Tag: hope

A hymn for New Year – Oh where is there love

Oh where is there love in a world that is tired, 
across the year's threshold, where hope has expired?
We wait amid movement, to pause and to pray, 
to nurture our God at the dawn of each day.

Our eyes have been opened, compassion unlocked, 
the road has been cleared, and the future unblocked. 
The narrative moment has fractured the storm, 
the chill of the moment unfrozen, now warm.

Such newness is waiting with every new day, 
the new year is dawning through danger and play. 
The dance is still twisting through hate into light, 
is spinning and turning creating new light.

We hold in our neighbour the broken and hurt, 
those lost within living, God would not desert.  
The frail and the fallen, the fraught or the free 
are reaching for Jesus, will Christ be in me?

© Andrew Pratt  Words © 2011 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 11 11 11
DATCHET; CRADLE SONG (Kirkpatrick)

Where the jackals scratch a living – hymn – prepare the way of the LORD

Isaiah 40:3 A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”.



1	Where the jackals scratch a living, 

	in this wild, deserted place, 

	springs will bring refreshing water, 

	grass and reeds will sign God's grace. 

	

2	Here our God will build a highway 

	striding out across the land, 

	bringing hope to what was barren, 

	once again the people stand.

	

3	Once again a smile is dawning 

	on the face of every man, 

	all the children play together, 

	women talk, it's time to plan.

	

4	As we tell, recount the story, 

	in this present time and place, 

	may we build in recollection, 

	room for hope and gracious space;

	

5	Space where God can offer comfort 

	through our human words and lives, 

	love that shows in every instance 

	faith can live and hope survives.



© Andrew Pratt  Words © 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: ALL FOR JESUS

New Advent hymn – A quiet chill that freezes expectation

A quiet chill that freezes expectation, 
the hope of love seems distant and remote 
as war and hate are whirling all around us, 
we wait for light of which the prophets wrote.

There is no peace, no reconciliation 
as factions fired by hatred seethe and kill, 
when will it end, this constant devastation, 
when will we learn to listen, to be still? 
[When will we listen to each other, share one will?]

This advent season, dawn of love’s foundation 
is born in darkness of eternal night, 
and yet a flicker bids us hasten onward, 
as purple shadows hint at morning light.

And in this moment in our preparation 
let’s put aside our fripperies and fear, 
to make new space for gracious re-creation.
Come God, in love at last, come now, draw near. 
[Come God infuse your love in us, O come, draw near.]

Words Andrew Pratt © 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
Tunes: INTERCESSOR, [LONDONDERRY AIR]

Note: Using the tune: INTERCESSOR sing as a four verse hymn. Ignore words in [square] brackets.
Using LONDONDERRY AIR combine verses 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 to make a two verse hymn using the use the words in  [square] brackets for the last line of each verse.