Tag: Love of neighbour

The cosmic cries that sound through all creation – inspired by Psalm 33: 1-12 especially v 8-12.

The cosmic cries that sound through all creation  - 
inspired by Psalm 33: 1-12 especially v 8-12.

1	The cosmic cries that sound through all creation,
	the pain of creatures, birth-pangs of the stars,
	the whining of the world upon its axis,
	you craft in ways that nothing stains or mars.
	
2	We cannot fathom each eternal purpose,
	or wrap our minds around what is to be.
	We only know that, earthed here for a season,
	our role is sealing human liberty.
	
3	Half crazy world in which we nurture children,
	where right seems absent, mercy ground to dust;
	O God give courage, foster our intention
	to love our neighbour, resurrect our trust.
	
4	So God, as we would seek to follow Jesus,
	to mine the depths of wisdom he has shown,
	illuminate our task and lead us onward,
	until into his likeness we have grown.

Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
© 2009 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
Tune: LORD OF  THE YEARS; HIGHWOOD

Created by HymnQuest.com

A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day

A poem for Holocaust Memorial Day, 27th January, and going forward. Today we still need to remember our human capacity for inhumanity, that the Holocaust took place in a democratic country with a democratically elected government, and still within living memory. Remember, many of the perpetrators saw themselves as ‘Christian’.



1	As we remember holocaust,	

	in horror disbelieving

	the history of the human race,

	we share each other's grieving;

	God purge us of hypocrisy,

	of all our self-deceiving.



2	Our language is inadequate,

	unfit for the expression

	of hatred that we visualise,

	humanity's confession;

	we hurry headlong into hell,

	we witness love's regression.



3	The deepest, distant agony

	that throbs through all creation,

	the silent tears that quietly fall

	in every generation,

	are signs of our humanity,

	our need for re-creation.



4	God give us strength to make a pledge

	to move beyond contention,

	to see, in each, humanity.

	Through greater good intention,

	God, move us toward a purer love,

	a gracious intervention.



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.