Tag: struggle

If God is love, then God in love unites us – Christian Unity

If God is love, then God in love unites us 

If God is love, then God in love unites us, 
the essence of our being, sense and life, 
how can we be divided, for our nature
is rooted in this Spirit, transcends strife.
The ethic by which all our life is driven 
is grounded in relationship and prayer, 
for where love joins us, weaving bonds of friendship, 
be sure to find that God, through grace, is dwelling there.

If this is so, then what can separate us:
our human ego, hubris or our pride? 
For when we argue, struggle with each other,
like children we are fighting for our side.
Without God holding us we’re hollow cymbals, 
we need to let Love guide our ebb and flow, 
till entering the stream of love together, 
the harmony of hope through trust will surely show.

Andrew Pratt 15/1/2023 written for Northwich & District Churches Together, with thanks to Robert Bridge for inspiration.
Words © 2023 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.

Tune: LONDONDERRY AIR

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

Advent 4 – A hymn – ‘Like many children’

Advent 4 A hymn - Like many children - God with no throne 
(inspired by Matthew 1: 18-25)...away in a manger?

Like many children, 
mother unmarried, 
born into hardship, 
yet not alone
Jesus, was valued, 
Mary and Joseph, 
nursing the Godhead, 
God with no throne.

Others would name him 
king of a kingdom, 
yet God incarnate 
lay in the straw, 
God in a manger? 
Fodder for cattle?
Parents uncertain, 
no sign of awe?

Soon they would struggle, 
hounded to exile, 
night brought no comfort, 
only one star; 
moment of wonder, 
quietly, no thunder, 
angels would whisper, 
heard from afar.

Andrew Pratt 11/12/2022
Words © 2022 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: 5.5.5.4D
Tune: BUNESSAN (Morning has broken)

Christ the King? What sort of king? And a hymn…

The Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent is recognised in some churches as the Feast of Christ the King. We might sing ‘King of Kings, Majesty’. But what a strange King, his crown, a crown of thorns…Luke 23: 33-43.

1	A carpenter hung on a cross, 
	a rough-hewn cross of wood, 
	while people satisfied by rage 
	had never understood.
	This man had met the arguments 
	of those who sought to rule 
	with kindness, gentleness and love: 
	they marked him as a fool.

2	He challenged values, long held rites, 
	that bound the world they knew, 
	he sought to point them back to God. 
	For this they'd curse and sue.
	The trumped up charges that they brought, 
	designed to bring him down,
	resulted in this spectacle, 
	this cross and thorny crown.

3	And through the centuries that passed 
	the ones who called him 'good', 
	have tried to make some sense of this, 
	have rarely understood.
	And now we stand again to mark 
	the passing of this day, 
	to struggle still to understand, 
	love's sacrificial way.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2016 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
CMD
8 6 8 6 D
Tune: SOLLS SEIN
As published in Seedresources http://www.theworshipcloud.com .  Art: iPad Art © Andrew Pratt 2022