Tag: Syria

A hymn published in 1997 still pertinent in a world torn by war and carnage – with tune by John Kleinheksel

Lives like yours and mine, contorted – as we live in a world contorted by war and hatred, during a week remembering Hamas action of 7th October 2023 and living with Israel’s response, together with war and carnage in so many places on our planet.

1	Lives like yours and mine, contorted:
	Genocide has been reported,
	Wrong seems right, it's all distorted;
	Christ! What would you do?

2	Seeing babies starving, bleeding,
	Hearing mothers' desperate pleading,
	Would you wring your hands, unheeding?
	Christ! What would you do?

3	Watching buildings ruined, burning,
	Hearing tank tracks rumble, churning,
	Would you walk on by, not turning?
	Christ! What would you do?
	
4	Sensing fear that chills the city,
	Families threatened without pity,
	Would you pray your prayers, so pretty?
	Christ! What would you do?

5	We have seen it, all the sorrow,
	We will see the same tomorrow,
	Must this pattern always follow?
	Christ! What should we do?

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)	
Words © 1997 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. Originally published in Blinded by the Dazzle https://stainer.co.uk/shop/b840/ 
Metre: 8 8 8 5
Tune: THERE’S NO GREATER NAME THAN JESUS (Complete Mission Praise)


John R. Kleinheksel Sr has composed the following tune which may be used with acknowledgement. 
This tune is now to be acknowledged as Copyright Stainer & Bell Ltd address as for the text.
An audio file of the tune is at the link below.

Hiroshima Day – a possible hymn

Hiroshima Day is marked every year on 6 August, the day in 1945 on which the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. 
The film Oppenheimer explores some of the ethical questions related to this event. Others have questioned its rights and wrongs since 1945.

The following poem/hymn was written  in response to the photo of a little boy rescued from a bombed building in Allepo in Syria. Equally it is evocative of children everywhere suffering whenever we settle our disputes through war or violence.

It speaks as much to our vision of a destroyed city as to the cries of a single child:

A bloodied child foreshadowed by a cross,
both share their taste of evil and of loss,
and when will people ever live and learn
that hurt and harm is all that war can earn?

We hold our breath in horror as we view
this scene forever old, forever new;
amid the dust and rubble strewn around
a child cries out and parents can’t be found.

How long, O Lord we cry, each hollow word,
our pleas of peace increasingly absurd?
Good God, forgive us when inaction’s voice
speaks loudly of our violent, hurtful choice.

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 18 August 2016 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, 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: 10.10.10.10.
Suggested tunes: these words were written with the tune EVENTIDE (StF 141) in mind. Singing the Faith plus suggests these alternatives: THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP (StF 640) and – perhaps surprisingly – WOODLANDS  (StF 186)