The Song of the Sea – a hymn related to Global Warming
I usually post a hymn on a Monday or Tuesday each week. On Monday morning 11th August, the Today Programme on radio 4 announced that The UK's seas have had their warmest start to the year since records began, helping to drive some dramatic changes in marine life and for its fishing communities. Read more…
In 2021 Dr Tim Gordon Marine Biologist, Exeter University spoke to Bramhall Methodist Church about the death of coral reefs around Australia. Again, today there are reports of the deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef. During his seminar, in response, I wrote these words…
The song of the sea, once melodious, is dying,
that song is essential, the calling of home;
Great God, we lament, yet the sound of our crying
is quieter than breakers, the wash of the foam.
What work must we do to restore what is broken,
how can we encourage the choir of the sea?
The spirit is moving, the waters are wounded,
the oceans are anguished for life to be free.
You enter our suffering and love in our grieving,
you join us in weakness, when frailty is near,
God holds us, enfold us when hell overcomes us,
stand near to the tomb of our folly and fear.
You promise a covenant, both gift and promise.
Creation is groaning, still coming to birth.
Bring newness, renewal, a hope that is living,
from suffering bring joy for the whole of the earth.
We treasure the symphony, yet we are grieving,
we long for the chorus, the song of the sea,
bring light in the darkness and sound in the silence,
Great God, co-creator, let all life be free.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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: 12 11 12 11
Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO
You can read more about this at Tim Gordon
Hear this sung by Gareth Moore here
Tag: suffering
In simple, suffering love – Easter Vigil
In simple, suffering love
a man looks down, on all the world
as empathetic tears drench cheeks that child-like,
once had filled with laughter.
The shadows lengthen,
heighten the beam’s intersection,
as muscles, taut with strain crack, as a whip,
and feel the course of pain.
Finished? Is it finished?
But still the thunder grumbles
and lightning slashes dark and cloud.
A drift of rain disperses yet a diminishing crowd.
© Andrew Pratt 2024
Remembrance – Once crimson poppies bloomed out in a foreign field
Once crimson poppies bloomed
out in a foreign field,
each memory reminds
where brutal death was sealed.
The crimson petals flutter down,
still hatred forms a thorny crown.
For in this present time
we wait in vain for peace;
each generation cries,
each longing for release,
while war still plagues the human race
and families seek a hiding place.
How long will human life
suffer for human greed?
How long must race or pride,
wealth, nationhood or creed
be reasons justifying death
to suffocate a nation’s breath?
For everyone who dies
we share a quiet grief;
the pain of loss remains,
time rarely brings relief:
and so we will remember them
and heaven sound a loud amen.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2012 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: 6 6 6 6 8 8 Tune: LITTLE CORNARD
Hiroshima Day Poem
Hiroshima Day Poem – Hiroshima Day is designated as August 6th
This can be used as a responsive prayer
As we remember holocaust,
in horror disbelieving
the history of the human race,
we share each other’s grieving;
God purge us of hypocrisy,
of all our self-deceiving.
Our language is inadequate,
unfit for the expression
of hatred that we visualise,
humanity’s confession;
we hurry headlong into hell,
we witness love’s regression.
The deepest, distant agony
that throbs through all creation,
the silent tears that quietly fall
in every generation,
are signs of our humanity,
our need for re-creation.
God give us strength to make a pledge
to move beyond contention,
to see, in each, humanity.
Through greater good intention,
God, move us toward a purer love,
a gracious intervention.
Andrew E Pratt
Words © 2003 © 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.
Mothering Sunday? UKRAINE – first draft
God is among all the cries of the dying,
buried in fear amid hurt and disdain,
breathing the dust of destruction, despairing,
holding each mother and feeling her pain.
God, like a mother, once torn from her children,
weeps in the darkness, has nowhere to turn,
fenced by the horror and starved by indiff’rence,
nations watch blindly while homes fall or burn.
God, stand beside us, God mother and comfort,
God you despaired as you hung, bled and died,
now in this moment, God hold and enfold us,
interpose Love where all love was denied.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
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.
11 10 11 10
Tune: STEWARDSHIP
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