Tag: Whatever Name or Creed

A hymn for a seeking faith inspired by Psalm 19 – The cosmic pulse

A hymn for  a seeking faith inspired by Psalm 19 - The cosmic pulse

1	The cosmic pulse that beats through all creation,
	two spinning stars, the pulsar's throbbing light;
	these wing beats, not a passing aberration,
	but angels thronging through the mists of night;

2	The whirling, dancing, trance that brings relation
	with all that is and all that is to be;
	the mystic, magic prayer, this wild elation
	you say will bring the love to set us free;

3	Our language cannot offer a description:
	Nirvana, heaven, call it what you will;
	this other world that fires our inspiration
	is all that conjures up the power to thrill.

4	The God we hymn, through praise and acclamation,
	we seek to meet through words or bread and wine;
	yet all the world inspires your incantation;
	together let us fathom truth's design.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 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 Iambic
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR
From Whatever name or creed

On the sidewalk – a song of poverty and loneliness

I am posting this midway through Christian Aid Week. We tend to focus on needs which are abroad. Often there are people on our doorstep, in villages, towns and cities where we live who have needs which are profound. Perhaps this is where we will meet Christ. This song was written form the perspective of such a person. Hal Hopson set it with a tune for America. Some years later a (now retired) Methodist Presbyter set it and recorded it and it was published in his book, Reach.

1	On the sidewalk, by the shop-front 
        [On the pavement, by the shop-front - alt line]
	I laid down my mat to sleep;
	tears of sadness welled within me,
	thoughts of all that might have been.

2	Lost within this hidden city
	where the subway hums and groans,
	left unnoticed and defenceless,
	God forsaken and alone.

3	Can you sense my thrumming heart-beat,
	can you feel a reason why
	in your wealth you're just as lonely,
	waiting for your time to die?

4	Maybe I should look more clearly
	through the eyes of given hope,
	maybe you could stoop more lowly
	that together we may cope.

Andrew E Pratt; Words © 2002 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 Trochaic
Tunes: RECONCILIATION (Hopson) published in Whatever Name or Creed, 2002.
SIDEWALK (Sharrocks) © 2010 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk  
published in Reach with accompanying CD.
A recording from the CD can be found here.