutions, come when our faith and experience collide. Pain and its purpose, the holocaust's image, loving and hurting, are found side by side. 2 Here in the tension of unresolved conflict, logic and passion will vie for each heart; here in life's crucible, melting and moulding, God has a purpose and we play a part. 3 Here, where the spirit is forging, transforming lives that are open to challenge and change; God in each paradox fathoms potential, source of the pattern we measure and range. Andrew Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2008 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 Tune: EPIPHANY HYMN
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