Tag: hope

Easter hymn – We cannot speculate, or glance

An empty tomb is just empty. It took a meeting with Jesus to convince a woman, then a group of men that Jesus, who had died on a cross, was alive. It is still difficult to believe. Yet after two thousand years, whatever we believe, as Geoffrey Best has written on Facebook, ‘…in this (hi)story is the revelation of the very nature of God, a God who takes all that we throw and absorbs and transforms the dead and deadly into life abundant .... if we let it!’ Amen!

1	We cannot speculate, or glance 
	into the well of history. 
	Nor can we look beyond this time 
	with any sense of certainty. 
	We only have our faith and hope, 
	to make us stand, to help us cope.
	
2	Great God we grasp at straws of faith,
	of things we hope will point to you. 
	We read the ancient texts and scan 
	those distant myths to make them new. 
	And all the time we live between 
	these metaphors and what is seen.
	
3	The past is gone, we cannot hear 
	more than an echo down the age. 
	And what is still to come we fear; 
	we see each other's pent up rage.
	Yet what we need is close at hand, 
	your present love in every land.
	
4	True resurrection brings to bear 
	the things that heal, create, unite. 
	Love launches its triumphant praise 
	and builds on joy and will delight.
	The former things are passed away, 
	dead night transformed to brightest day.

Metre: 8 8 8 8 8 8 Tune: ABINGDON
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) 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.

Art © Andrew Pratt 2022

	


	
	






	
	

		
Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14
	


	

		

Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14

And I looked as I led worship 
and saw the dried and brittle bones 
of the scattered few before me 
and there was no life.
Too old, 
too desiccated, 
too worn out, 
or lived out 
ever to be able to stir again.

And I wept as I looked 
and prayed for answers, 
but my heart told me 
it was too late; 
the life had gone. 
There was acceptance 
of an unchanging future; 
the stillness of lethargy 
and emptiness of spirit.

And I looked again 
and saw my prayers 
were not to empty air 
for a breath of God 
moved among the weary; 
new energy began to stir; 
movement was discernible 
and purpose was born again.

And God had shown me, 
in spite of all my doubts, 
that hope is never completely dead 
and there can be new life, 
even in old bones.

© Marjorie Dobson published on Worship Cloud

Used with permission.


	


	
	






	
	

		
Holocaust Memorial Day – When words are spent – a new hymn
	


	

		

When words are spent and grief destroys compassion, 
or fear of war throws shadows like a cross, 
God melt our hearts and fire imagination, 
that we might sense the pain within each loss.
 
This loss can blind our eyes and freeze our feeling, 
can numb for us the pain of holocaust, 
for memory fades, to leave just words revealing
a horror far beyond all human cost.
 
God open in our present generation, 
a depth of human empathy to feel 
humanity that bridges every nation, 
that only love and hope and grace can seal.

Andrew Pratt 10/1/2023
Words © 2023 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: 11.10.11.10
Tune: INTERCESSOR
https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/worship/singing-the-faith-plus/posts/holocaust-memorial-day-2023/











Auschwitz – Birkenau – the end of the line

	


	
	






	
	

		
God is crying mid the carnage – a hymn at the time of Ukrainian Christmas
	


	

		

God is crying mid the carnage 
of a thousand broken bones; 
in the dust and fallen rubble 
of our long discarded homes.
 
Where our children play out stories 
of the visions they have seen, 
God is weeping over losses, 
knowing just what might have been.
 
What if love instead of horror 
filled the passion of our lives, 
could these stories be re-written 
where humanity survives?
 
God still with us, God among us, 
sow new seeds of love through grace; 
help us look at one another 
building hope in every place.
Andrew Pratt (8/1/2023)

Words © 2023 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: CROSS OF JESUS (Stainer); LAUS DEO (Redhead)

Written after listening to the BBC Radio 4 Sunday Service on 8/1/2023 ‘The message that Ukraine is trying to convey to the world as it celebrates its own Christmas Day’.

The programme posed the question, 'Where is God' in this war?

See also We hear the news in anguish
- Thoughts on pacifism
- God's on our side