A hymn reflecting on John 13: 34 – 35 takes us, perhaps, toward Pentecost… I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Searing incandescent spirit, melting rock and churning foam, turning chaos into comfort formed the planet where we roam. Now we recollect the story of the cosmic photo-call when the universe was forming earth, the cradle of us all. By this spirit prophets speaking challenged power and brought down thrones, pointed people to the Godhead, moved them from their comfort zones; turned their minds from selfish pleasure, marking wrong and putting right, led them from each ego's desert, from their introspective blight. Now the spirit doused all people, no-one could escape this shower; sons and mothers, fathers, daughters, felt this rhythmic, dancing power; soon all nations heard the clamour, every language known on earth called to every nation living, join with love and find new-birth. Andrew E Pratt; 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: 8 7 8 7 D Tune: LUX EOI
Tag: prophets
Hymn responding to Greta Thunberg ahead of and following COP 26 – Blue planet, rising, soaring through the cosmos – Now with a new tune by Frances S. Drake
Blue planet, rising, soaring through the cosmos, was lent in trust for us to tend and care while children, young in wisdom, call in anguish, for all they see now fills them with despair. The wonder of the sky has drawn us upwards, our eyes diverted by the moon and stars, and as we dream we lose our moral compass, and in our greed we grasp creation, call it ours. Time runs away, our life on earth is finite, young prophets calling, needing us to act are crying out, lamenting for our planet, while ‘adults’ sleep, denying fear and fact. Still others stand, immune, ignore the future, absolved from fault for all that comes to pass. When will we grasp the need for urgent action, see clearly, not net curtained, or through frosted glass? While sands of time run down, are gone and finished, in fear of change we hanker for the past, but life on earth is threatened by inaction, as lethargy and greed resist and last. Good God forgive us for each fault and faction, unwillingness to change to save this earth. God give us ears to hear the words of wisdom that we might save this planet, cradle of our birth. Andrew Pratt 29/10/2021 – Responding to Greta Thunberg ahead of and following COP 26. Words © 2021 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: 11.10.11.10.11.10.11.12 Tune: BLUE PLANET RISING; LONDONDERRY AIR
Am I creation’s keeper Poem/hymnWritten 13/9/2020 while watching David Attenborough’s broadcast – ‘Extinction: The Facts’
Am I creation’s keeper,
a steward of this earth,
a singular vocation,
to measure all its worth?
As humans we must nurture,
the land, the sea, the air,
for all we see around us
is handed to our care.
Yet lost in self-obsession,
not feeding human need,
our greatest occupation,
is meeting human greed;
we cull and kill creation,
exterminate at will,
we hanker and we hunger
for more than just our fill.
The seas become polluted,
the forests burnt or felled,
the air a noxious fluid,
its temperature not held.
The world, unfit for purpose,
destroyed by human choice?
We need to hear the prophets,
to raise up every voice.
No faith or creed or preference,
exceeds our need for life,
this planet, all its value,
will it survive our strife?
When human life has ended,
this home left scarred and torn,
will God not weep with anger,
that we were ever born?
Written 13/9/2020 while watching David Attenborough’s broadcast:
Extinction: The Facts
Andrew Pratt, Words © 2020 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.
Suggested Tune: SALLY GARDENS
God still needs prophets – now perhaps more than at other times – thanks to Simon Sutcliffe and Andrew Emison for reminding me of this hymn.. Kiki
1 God still needs prophets who will rage,
against discrimination,
who speak God’s words amid despair,
to this and every nation;
who reach again with nail?scarred hands
into the pain we’re feeling,
to hold us when we weep at loss,
who bring a hope of healing.
2 God still needs prophets who will hold
a mirror to our blindness,
to show us, each and everyone,
how hollow is our kindness;
how empty are our words of love
when shrouded in derision;
how clever words can’t justify
unloving indecision.
3 God still needs prophets who ignore
religions that confine us,
who magnify our words of love
through actions to refine us.
May we be prophets through our words
and in our hands of healing,
that others might see Christ in us
while Christ to us revealing.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2015 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: 8 7 8 7 D
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.
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