A Hymn for International Day of Peace - Here is Peace
In 1981, the United Nations General Assembly declared the third Tuesday of September as International Day of Peace. This day coincided with the opening day of the annual sessions of the General Assembly. The purpose of the day was and still remains, to strengthen the ideals of peace around the world.
Two decades after establishing this day of observance, in 2001, the assembly moved the date to be observed annually on September 21. So, beginning in 2002, September 21 marks not only a time to discuss how to promote and maintain peace among all peoples but also a 24-hour period of global ceasefire and non-violence for groups in active combat (I am grateful to Rev’d Pat Bilsborrow for drawing my attention to this day).
Hymn: Here is Peace
Here is peace, when grace astounds us
quelling all our wild pretence.
Here is peace, shalom and kindness,
passion ruled by reasoned sense.
Here is peace, when grace engenders
love that neither fades nor ends.
Here is peace when people welcome;
enemies become as friends.
Here is peace, when grace surprises
ignorance with words of hope.
Here is peace, to light our senses:
see, God’s love has boundless scope.
Words: Andrew Pratt written while listening to Mr D. Rutter, preacher, in Comberbach Methodist Church 2004; © 2010 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.
Tune: ADORATION (Hunt)
A tune can be found here – Traditional Latvian Melody
A commentary on the text and tune (with an out of date biography) can be found here.
Tag: hope
Persistent God, your gracious understanding – God’s grace at Easter
Persistent God, your gracious understanding
1 Persistent God, your gracious understanding
returns the love that often we with-hold.
When met with our resistance and denial
you greet with peace and draw us from the cold.
2 Three times you challenged Peter's frail commitment,
that stemmed from reasoned nervousness and fear.
Three times he answered that he really loved you,
you held him though he'd seemed so insincere.
3 You see beyond our actions and our motives,
you read the hope that's written in each heart,
and in this knowledge welcome home your children
by showing each and all a place and part.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2013 © 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
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR
Andrew Donaldson from Toronto, has agreed to my sharing his hymn ‘How Can We Sing, Our Souls Aghast and Shaken?’ – appropriate at this time…
Thank you to Andrew Donaldson from Toronto, a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, who has agreed to my sharing his hymn 'How Can We Sing, Our Souls Aghast and Shaken?' here. It is particularly appropriate at this time, I feel.
1. How can we sing? – our souls aghast and shaken?
Sing, when our hope has broken like a bone?
Long-whispered schemes now rise up, proud and open.
Tyrants and kings, tyrants and kings
Now rule us from a throne.
2. How can we sing? What good will come with praises?
Songs fill the air; they soar, then soon are gone.
Hordes overturn our safe and sacred places,
Leave not a trace, leave not a trace,
Nor stone upon a stone.
3. How can we sing? – for who will hear our voices?
Why does a lie sound wiser than a psalm?
Shrewd powers lead from crisis into crisis;
None care to hear, none care to hear
Your shepherd’s voice of calm.
4. How can we sing, yet how can we stand silent?
Long-silent tongues have sung us to this day:
Saints voiced a hope both holy and defiant.
Breathe through our song, breathe through our song,
O Holy One, we pray.
Words: Andrew Donaldson
© 2025 GIA Publications, Inc. # U01906T
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your Copyright Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to GIA Publications, Inc.
Andrew suggests the following tune COMMENT VOULOIR QU’UNE PERSONNE CHANTE
French Troubadour melody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifxGjuldIko
Andrew also notes that the words fit to GENEVAN 12, but only if you don't repeat the phrase in the fourth line of text.
Sunlight glinting on the water – a hymn of hope
For all its beauty snow and ice can be dangerous, or keep us in our homes. This week’s text looks back to memories and forward to hopes, to sunlight glinting on the water
1 Sunlight glinting on the water,
moonlight filtered by the trees,
nature constantly reminding,
spirit moving with the breeze,
God is present in creation,
God is here in such as these.
2 Holding visions in our memories,
cherishing all we have known,
things of beauty, scenes of wonder,
gifts of grace we cannot own,
all the joys that God has given,
all the love that Christ has shown.
3 Now we come to offer worship
for each heart and mind’s delight,
for all human care and friendship,
for the soaring spirit’s flight,
God we offer praise each morning
for your living, dancing light.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer and 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 8 7
Tune: RHUDDLAN
As we tread this Advent pathway – new poem/hymn
Travelling through Advent, a poem or, if you wish to sing, a hymn
As we tread this advent pathway – a reflective poem
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
As we tread this advent pathway – an Advent hymn
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
Andrew E Pratt 30/11/2024
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: 8.7.8.7
Tunes: CHAPEL BRAE; SHIPSTON; STUTTGART
