‘Drones, not angels herald horror’ a hymn for 2024
from Remembrance through Advent to Christmas
Drones, not angels herald horror,
children shelter without hope,
singing now, but hell will follow.
God, through grace, give strength to cope.
Here where human hearts are broken,
all cried out, no tears to shed,
prayers are held, for fear, unspoken,
shrouded now in clouds of dread.
God reach deep through hateful anger
bent on vengeance, recompense;
listen through our warring clangour,
re-enliven common sense.
Guide us through the dust and rubble,
where our blood has stained the earth,
turning fields where all is stubble,
seeding love that signs new birth.
Andrew E Pratt (4/11/2024)
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
Tune: HYFRYDOL; SCARLET RIBBONS or, perhaps, BLAENWERN
A completely new hymn for 2024 reminding us how different war is now but, nevertheless, with comparable suffering. Suitable, perhaps, for Remembrance and through Advent to Christmas given the continuing situation in the Middle East, Ukraine/Russia and many other places.
Tag: horror
Extravagant horror – a world at war with itself
Extravagant horror, beyond our conceiving,
the rain of this terror confounds our believing,
the thunder, war’s lightning, once deaf’ning, then blinding,
has sculpt human madness, to hell we are sliding.
Humanity harbours such hidden aggression,
the need to reap vengeance to counter oppression,
the screams of the innocent, tears of depression,
white noise of the agony, warfare’s obsession.
And now hope is lost, there is no compensation,
no sense of relief for each people, each nation,
some milit’ry folk will admire each citation
while leaving the children in wild conflagration.
© Andrew Pratt 30/9/2024
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
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