Hymn - boy in the ambulance - A bloodied child - Syria

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.

© Andrew Pratt 18/8/2016

Tune: EVENTIDE (Monk)

The boy in the ambulance: five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, Syria August 2016.

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 memory of a Priest killed in Rouen

In every sanctuary of grace
where worship lives, where love is found,
where shaken images are sharp
and faith grows still in fertile ground;
here those who lead, whom God has led,
now wait in fear, a priest is dead.

The faith of those who worship God,
is not in question, still we wait,
while scripture says love casts out fear,
yet death can breed a sense of hate.
And so we wait and so we pray
for dawn to light a better day.
© Andrew Pratt 4/8/2016
A priest killed in Rouen, 26th July, 2016.
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.