Giver of life, of breath, of bread - Doug Constable
Giver of life, of breath, of bread,
from whose self-giving souls are fed,
from whom we learn the priceless worth
of every creature born on earth:
hear the poor prayers of aching hearts
weighed down by conscience-piercing darts;
for You command Your love’s good will:
no ifs no buts, Thou shalt not kill.
Self-sacrificing Christ, you grieve
both for the dead and folks who leave
their hearts at home, who take up guns,
who let bombs fall on helpless ones.
Spirit, whose strength springs fresh from High,
comfort all victims marked to die;
relieve each soul found in distress;
curb all who’d rather curse than bless.
On those, unmoved by war’s alarms,
who profit by the sale of arms,
drop fires of purging faith, to burn
all fears to ash in love’s safe urn.
Merciful God, Beginning, End,
Saviour-Redeemer, sinner’s friend,
war-ending Spirit, breathing peace:
weep with us till death-dealing cease ...
© Doug Constable 17.9 to 15.6.2024
Suggested tune: RIVAULX
Thank you Doug - sadly needful
Tag: creation
Resurrection Hymn – Here on the crest of the wave of creation
Here on the crest of the wave of creation
Here on the crest of the wave of creation,
roaring and rolling beyond time and place;
God is transforming through quiet resurrection,
challenging hopelessness, offering grace.
Now we will follow the steps that will lead us
on through the horrors and hatred of life,
on through the angst ridden pain of bereavement,
on through the cross to the ending of strife.
Here at faith's edge where our peace is beginning,
God soaring free through our chaos and pain,
here is the meaning of loving and living,
here is the place of our rising again.
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
Watercolour and Luminar © Andrew Pratt
Why earthquakes? – a reflective poem
If God created all that is,
then earthquake, wind and fire
are just as much laid at God’s door,
the stakes could not be higher.
I questioned once, and just like Job,
the answer was unclear.
It seems existence on this globe
is allied to our fear.
Without a moving, fragile crust,
this earth could not bear life;
no mountains, canyons, rivers seas,
we’re balanced on a knife.
These earthquakes challenge love and hope,
can undermine our grace,
yet this our existential need:
to build love in this place.
© Andrew Pratt 9/9/2023
Scientists pick up shock waves from colliding galaxies – a hymn…
‘The observations were made by studying signals from dead stars called pulsars. These rotate and send out bursts of radio signals at extremely precise intervals’. BBC News. This hymn references pulsars and was published 32 years ago. Available in Blinded by the Dazzle, Stainer & Bell.
1 The God of cosmic question Surprises by his birth, Not in some new dimension But on this ravaged earth! 2 In quasars, quarks and pulsars We seek the cosmic truth: The ground of our existence That set creation loose, 3 And human senses lead us, Through all they analyse, From arrogance to wonder, To spiritual surprise. 4 But senses have their limits: Unanswered still there lies The single, deepest question Our intellect supplies. 5 Yet history proffers insight: The Christ of time and space Speaks of a God incarnate Born in a squalid place. 6 Alive within our compass, Upon this ravaged earth, The God of cosmic question Surprises by his birth! Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) © 1991 Stainer & Bell Ltd 7 6 7 6 Iambic
A hymn for Trinity Sunday – ‘We cannot understand…
Sunday the 4th of June 2023 is marked as Trinity Sunday. I have never found the descriptions of the Trinity easy to accept – they focus on how you can have three persons in one God. My own resolution of this is less to focus on the how and simply to say that we experience something of God in and through creation, God is the ground of being, of all that exists. Jesus shows us how God would be if God was human. When our lives are an image of that of Jesus then we are living with the same Spirit. The thread is that of Love – in creation, in Jesus and in ourselves. And so, a hymn… We cannot understand them, the things we’re bid to say; our creeds seem so confusing: yet this is what we pray: God’s Love was the beginning, before all life began. This Love became incarnate, to last a human span. The paradox of mystery: the image we refine at once divinely human, though humanly divine. Yet death can signal ending, but Love still lingers on: perpetual, holding Spirit when even hope has gone. Andrew Pratt 29/5/2023 Words © 2023 © 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: 7.6.7.6 Tune: CRUGER (Hail to the Lord’s anointed)
