Coexistence on earth

This world is tangled, lost in devastation,

people are struggling, longing to be free.

How long O Lord, must hurt and degradation

mar all that human eyes can search or see?

How long before all nations work together,
to save this planet lent to us in trust?
How long until we learn to plan and nurture,
before this land decays and turns to dust?

Give us, O God, in faith, cooperation,

that hand in hand we have the sense to share

riches that you have planted from creation,

that none go hungry, for their neighbours care.

This is our prayer that people once divided

may learn the value of another’s worth,

that those we once despised, or have derided,

may coexist on this once ravaged earth.

Andrew Pratt 18/6/2018 revised 25/6/2018

Words © 2018 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.

Tune:LORD OF THE YEARS

A hymn for human coexistence on earth 

Migrants in a hostile world

Christ’s body has been broken,
not bread but human lives,
each family has scattered,
just memory survives;
the parents cry in anguish,
the children cry in fear,
we label them as migrant,
not wanted over here.

These are our human neighbours,
relations from our birth,
each sister, child or brother,
as one on this wide earth;
if we claim God as a parent,
‘our Father’ as we say,
when will we own the meaning
of empty words we pray?

God, help us welcome others,
God break the barriers down,
that tears may turn to laughter,
and smiles displace each frown;
then may we live together,
forgiven by your grace,
the Pentecostal promise:
one Godly human race!
Andrew Pratt 22/6/2018
Tune: AURELIA
Words © 2018 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.
For Christians living in a broken world, in a hostile environment.