mysticism – hymnsandbooks

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

Communion with our God in prayer – https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/

Communion with our God in prayer
may be explained in mystic ways:
a prophet’s dream, a shining light,
that flashes through the darkest night.

Yet that same sense of harmony
can be explained in other ways,
as neurones channel, pulse and play,
the darkest night can seem like day.

We question, is this God or self?
Can God in spirit fire each mind?
Is prayer a myth we ought to shelve,
as we experiment and delve?

A deeper wisdom might explain
that neural pulses we detect
show prayer and science can equate,
as cause and symptom correlate.

So it should not seem odd or strange,
that when we meditate or pray,
a God incarnate offers grace,
inspires each neural interface.
Andrew Pratt 19/10/2019

Tune: O WALY WALY
Metre: LM
Written in response to Rev’d Canon Dr Joanna Collicutt seminar on The Psychology of Neuroscience and Prayer
Words © 2019 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.

Minds matter when we come to pray – https://bramhallmethodists.org.uk/scienceandprayer/

Minds matter when we come to pray
as we are held within God’s play.
We call for things we want or need,
or simply rest: a dormant seed.

A spirit moves within each prayer,
intention draws through silent air
direct to God, to other’s needs,
or mystically, beyond our creeds

We feel detached, yet not adrift.
Sometimes our self-awareness shifts,
we seek forgiveness, need a balm,
or find, detached, a sense of calm.

No sacred place, yet words demand,
an explanation of this strand,
a shore where waves will shift and drift,
some spirit that will change and lift.

Caught up, uplifted by a light
within a dark and dim lit night,
and in this place of calm there rests,
a sense of love, ecstatic, blessed.
Andrew Pratt 19/10/2019

The ancient path – a hymn for Lent

Word, wisdom, song: the grounding of creation;
a rhythmic, rhyming, rhythm from the past
that weaves a mystic saintliness of being,
compelling sense of God, un-built to last.

The ancient path will lead our footsteps forward,
the future beckons us – as yet unseen,
the lapping sea of love will yet enfold us,
for every way we go the Christ has been.

The heavens that encompass us while waiting,
the gentle touch enfolding us in death,
this warming spirit deep within our being,
is intimate as every living breath.

At every crossing woven through our seeing,
our sensing of the myriad stars of light,
give glances of a God beyond our being
still standing high in love beyond death’s night.

Yet on and on the circle is still turning,
a rhythmic, rhyming rhythm from our past:
Words, wisdom, song, the grounding of creation:
encircling love will hold, will always last.
Andrew Pratt 6/6/2015 © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2015
Tune: INTERCESSOR

I give to this land

I give to this land,
and the land to me,
that down millennia God has graced:
here in the depth of this hollow oak
the satin grain,
the thornless wood,
this hall of God,
this belfry tower
the holly’s way beyond the font,
through death and suffering,
through re-birth
to Christ,
to God,
to all.

Andrew Pratt -/2/2004

To Alan Garner, Cheshire author.