Tag: Christmas

‘Drones, not angels herald horror’ – a hymn for Remembrance in a new millennium through Advent to Christmas

‘Drones, not angels herald horror’ a hymn for 2024
from Remembrance through Advent to Christmas

Drones, not angels herald horror,
children shelter without hope,
singing now, but hell will follow.  	
God, through grace, give strength to cope.
Here where human hearts are broken, 
all cried out, no tears to shed, 
prayers are held, for fear, unspoken,
shrouded now in clouds of dread.

God reach deep through hateful anger 
bent on vengeance, recompense;
listen through our warring clangour, 
re-enliven common sense.
Guide us through the dust and rubble,
where our blood has stained the earth,
turning fields where all is stubble, 
seeding love that signs new birth.

Andrew E Pratt (4/11/2024)
Words © 2024 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: HYFRYDOL; SCARLET RIBBONS or, perhaps, BLAENWERN 

A completely new hymn for 2024 reminding us how different war is now but, nevertheless, with comparable suffering. Suitable, perhaps, for Remembrance and through Advent to Christmas given the continuing situation in the Middle East, Ukraine/Russia and many other places.

If he had come – a poem for Advent and Christmas by Marjorie Dobson

If he had come …

 

If he had come as a king with a robe and jewels

and a crown of gold,

he would have been impressive.

But there would have been those

who envied him his wealth,

tried to steal his jewels,

or attempted to rob him of his crown.

 

If he had come with a sword and shield

and a following army,

he would have demanded obedience.

But there would have been those

who feared his sword,

claimed he was hiding behind his shield,

or accused him of using military force to conquer them.

 

If he had come as a priest with elaborate vestments,

sanctimonious speeches and zealous religious rituals,

he would have commanded respect.

But there would have been those

who found his vestments ostentatious,

suspected him of hypocrisy in his speeches,

or felt unable to live up to

the impossible regulation of his religion.

 

So, when Jesus came as a vulnerable baby,

grew up in a carpenter’s workshop

and walked around in everyday clothes,

meeting and talking to people about God,

it really was a revelation.

 

Jesus brought no threat of wealth, or force of might,

or blocking of the pathway to God.

He was a man and of the people

and though his robe was stained with blood,

his crown made of thorns

and his death an ignominious execution,

the power of his life has everlasting authority.

 

Marjorie Dobson © Stainer & Bell Ltd published in Unravelling the Mysteries

I saw three ships – a contemporary re-working by Daniel Charles Damon

I am grateful to Daniel Damon, a well known hymn writer, jazz musician and composer from the USA who has offered a new perspective on this text, so fitting, sadly, for our contemporary world:
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day in the morning.


And what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
and what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day in the morning?


The hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
the hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


Those yearning to be free were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
those yearning to live free were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


If we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
if we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day in the morning;


Then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day in the morning.

Words and Music: English traditional; Music arr. and vss. 3-6 Daniel Charles Damon © 2022 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Please report any use of this through your copyright licence, or approach the copyright holder for permission.

Tune: I SAW THREE SHIPS
Metre: Irregular
Topical Index: Christmas, Hospitality, Refugee, Migration, Social Justice
Scripture: Luke 2:1-20, Leviticus 19:33-34; Matthew 2:1-12; 13-23; Hebrews 13:2

Daniel says: I have loved and played this English carol for years but struggled with the ancient text. I wrote some new stanzas that may give this carol new liturgical use. Carl Daw helped me finish this text.

Dan Damon’s recordings can be found here

His printed music is here

Three ships, watercolour copyright Andrew Pratt

A hymn reflecting on Christmas now…Where is Jesus…

A hymn reflecting on Christmas now…

Where is Jesus, where is Mary,
where is Joseph in this crowd,
here where commerce feeds subversion,
elevates the rich and proud.
Mother, father and a baby,
shoved by bureaucratic creeds,
soon to cross a nation’s borders,
crowds will denigrate their needs.
           
Lasers beaming, neon flashing,
shop fronts pleading, ‘buy me now!’
Wealth and poverty colliding,
life, as then; not different now.
Prejudice just feels expedient,
strangers just a common threat,
is a pang of conscience stinging?
Is God near in our regret?
           
Here amid the city’s rumble,
God incarnate can be found,
yet our sentiment, this tinsel,
numbs our feeling, muffles sound.
May the Christ be found in Christmas,
here in every act of grace,
here in foreign and familiar,
seen in every human face.
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 DTune: ST WINIFRED (Cradled in a manger meanly)

Beyond where light can image (The God of cosmic question) – in the ‘light’ of the first image from the James Webb telescope

Beyond where light can image,
can infra-red probe truth:
dark matter that might harbour
what set creation loose,

where human senses lead us,
through all they analyse,
from arrogance to wonder,
to spiritual surprise?

But senses have their limits:
unanswered yet there lies
the single, deepest question
our intellect supplies.

Yet faith can proffer insight:
the Christ of time and space
speaks of a God incarnate
born in a squalid place.

Alive within our compass,
upon this ravaged earth,
the God of cosmic question
surprised us once in birth!

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) (amended 2019 & 2022 by author)

Originally The God of cosmic question
© 1991, alt 2022 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.