Tag: beauty

How do we imagine beauty – Against a bleak backdrop a contrast…helpful? …a new text.

How do we imagine beauty - Against a bleak backdrop something of a contrast...helpful? I hope...a completely new text. 

How do we imagine beauty, 
wonder, words cannot express? 
Something felt, beyond our vision, 
love incarnate, nothing less?
Here and now all life is timeless,
here we're lifted out of self, 
now beyond all expectation,
human sense, or worldly wealth.

Can eternity be fathomed?
Glimpse the feeling, sense the sound, 
breathe the spirit of creation,
ground of being, sought and found.
Here a mystery unravels, 
yet withheld from human sight:
simply trust, with faith the given, 
God is beauty, love and light.

Andrew Pratt written 22/6/2025
Words 2025 © 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: CALON LAN

Sunlight glinting on the water – a hymn of hope

 

For all its beauty snow and ice can be dangerous, or keep us in our homes. This week’s text looks back to memories and forward to hopes, to sunlight glinting on the water

1          Sunlight glinting on the water,
            moonlight filtered by the trees,
            nature constantly reminding,
            spirit moving with the breeze,
            God is present in creation,
            God is here in such as these.

2          Holding visions in our memories,
            cherishing all we have known,
            things of beauty, scenes of wonder,
            gifts of grace we cannot own,
            all the joys that God has given,
            all the love that Christ has shown.

3          Now we come to offer worship
            for each heart and mind’s delight,
            for all human care and friendship,
            for the soaring spirit’s flight,
            God we offer praise each morning
            for your living, dancing light.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer and 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
Tune: RHUDDLAN

Senses sharpened in the silence – Praise in time of Covid-19

Senses sharpened in the silence plus oakPhoto ©Andrew Pratt 2020

Senses sharpened in the silence,
gently, quietly, feel your breath,
know God’s love will never leave us,
now, or in our time of death.
In this time imagine bird song,
thunder of a mountain stream,
slap of waves along the shoreline,
things for which we hope or dream.

All the beauty of the starlight,
rainbow colours in the sky,
things that we can just imagine
feed our minds until we die,
fill our hearts with heightened wonder,
strain the sinews of our thought,
soon exhausting human language,
through the images we’ve caught.

Lifted up within the mystery,
now embodied in our praise,
mystic music moves our being,
sounding notes from phrase to phrase,
raising us beyond the present,
held in loving symphony;
God inspire our hearts with singing
in one cosmic harmony.

Andrew Pratt 19/4/2020
Words © 2020 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: CALON LAN