Tag: imagination

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

Poets struggle, sculptors risk…

One gospel (Mark) doesn’t mention the birth of Jesus. The other three relate it in different ways. This has led me to reflect on the way in which different arts attempt to give expression to the nature of God. 

Poets struggle with the language, 
words both mystic and absurd 
fail to frame the incarnation, 
giving flesh to living Word.

Art constrained by expectation 
will not let the colours go, 
only spreading, mixing media 
emulate the Spirit’s flow.

Sculptors sometimes risk the fracture, 
letting stone dictate the form, 
giving rise to new creation 
chance God shattering our norm.

Even music caged in bar lines 
lacks the freedom to expand,
till in jazz, through improvising, 
rhythms stretch to new demands.

Nothing ever fixed or final, 
way beyond the human mind:
mystery and imagination…
all that we will ever find…
© Andrew Pratt Written 17/12/2022

             Incarnation – Watercolour © Andrew E. Pratt

Senses sharpened in the silence – Praise in time of Covid-19

Senses sharpened in the silence plus oakPhoto ©Andrew Pratt 2020

Senses sharpened in the silence,
gently, quietly, feel your breath,
know God’s love will never leave us,
now, or in our time of death.
In this time imagine bird song,
thunder of a mountain stream,
slap of waves along the shoreline,
things for which we hope or dream.

All the beauty of the starlight,
rainbow colours in the sky,
things that we can just imagine
feed our minds until we die,
fill our hearts with heightened wonder,
strain the sinews of our thought,
soon exhausting human language,
through the images we’ve caught.

Lifted up within the mystery,
now embodied in our praise,
mystic music moves our being,
sounding notes from phrase to phrase,
raising us beyond the present,
held in loving symphony;
God inspire our hearts with singing
in one cosmic harmony.

Andrew Pratt 19/4/2020
Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.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.
Tune: CALON LAN