Tag: hope

Broken buildings, flooded rivers – a hymn for Pakistan amid the floods

1          Broken buildings, flooded rivers
            foaming like a liquid hell;
            jagged rocks and raging waters,
            currents twisting break the swell
            into such a tortured maelstrom;
            people reach and lives are saved;
            human beings loved and treasured
            where the waters heaved and raved.

2          Devastation, ruined farmland,
            crops destroyed compound the threat,
            images assail our conscience,
            sights we never will forget;
            here where homes had offered comfort
            degradation meets our eyes,
            while the thunder of the waters
            drowns the sound of human cries.

3          God, we cry, as lives are wasted,
            hold us when all else is lost;
            where the floods have brought destruction
            hold us, help us share this cost.
            Lift us out of dereliction,
            help us reach to those in need,
            love them till all fear has foundered,
            till they know they’re safe and freed.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

Metre: 8 7 8 7 D

Tune: HYFRYDOL

Words © 2022 © 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., adapted from ‘Swirling winds and raging oceans’ © 2017 Stainer and Bell Ltd.

We hear the news in anguish – hymn at time of Russian invasion of Ukraine with a link to a recording of the hymn with lyrics made by Gareth Moore

We hear the news in anguish to know what has been done, 
the cameras and recordists show hatred being spun, 
the sound of rockets falling fill broadcasts round the earth, 
Great God, what are we doing while children come to birth?


Our aspirations shudder, our hopes become as dust, 
through war machines are broken, dismembered, turned to rust. 
Our conversations stutter, our talks of peace – hot air, 
Great God, may acts of justice grow from the seeds of prayer.


No place is ever neutral when hatred fuels the fire, 
humanity unites us, let love be our desire.
Join hands across the barriers that other hands have made, 
until your world is mended and violence has been stayed.


Andrew Pratt 28/2/2022 Written while watching the Russian-Ukraine conflict.
Words © 2022 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: KING’S LYNN; O SACRED HEAD SORE WOUNDED has also been suggested by Judy Ford.

A video prepared for SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE is available here with thanks to Pam Rhodes and Gareth Moore (to be broadcast Sunday 20th March 2022 at 1800 hours UK)

Listen to reflections for Ukraine based on some of my texts on Premier Christian Radio is available on Freeview channel 725. Sunday 13th March 2022 0800 hours (UK)

A video recording of the hymn by Gareth Moore is available here


Other resources also available at Singing the Faith plus




Promise of hopefulness, pardon and peace – hymn for our world at a time of war

1	Promise of hopefulness, pardon and peace;
	Source of deliverance, blessed release;
	Ground of our being, of darkness and light,
	Love's possibility, enmity's night;

2	Cleave to the centre of selfish desire
	Bring to creation by earth, wind or fire
	All that is hoped for and all that's unseen:
	Goodness and glory are more than a dream.

3	In our absurdity, clamour and war
	Unseat our certainty, counter and floor
	All sense of prejudice, hatred and then
	Offer us strangers that we can befriend.

4	Give us the courage to enter this cleft,
	Healing the hurt of the lost, the bereft,
	Offering hope, though our love's crucified,
	Soaking up malice where peace is denied;

5	Love is the answer to vengeance and wrath,
	Going on loving in spite of the loss,
	Facing the depth of depravity's gain,
	Burning our hatred on love's sweeter flame.

6	Pour out your spirit, God, fill up our lives,
	Offering loveliness, love that survives,
	Then take and lift us and raise up our song:
	Love is yet greater than all human wrong.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 1999 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.
Metre: 10 10 10 10 Dactylic
Tune: KOSOVO (Andrew Pratt) No.57 in Whatever Name or Creed  also available in USA from Hope Publishing.
Adrian Perry notated this tune and played it when it was first used in the Leigh & Hindley Circuit of the Methodist Church at the time of its composition.

Hymn for Jesus Manifesto – Luke 4: 14 – 21

In Nazareth it happened,
folk heard with bated breath,
the good news Jesus offered 
of life instead of death.

This was the manifesto:
a charter for the poor,      
a welcome for the stranger 
who’d waited at the door.

Within a cell the captive 
would hear the freedom call,
and those who felt injustice
know healing was for all.

Oppression would be banished.
Yet hypocrites recoiled,
drove Jesus from their presence, 
but he would not be foiled.

And in this time and context 
will we still have to wait,
or dare we risk and follow, 
before it is too late?
Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022
Words © 2022 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: THE CHERRY TREE CAROL (repeat last two lines of each verse)
Based on Luke 4: 14 – 30 (the Lectionary for this coming Sunday is Luke 4: 14 – 21)
An alternative version below follows a slightly different rhythm.

Alternative words:

In Nazareth it happened,
the folk held their breath;
the good news Jesus offered 
was life instead of death.

And this was the promise:
a gift for the poor,      
a welcome for the stranger 
who’d waited at the door.

Within a cell the captive 
would hear freedom call,
and those who felt injustice
know healing was for all.

Oppression would be banished,
hypocrites recoiled,
drove Jesus from their presence, 
but he would not be foiled.

And in this time and context 
we still have to wait;
or dare we risk and follow, 
before it is too late?
Andrew Pratt 17/1/2022
Words © 2022 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,