Travelling through Advent, a poem or, if you wish to sing, a hymn
As we tread this advent pathway – a reflective poem
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
As we tread this advent pathway – an Advent hymn
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
Andrew E Pratt 30/11/2024
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
Tunes: CHAPEL BRAE; SHIPSTON; STUTTGART
Tag: faith
‘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.
When life juggles with our learning – musing on … art – doubt – faith
When life juggles with our learning – musing on … art – doubt – faith
1 When life juggles with our learning,
with the things we thought secure,
then it seems the artist’s palette
spins and faith becomes obscure.
In the wash of different colours,
as we seek for shape and form,
others paint their faith by numbers
forcing God to fit some norm.
2 But when life has torn the canvas,
when the numbers twist and slip;
then we need to find an image
that will help our hope to grip:
Holding us, when we’re past holding,
grounding when we’re insecure,
till we find a faith, not drifting,
still dynamic, free, yet sure.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © 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: NORMANDY (Bost)
For Holocaust Memorial in a broken world – a hymn – The day will come….
The day will come, must come, and soon – Holocaust Remembrance in a broken world
1 The day will come, must come, and soon,
when we will sing a song of joy
with sisters, brothers, not like us,
who share the image of one God.
2 Whatever name, whichever faith,
at heart we share a common bond,
a shared humanity in God,
whose name and character is love.
3 That love will drive us to the day
when every wall is broken down,
when love and joy and song are one:
that day will come, must come, and soon.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2001 © 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: LM
Tune: TALLIS’ CANON
A perfect storm – hymn Mark 4: 35 – 41
A perfect storm, as Galilee June 23rd Lectionary Mark 4 35 – 41
Hymn: A perfect storm, as Galilee
A perfect storm, as Galilee
became a foaming maelstrom,
the boats were spun and tossed like corks,
no more a sluggish doldrum.
And through it all their friend had dozed,
the chaos found him sleeping
while panic reigned, fear took control,
as crashing waves were sweeping.
A desperate cry, 'we perish, Lord',
they shook him to his senses.
Then at a word the storm was stilled
disarming their defences.
'What little faith you have, my friends,
why let such fear possess you?
See how the wind and waves obey,
how peace has come to bless you'.
What they had seen disturbed those men,
it rocked things sure and tested;
to meet with God upon that lake,
left doubt and fear arrested
Andrew Pratt
Words © 2012 © 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.
Tune: 8.7.8.7
Metre: ST COLUMBA (Irish); DOMINUS REGIT ME
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