Hark, the glad sound - the Saviour comes!

Written for my very dear friend, Ric, on his appointment as Director of Mission, Ministry and Discipleship in the diocese of Newcastle. The text responds to 1 Kings 19, and more broadly to the whole Elijah story. A hymn for new beginnings (for my dearest brother, R.P. Whaite) Speak to us, Lord, in your whisper, speak to us your words of peace; let us find in fire and earthquake calm for fears and pain’s release. Speak to us in your creation, speak in beauty, wind and flame, feed us with the earth’s good bounty, nourish us to praise your name.   Speak to us, Lord, in your angels, comfort us and soothe our dread. May they bring sustaining shelter Word of life and daily bread. Feed us, Lord, that we may journey onward in the strength you give. Feed us with the bread of angels, heal our hurts and let us live.   Speak to us, Lord, let us listen, call us into fuller life. Send us to bring hope to others, speak your words and share your light. Send us with your ang...

A very short horror story. The church building is based on my curacy church, but absolutely none of this ever happened and the lovely people of my curacy church certainly don't care this much about linens! She never turned the lights on when she arrived. It was habit, mostly. Electricity bills were high enough as it was. And even with the door locked behind her, no point announcing with blazing windows that she was there on her own. Not that she didn’t trust the estate, but she hadn’t been there that long and it was as well to be realistic. And anyway, she needed to learn to love this church, to become at home in it, as her faithful were. Generations of the faithful, in this place; all living on the estate, all coming to St Peter’s. It was their church, really, she sometimes thought, and she was still a foreigner. An interloper, and told herself not to be silly. Can’t be a foreigner if you live here. Can’t be a foreigner if you wander round the church at night without even needing...

Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost (Ezekiel 37: 11b) The roof is ribs of stone with no lungs to loose them, no hammer to prize fossilised saints from the cliffs, no spark to make the stone-carved stars shine. If there were angels in the architecture they too are petrified. Visitors pause admiring the arches, commending the craft yet not seeing (not saying?) there is no life here. No. Life is buried here. Fossils are not extinct, but frozen captive in cold stone. There is a hammer to set the saints free, to make the stars shine. I cannot wield it. I do not grieve for death, I grieve that I cannot stir life. I wait for resurrection. As it is written: Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. These bones shall live. These ribs shall rise. This place shall breathe and carry me on its breath.

When my dear (and much-missed) colleague Zack got a new job and proposed to leave England forever for his native Illinois, becoming rector of Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in the delightfully named Champaign, Illinois, I wanted to write him a hymn in celebration/ mourning. Emmanuel celebrates its patronal at Candlemas, so the theme was obvious - and Zack loves the tune Picardy, so that too was obvious! Go to love the Lord of Light a Candlemas hymn, for the Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano and for his new ministry at Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in Champaign, IL Come into the Lord’s own Temple, come to see the Son of grace dedicated to his Father, Child who set the earth in place. Here where faithful prayer has sounded see the hope for every race. Come to hear the words of Anna to the fearful and forlorn; to those waiting for redemption Anna speaks of coming morn; broken, waiting, lost and hopeless hear her news and look for dawn. Come to see the hope of ages hidden long and now reve...