Travelling through Advent, a poem or, if you wish to sing, a hymn
As we tread this advent pathway – a reflective poem
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
As we tread this advent pathway – an Advent hymn
As we tread this advent pathway
stepping through this mystery,
wonder fills each human heartbeat,
carves new ways through history.
Others walked this way before us,
in a different time and space,
spoke a language foreign, distant,
delving deeply through God's grace.
Now within imagination
art and science visualise
things beyond our comprehension,
truths we've yet to realise.
Here all language strains and fractures,
struggles to describe, inform
what our senses lay before us,
fail to offer shape and form.
Yet, in faith, while frail, we fumble
reaching through the mists of time,
finding still, within this season,
cosmic love, incarnate rhyme.
Andrew E Pratt 30/11/2024
Words © 2024 © 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: CHAPEL BRAE; SHIPSTON; STUTTGART
Tag: love
Life is tough but God will hold us…
Life is tough, but God will hold - us inspired by Psalm 132: 1 – 12 (13 – 18)
1 Life is tough, but God will hold us
through each hardship of our lives,
when our hope is torn to ribbons
grace is present, love survives.
2 God will feed us bread of heaven,
finest wine to slake our thirst.
Those who grieve will know God's comfort,
those who waited will be first.
3 Hear the faithful offer praises,
here the poor will shout for joy,
grace and hope will give forever
love that nothing can destroy.
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: 8 7 8 7
Tunes: CROSS OF JESUS; LAUS DEO (Redhead)
When sense is damaged, limiting perception – hymn – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37
When sense is damaged, limiting perception – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37
1 When sense is damaged, limiting perception,
God’s love will not diminish or betray,
for we are held in grace and loving kindness,
in pain, through grief and hardship, come what may.
2 The love of God defies our understanding,
God reaches to the depths of our despair
absorbing hate, discerning fear and anguish,
enabling, healing, wholeness and repair.
3 Our God is patient with our human frailty,
a strength in weakness when we slip or fall,
and so just as we are we come to worship
to offer back to God our all in all.
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.
Metre: 11.10.11.10
Tune: HIGHWOOD
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)
For Holocaust Memorial in a broken world – a hymn – The day will come….
The day will come, must come, and soon – Holocaust Remembrance in a broken world
1 The day will come, must come, and soon,
when we will sing a song of joy
with sisters, brothers, not like us,
who share the image of one God.
2 Whatever name, whichever faith,
at heart we share a common bond,
a shared humanity in God,
whose name and character is love.
3 That love will drive us to the day
when every wall is broken down,
when love and joy and song are one:
that day will come, must come, and soon.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2001 © 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: LM
Tune: TALLIS’ CANON
hymnsandbooks 