Sunday 29 May 2011

Trinitarian Hymn in Unitarian Service

Just a few hymns highlighted here to be sung on Sunday, in a service from Stephen Carlile. He wanted two tunes to be different, and so that meant a bit of finding and editing.

There is no need to then provide the following tune here, because SF 028 Repton is a tune change from Lob Gott, Ihr Christen (which I have lob got) to Repton, or that of 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind':

Dear weaver of our live's design
Whose patterns all obey,
With skilful fingers gently guide
The sturdy threads that will survive
The tangle of our days.

Take up the fabric of our lives
With hands that gently hold;
Bind in the ragged edge that care
Would sunder and that pain would tear,
and mend out rav'ling souls.

Let eyes that in the plainest cloth
A hidden beauty see;
Discern in us the richest hues,
Show us the patterns we may use
To set our spirits free.
Nancy C. Dorian.


Click to hear HL 188 Love Unknown choir (temporary)

HL 195 Ellacombe - the words to this can be viewed on 14 May 2011 on ths blog (I'll not upload the music this time)

Click to hear HL 064 Old Hundredth choir (temporary)

Finally there is the final hymn SF 137 Beethoven F (Stephen wanted the music of the chorus from the 9th Symphony): the words are fairly conventional, though clearly trinitarian. By request I now include the music for a limited period:

Praise to God the world's Creator,
Source of Life and growth and breath,
Cradling in her arms her children,
Holding them from birth to death.
In our bodies, in our living,
Strength and truth and all we do,
God is present, working with us,
Making us creators too.

Praise to God, our saving Wisdom,
Meeting us with love and grace,
Helping us to grow in wholeness,
Giving freedom, love and space.
In our hurting, in our risking,
In the thoughts we dare not name,
God is present, growing with us,
Healing us from pride and shame.

Praise to God, the Spirit in us,
Prompting hidden depths of prayer,
Firing us to long for justice,
Reaching out with tender care.
In our searching, in our loving,
In our struggles to be free,
God is present, living in us,
Pointing us to what shall be.
Jan Berry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If something is going to happen anyway, no matter what you do ("pointing us to what shall be"), why bother to work for it?

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

I'll have to start paying more attention to the words.

Yewtree said...

I really like that second hymn. It's threefold, but I wouldn't say it was Trinitarian in any particularly orthodox way. The Wisdom could be Sophia the Holy Wisdom (who is sometimes regarded as an aspect of Christ, admittedly).