love – Page 17 – hymnsandbooks

While the nations guard their borders,

While the nations guard their borders, 
cherished cultures, ways of life,
people struggle for survival,
children die while fleeing strife. 
Can we hear with calm acceptance 
what the news has got to tell?
Can we claim to follow Jesus 
while the world drifts into hell?


Hell is where there’s no more loving, 
close at hand, not out of sight, 
what we make denying others 
grace of love, or hope of light.
When compassion’s drained and stranded, 
voices might as well be dumb
human cries that we’ve avoided 
fall on ears both blocked and numb.


Christ is calling in each murmur, 
in each whisper framing need, 
silence louder than God’s thunder, 
loud enough to quell our greed;
yet we close our ears, our senses, 
dreading every troubling fact,
lest we feel the pain of others 
forcing us to rise and act.

©Andrew Pratt
26/11/2021

Why I became a Methodist

I was welcomed unconditionally, with no requirements or beliefs to be fulfilled, simply by saying to a Minister that I wanted to be part of a people who through a single, simple act, not knowing me, had made me feel valuable and trusted.

I wonder if this ever happens today in churches?

When strangers are unwelcome – those needing asylum

When strangers are unwelcome 

When strangers are unwelcome 
the church’s heart beats slow, 
the lost who run from danger 
have nowhere left to go. 
No words of grace are spoken 
while, looking on the world, 
the heart of God is broken: 
love’s banner tightly furled.

The people at our borders 
who need compassion now, 
reach out for care and shelter, 
but rules will not allow 
these ones to seek asylum:
we put up legal walls.
Before we’ve even met them 
we disregard their calls.

Then images from scripture speak 
judgment on the church, 
and call for clearer thinking 
as values seize or lurch. 
The Christ that we would worship 
would turn the world around, 
and shake us from our comfort, 
our certain, solid ground.

Then shatter walls and windows 
and let the church reach out, 
and not with Psalms and anthems, 
but anger, let us shout 
condemning every outrage 
that demonises life, 
and break the laws that damage, 
evoking human strife.

Andrew Pratt 30/7/2021
Words © 2021 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: 7.6.7.6 D
Tune: AURELIA; KINGS LYNN

Inspired by a front page item in the Methodist Recorder 30/7/2021 involving an interview with Rev Inderjit Bhogal.

As we move towards debate and decision in Methodism

A hymn written earlier this year https://hymnsandbooks.blog/2021/04/24/change-us-god-into-the-likeness-hymn-for-times-of-debate-and-decision/

INVESTING IN A MONOLITH – a hymn of an alternative future – BEYOND COVID-19 – A DREAM?

1	Investing in a monolith
	that reaches to the sky
	can blind us to our neighbour’s loss,
	we’re deaf to hear their cry.
	The infrastructure that we crave,
	carves scars across the land,
	where food and beauty once was found,
	but can no longer stand.

2	The monuments we build to power
	that sap a nation’s wealth,
	will crumble as they leech the poor,
	yet wreck our moral health.
	When will we learn a quiet way,
	not strident in its speech,
	of love for neighbour, knowing peace
	is not beyond our reach?

3	When will we till this common ground
	we share through human birth,
	that all its riches, love and joy,
	may show our common worth;
	each one a child, a neighbour, friend,
	a partner in this life?
	Then let us share in Christ-like love,
	and harbour no more strife.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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:CMD
Tune: ELLACOMBE