We dare not risk forgetfulness,
the eyes where light has been extinguished,
the gathered limbs and shattered bones,
that hone the memory, shatter hope.
The shadows lengthen, colour fades.
What now?
The choice is ours.
This turning of the year:
forgiving fault
can we renew relationships
or, festering, lurch onward into hell?
The choice is yours, is ours, is mine…
choose life…perhaps?
Copyright Andrew Pratt 2023
1 Great God, your love has held our lives through all the years down to this day. Your constant presence held us fast: remain with us we plead and pray. We've seen the ruins left by war, the tumbled buildings, street by street; some heard the voices that they loved and cried for those they'd no more meet. 2 As time moves on some memories fade, some griefs we shared lie in the past; for others pain is just as sharp, we know their hurt will always last. Some human acts have swept away our partners, parents, children, friends, some people we had never known; the memory lives and never ends. 3 Beyond this day we try to live: a sinew of each life survives, but where is God in hurt and hate? The questions stay to haunt our lives. Help us to build a better world not fuelled by vengeance, fed by greed; a world in which we all can live, what ever colour, race or creed. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2015 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: LMD Tune: JERUSALEM Other resources: Worshipcloud
An empty tomb is just empty. It took a meeting with Jesus to convince a woman, then a group of men that Jesus, who had died on a cross, was alive. It is still difficult to believe. Yet after two thousand years, whatever we believe, as Geoffrey Best has written on Facebook, ‘…in this (hi)story is the revelation of the very nature of God, a God who takes all that we throw and absorbs and transforms the dead and deadly into life abundant .... if we let it!’ Amen! 1 We cannot speculate, or glance into the well of history. Nor can we look beyond this time with any sense of certainty. We only have our faith and hope, to make us stand, to help us cope. 2 Great God we grasp at straws of faith, of things we hope will point to you. We read the ancient texts and scan those distant myths to make them new. And all the time we live between these metaphors and what is seen. 3 The past is gone, we cannot hear more than an echo down the age. And what is still to come we fear; we see each other's pent up rage. Yet what we need is close at hand, your present love in every land. 4 True resurrection brings to bear the things that heal, create, unite. Love launches its triumphant praise and builds on joy and will delight. The former things are passed away, dead night transformed to brightest day. Metre: 8 8 8 8 8 8 Tune: ABINGDON Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2015 © 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.
Art © Andrew Pratt 2022
Once crimson poppies bloomed
out in a foreign field,
each memory reminds
where brutal death was sealed.
The crimson petals flutter down,
still hatred forms a thorny crown.
For in this present time
we wait in vain for peace;
each generation cries,
each longing for release,
while war still plagues the human race
and families seek a hiding place.
How long will human life
suffer for human greed?
How long must race or pride,
wealth, nationhood or creed
be reasons justifying death
to suffocate a nation’s breath?
For everyone who dies
we share a quiet grief;
the pain of loss remains,
time rarely brings relief:
and so we will remember them
and heaven sound a loud amen.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2012 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.
Metre: 6 6 6 6 8 8 Tune: LITTLE CORNARD
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