hymnsandbooks: March 2018

Friday, 30 March 2018

Glorious scars? - words for Good Friday...

1 Tortured, beaten, scarred and tainted,
Not a picture deftly painted,
More a tattered, battered being,
Torn, disfigured, stark, unseeing.

2 Muscles twisted, strained, contorted,
Body dangling, bruised, distorted.
Life blood drying, sun-baked, stinging,
Hatred, bitter hatred, flinging.

3 Crowds insensate, tempers vented,
Full of anger, discontented.
Curses scattered, insults flying,
Spurned, derided, God is dying.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)

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.

Wednesday, 14 March 2018

Lent - Easter - Thomas - hymn - The world is fraught with danger

The world is fraught with danger,

we have no way to turn,

when war or sickness threaten

faith has so much to learn.

Uncertain, lost in anger,

frustrated, in the dark,

unsure of any meaning,

it seems we miss the mark.

Like Thomas we’re left wanting,

with need to know yet more,

for all we feel is shaking

and we are left unsure.

A mystery awaits us,

a vast unknowing cloud,

with nothing safe or certain,

a hope, or yet a shroud?

Here in the heart of hardship

where life is dead and gone

we sense a resurrection,

we meet the risen one?

One lasting fact surrounds us,

for though our grasp is slight,

God’s love will beckon onward,

a soft yet healing light.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948) 23/2/2018

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.

Hymn in respect of Stephen Hawking

Beyond impossibility
where concepts such as time and space
evaporate, are meaningless,
there flows an endless stream of grace.

Deep in the darkness laughter rocks
as human minds are changed and swayed,
as concrete truths are shaken down
and doctrines challenged or betrayed.

The greatest minds that have evolved
have opened wonder, filled with awe,
have pointed to infinity
yet left a darkness to explore.

Unmeasured depths of gracious love,
of Godly mischief reach and range,
while new beginnings light our world,
unlooked for, awesome, wondrous, strange.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948) 14/3/2018

In respect for Stephen Hawking

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.

In respect for Stephen Hawking

Saturday, 10 March 2018

A hymn for the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War One

1 How can we sing of that sad conflagration:
cauldron of misery, mud, gas and fire?
Young men had gone, some inspired and excited,
then all too soon hanging dead on the wire.

2 Here amid blood tattered, writhing humanity,
can we find Christ? Is this glorious, this death?
Here, where the best of a whole generation
gave of their all and had breathed their last breath?

3 They lived and died through the lie of their 'betters',
others had said that this war would end war.
Subsequent history unfolded the story,
showing humanity hankers for more.

4 God let us learn how to love every neighbour,
living our lives in the style of the cross,
valuing others as sisters and brothers,
giving our all, never counting the loss.

5 Then is the Spirit of Christ found among us,
then are we worthy to stand in his name,
then we can say that we truly are Christian,
love is the evidence, this is our claim.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
11 10 11 10

Suggested tune : STEWARDSHIP

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.

From - The Bell (published by Stainer & Bell Ltd) page 5 https://stainer.co.uk/images/pdf/bellspring18.pdf