grace – Page 11 – hymnsandbooks

The calling of Jesus bids us to build peace – vocation

The calling of Jesus bids us to build peace,
the time is this moment, to cease to deride
the weak and down-trodden the world might despise,
to bury our prejudice, pack away pride.

The people are waiting God’s offer of love,
the different, disfigured, untutored or poor.
The grace of the God-head should not be confined,
how could we discard those who wait at our door?

While failing together we follow the Christ,
with ones deemed as worthless, as cruel or unkind,
as carrying our neighbours we cease to condemn,
while finding the heaven to which we’ve been blind.
Andrew Pratt 18/10/2019

Human searching started early – https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/

Human searching started early,
when our mortal race began.
Curiosity was questing:
was life caused by chance or plan?
Science, like a lens, can focus
on components of God’s grace,
guiding us to ask more questions,
help us on the path we trace.

Scientific understanding
offers insight that can stun,
change perspective, alter meaning,
help imagination run.
How we read religious scripture,
things our context has imbued,
can enhance or muddle insight,
warp the way our faith is viewed.

Even tangled vegetation
smoth’ring ground on which we tread,
or the stars that light the cosmos
heighten wonder as they spread.
At our best God’s spirit shows us
from the earth, beyond the sky,
all creation’s awesome wonder,
filled with praise, while we reply!

Andrew Pratt 5/10/2019
Tune: CALON LAN
Metre: 8.7.8.7 D
Written in response to Dr Ruth Bancewicz’s seminar on ‘All creation praises God’.
Words © 2019 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.

Love matters for our future https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/

Love matters for our future,
love founded in our past;
love woven through the present,
in hope that love will last.
This love is simply, human,
profoundly, love divine;
yet love can change another,
change lives like yours and mine

While we prefer the comfort
of minds akin to ours,
the gentle reassurance
of quiet refreshing hours;
in hell and not in heaven is
where the Christ is found,
the rough and trammeled pathway,
the trampled, bloodied ground.

But can we love another
and freely offer grace,
regardless of the neighbour
within our human race?
To always be uplifting,
to love and not condemn,
will model every person
as us and not as them.

Andrew Pratt 28/9/2019 – Science and the Language of Prayer. Written in response to Ruth Armstrong’s lecture. Seminar 1. Criminology.
Tune:AURELIA
Metre: 7.6.7.6D
Words © 2019 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.

This fragile, passing beauty…Remembrance hymn – New Link to performance

Hear this hymn being sung at This fragile, passing beauty

On the 1st September 1939, 80 years ago, the Second World War began. Germany invaded Poland; with the United Kingdom and France declaring war on Germany two days later…

This fragile, passing beauty,
this autumn, red and gold,
a season’s recollection:
love never will grow cold.
The seasons change and fracture,
the leaves of green turn brown,
as life seems tinged with sadness,
as petals flutter down.

This time of our remembrance
that reaches back to pain,
the chill of recollection
can open wounds again;
But this we must remember
that human war and hate
are matters of our choosing
and not some random fate.

God let this time of grieving,
of mem’ry and regret,
enable reparation,
in case we just forget.
Fill human hearts with courage,
frame human words with grace,
that love might flow among us,
make Earth a sacred place.

Andrew Pratt 16/9/2019

Words © 2019 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.
Tunes: BRED DINA VIDA VINGAR (Reclaiming Praise, No.142 – https://stainer.co.uk/shop/b891/), another setting of this tune can be heard at https://youtu.be/V6dDt3OJf6Q ;
Another tune: AURELIA.

We live in times of crime and violence, aka – We live in sharp infested waters

We live in times of crime and violence
where guns and knives would seem to rule;
incarceration offers respite,
is prison now the only school?

We learn so slowly in this era,
how we should nurture love and care.
For still we model cold derision,
with disrespect, derisive stare.

Our politicians rage and stumble,
as racists bawl across the street,
then disagreements twist and tangle,
with language coarse and indiscreet.

God give us grace and apt discretion,
the skill of choosing words that skirt
around each tempting confrontation,
give words that calm instead of hurt.

Words (including alternatives below) © 2019 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.

Tune: ST CLEMENT (Scholefield)
Metre 9.8.9.8

The original first verse of this text is as follows and can be used if wished:

We live in sharp infested waters,
the law of Cain would seem to rule,
incarceration offers respite,
is prison now the only school?

In the second stanza, first line ‘era’ can be replaced with ‘country’.

At a time when knife and gun crime are rife this text may be seen to be pertinent either as a poem or a hymn.