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
Tag: fear
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)
The sky, at sunset, still bleeding…
When the sky at sunset, bleeding, mirrors pain that fells our hope;
it seems that love is fast receding, sowing tears that can’t be quelled.
Can it be that God, seceding, leaves this world, all grace expelled?
When the streets are warm with terror, as emotions run or seize,
singing notes of music shudder, when God’s tempo should relieve,
must we lose the spirit’s rudder, losing hope?
We start to grieve.
When the darkness is descending, night a quiet, yet chilling, shroud,
folding round us bleak, unending, muting what we cry aloud,
is God near, with grace transcending fear and dread, defeat or cloud?
© Andrew Pratt 27/7/2016/2020/2024
As an election approaches a hymn (poem,song) – If love is foremost in our faith
If love is foremost in our faith
we have a choice to make
on this and every other day,
for all else is at stake;
we see a world that’s broken down,
where poverty and fear
are trampelling the weakest ones,
with hatred lurking near.
‘Today’, God said, I give a choice
where life and death compete.
The chance is now for us to take,
to finish, to complete,
the turning of the tables here
as Christ, one time, had turned
the temple tables, scattering greed,
to free those power had spurned.
Where selfishness can cripple lives,
or love can set them free,
what happens from this moment on
rests now with you and me:
if our audacious words of grace
can frame what we would pray,
then from this moment, in our time,
let love infuse each day.
Andrew Pratt 22/5/2024 on the announcement of a General Election
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: CMD
Tunes: ELLACOMBE; COE FEN; KINGSFOLD
When song gives way to solitude – hymn inspired by Psalm 130
This coming Sunday is Passion Sunday. The following words were inspired by one of the Psalms, 130, appointed for this Sunday. 1 When song gives way to solitude, and loneliness conspires with fear; when walls of anguish tower around, and agony is sharp and shear; deep in the midst of our concern love can, love must, love will draw near. 2 When all is dark and comfortless and no one near can hear our sighs, when tears are salt with bitterness and all we know are jeers and lies; here in the midst of our despair love shares our pain and with us cries. 3 When all is seared with grief and loss and faith seems empty, or absurd, when life lacks purpose, shape or form, we find no sense, we frame no word; here in the furnace of our fear love whispers peace and will be heard. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2002 © 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 8 8 8 8 8 Tune: ABINGDON
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