Tag: war

The sky, at sunset, still bleeding…

When the sky at sunset, bleeding, mirrors pain that fells our hope;
it seems that love is fast receding, sowing tears that can’t be quelled.


Can it be that God, seceding, leaves this world, all grace expelled?
When the streets are warm with terror, as emotions run or seize,
singing notes of music shudder, when God’s tempo should relieve,
must we lose the spirit’s rudder, losing hope?
We start to grieve.


When the darkness is descending, night a quiet, yet chilling, shroud,
folding round us bleak, unending, muting what we cry aloud,
is God near, with grace transcending fear and dread, defeat or cloud?
© Andrew Pratt 27/7/2016/2020/2024

From Words, images and Imagination copyright Andrew Pratt 2020

Words for Holy Innocent’s

1          Herod’s high and mighty stand
            Showed the power at his command,
            Slaughtered children in the land:
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us.

2          Mary wept, she understood,
            Wept as every mother should,
            Ramah’s echo, death to good:
            Chorus

3          Surely force has had its day,
            Brutish whim and power’s display;
            Yet our actions hurt betray:
            Chorus

4          Seen on every paper’s page,
            Words of hate and fists of rage,
            Signs of greed in every age:
            Chorus

5          Anger still inflicts the pain,
            Each excuse is seen as lame,
            Yet again we bear the shame:
            Chorus

6          Till through this and every time
            People cease from heinous crime,
            Till with peace their actions rhyme:
            Chorus

VERSION IN SONGS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM (7 7 7 D and refrain)

1          Herod’s high and mighty stand
            Showed the power at his command,
            Slaughtered children in the land:
            Mary wept, she understood,
            Wept as every mother should,
            Ramah’s echo, death to good:
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us.

2          Surely force has had its day,
            Brutish whim and power’s display;
            Yet our actions truth betray:
            Seen on every paper’s page,
            Words of hate and fists of rage,
            Signs of greed in every age:
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us.

3          Anger still inflicts the pain,
            Each excuse is seen as lame,
            Yet again we bear the shame:
            Till through this and every time
            People cease from heinous crime,
            Till with peace their actions rhyme:
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy,
            Kyrie, Lord have mercy on us.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)  From: Whatever name creed, No.28 (1999) & Songs for the new millennium.

Words © 1999, 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.

Tune: HOLY INNOCENTS (Ian Sharp) Whatever name creed, No.28

New Advent hymn – A quiet chill that freezes expectation

A quiet chill that freezes expectation, 
the hope of love seems distant and remote 
as war and hate are whirling all around us, 
we wait for light of which the prophets wrote.

There is no peace, no reconciliation 
as factions fired by hatred seethe and kill, 
when will it end, this constant devastation, 
when will we learn to listen, to be still? 
[When will we listen to each other, share one will?]

This advent season, dawn of love’s foundation 
is born in darkness of eternal night, 
and yet a flicker bids us hasten onward, 
as purple shadows hint at morning light.

And in this moment in our preparation 
let’s put aside our fripperies and fear, 
to make new space for gracious re-creation.
Come God, in love at last, come now, draw near. 
[Come God infuse your love in us, O come, draw near.]

Words Andrew Pratt © 2023 © 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: 11.10.11.10
Tunes: INTERCESSOR, [LONDONDERRY AIR]

Note: Using the tune: INTERCESSOR sing as a four verse hymn. Ignore words in [square] brackets.
Using LONDONDERRY AIR combine verses 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 to make a two verse hymn using the use the words in  [square] brackets for the last line of each verse.

Lament for Palestine and Israel – unknowing babies sleep now

A Lament for Palestine and Israel

Unknowing babies sleep now, 
exhausted without food, 
while mothers cry in anguish – 
this lottery is crude: 
when missiles, ‘with precision’,               
seek targets, hid, unseen,
as leaders point the finger
so consciences are clean.

Amid this dust and carnage 
where human life is cheap, 
where body parts are scattered 
we turn our heads and weep, 
yet this is soon forgotten, 
the image fades, has gone, 
another channel chosen 
we sing a soothing song.

In this we are immersed now, 
our pain will soon be lost,
the anguished cries diminished, 
we need not bear the cost. 
A distant drum is beating, 
we’re deaf to hear its sound 
a tiny body buried , 
in seared, unhallowed ground.

And mothers still are sobbing 
while fathers shed salt tears, 
and lives are marked by hours now, 
yet mem’ries seethe for years.
How long, O God, can terror 
be harboured in a mind? 
How long before Your children 
are nurtured to be kind?

© Andrew Pratt 14/11/2023
Words © 2023 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.
Tune: NYLAND H&P 478II, REJOICE AND SING 529

Great God, your love has held our lives – Remembrance Hymn

1	Great God, your love has held our lives
	through all the years down to this day.
	Your constant presence held us fast:
	remain with us we plead and pray.
	We've seen the ruins left by war,
	the tumbled buildings, street by street;
	some heard the voices that they loved
	and cried for those they'd no more meet.
	
2	As time moves on some memories fade,
	some griefs we shared lie in the past;
	for others pain is just as sharp,
	we know their hurt will always last.
	Some human acts have swept away
	our partners, parents, children, friends,
	some people we had never known;
	the memory lives and never ends.
	
3	Beyond this day we try to live:
	a sinew of each life survives,
	but where is God in hurt and hate?
	The questions stay to haunt our lives.
	Help us to build a better world
	not fuelled by vengeance, fed by greed;
	a world in which we all can live,
	what ever colour, race or creed.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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: LMD
Tune: JERUSALEM

Other resources: Worshipcloud