1 When life's crippled, flawed or faulted,
Filled with fear, with folly strewn;
God is here, yet never thwarted,
Loving in dark sorrow's womb;
God is in each widow's anguish,
God is queuing unemployed,
God will in the prison languish,
God will love, not be destroyed.
2 When work's clamour, noise and chaos
Brings the stress that drags us down;
God is here identifying,
Praying with us as we groan.
When our love and life are battered,
When our strength is all but sapped,
When the way ahead is shattered,
Still within God's love we're wrapped.
3 Love and folly, cross and kindness,
Echo all we know within;
Jesus challenges the blindness;
Penetrates deception's din;
Builds again where all seemed shattered,
Holds us when we fear or fall,
Takes what's left of life, though tattered,
By His love renews it all.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 1991 © 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.
8 7 8 7 D Trochaic
Tune: BETHANY; ABBOTS LEIGH; COMFORTER
Tag: Hymn
Hope is built in present moments – hymn inspired by Isaiah 65: 17 – 25 (now with tune)
Hope is built in present moments – hymn with tune - inspired by Isaiah 65: 17 – 25
1 Hope is built in present moments,
times of visions, times of dreams,
times when love transcends the present,
long outlasting human schemes.
2 Hope will open gates of promise,
herald dawns of glorious light,
help us live within this moment,
lead us onward from the night.
3 Hope is more than mists of fortune,
hope is more than fear or fate,
here through faith's imagination,
love transforms our present state.
4 We will find a new beginning
built on truths instead of lies,
built on love of every neighbour,
love that will confound the 'wise'.
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: 8 7 8 7
Tunes: LAUS DEO; ST OSWALD
New tune written by Frances S. Drake reproduced with permission -
Enquiries for use of music to Hymncat@gmail.com
I stroll along the forest paths – Pentecost goes on…
I stroll along the forest paths – hymn for 21st June – life in the Spirit!
I stroll along the forest paths, I ride upon the wind.
I sail across the ocean waves, or feast on tamarind,
but all the wealth and wonder here is empty, pale and trite
against the vibrant colours of your spirit’s flaming light.
Your spirit turns me round again when I'm against the wall.
Your spirit lifts me up again, you will not let me fall.
And when I lie asleep at night, in incandescent streams
your love cascades around my life, the goal of all my dreams.
I cast my life into that love, ignited by its flame.
Since meeting you each day I live can never be the same.
In concert and in harmony our lives will merge as one,
in singing, dancing joy until the setting of the sun.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2003 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: 14 14 14 14
Tune: THE LINCOLNSHIRE POACHER
A hymn for a seeking faith inspired by Psalm 19 – The cosmic pulse
A hymn for a seeking faith inspired by Psalm 19 - The cosmic pulse
1 The cosmic pulse that beats through all creation,
two spinning stars, the pulsar's throbbing light;
these wing beats, not a passing aberration,
but angels thronging through the mists of night;
2 The whirling, dancing, trance that brings relation
with all that is and all that is to be;
the mystic, magic prayer, this wild elation
you say will bring the love to set us free;
3 Our language cannot offer a description:
Nirvana, heaven, call it what you will;
this other world that fires our inspiration
is all that conjures up the power to thrill.
4 The God we hymn, through praise and acclamation,
we seek to meet through words or bread and wine;
yet all the world inspires your incantation;
together let us fathom truth's design.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 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 Iambic
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR
From Whatever name or creed
Hymn inspired by Mark 7: 24-30 – She felt just like a ragged dog
She felt just like a ragged dog - inspired by Mark 7: 24-30
1 She felt just like a ragged dog
that scratched around for food,
denied, despised and kicked aside
and never any good.
2 Yet now she stood inside the door
and pleaded with this man,
for each taboo had little weight,
her grief had wider span.
3 Her child had need of healing help
and she would make Christ hear,
the urgency of anguished need
had overcome her fear.
4 And in that moment he would learn,
audacity would teach
that human laws and well worn creeds
put no-one out of reach.
5 Compassion ruled and love compelled
to action on that day,
and Jesus' reach was broadened as
he learnt that grace held sway.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2012 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: CM
Tune: ST PETER (How sweet the name of Jesus sounds)
hymnsandbooks 