Tag: fear

Hurricane Melissa – hymn-iPad art

Fraught with danger, dark foreboding,

fear is lurking in the wings, 

swirling thund’rous winds uplifting, 

cosmic forces, shattered things. 

Buildings lifted, structures sundered,

lives are broken, swept aside, 

God where is your promised presence

when there is no place to hide?

Take us, hold us, mother, fold us

in the harbour of your love, 

guide us through this present moment, 

quell this torment peaceful dove.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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

Tune: ALL FOR JESUS

If God in love invests us with a voice – a Christian response to war?

At at a time of continued war in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia as people seek, or fear, to protest what might our Christian response be?

If God in love invests us with a voice, 
and given hell on earth, a human choice,
we cannot cry our tears into this night 
if we are silent with our people’s plight.

Don’t  say that they are foreign, not our own,
these faces greeting rocket, tank or drone, 
for as these people flee towards our shore 
they seek for care and safety, nothing more.

Humanity, the common life we share,
is all that’s left that we can hold and bear, 
so as we look into each human face, 
see Christ and through God’s Spirit offer grace.

Andrew Pratt 7/9/2025
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: 10.10.10.10
Tune: EVENTIDE; ST AGNES (Langran)

Reflecting on the Good Samaritan – hymn – ‘All the power that fuelled creation’

Reflecting on the Good Samaritan – ‘All the power that fuelled creation’

1	All the power that fuelled creation,
	cosmic force that fired the stars,
	still leaves people in the darkness
	when we grasp for 'us' and 'ours'.
	All the emptiness and sorrow
	we dispel with just a glance,
	eyes averted from our neighbours
	giving them no second chance.

2	All we cling to, all we cherish,
	stands as nothing in God’s light,
	yet our attitudes deny it
	holding all as if by right.
	All the wealth at our disposal
	could bring hope, transfigure care;
	even candles lit in darkness
	bring new hope when none is there.

3	All we need is love and kindness,
	costly kindness to dispel
	fear and poverty, while bringing
	deepest love to counter hell.
	All God’s love, when shared among us
	shatters poverty with grace,
	even now transfiguration
	could be felt within this place.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2016 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
Tunes: SCARLET RIBBONS; ABBOTS LEIGH

For another text relating to the Good Samaritan click here

Advent in uncertain times – Active love, not fearful frenzy – a hymn

Advent in uncertain times - Active love, not fearful frenzy

1	Active love, not fearful frenzy,
	Is the path that we pursue,
	Counterblast to alienation,
	Struggle making all things new.
	Facing up to common conflict,
	Meeting arrogance with prayer,
	Seeking to be one with Jesus,
	Dignified amid despair.
	
2	Torture, fear and desecration
	Paint the canvas of our lives;
	But the picture, deeply woven,
	Demonstrates that love survives.
	Systems that would seek to scar us,
	Mould us blindly to their trends,
	We will overthrow with kindness,
	Not be subject to their ends.

3	We will take the cross of Jesus
	Into every sphere of life,
	We will stand for peace and justice,
	We will not succumb to strife.
	We must meet this tribulation,
	Live our lives, if need be, die;
	Take no refuge in abstraction,
	Take the cross and lift it high! 

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Words Andrew Pratt © 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 Trochaic
Tune: BETHANY (Smart)