... for a week on Sunday, as you do (or I do anyway) using the trusty tool that is HymnQuest and I spotted this one, which I won't be using, but it made me pause...

The trouble with many of our churches
is that they are not singing the blues.
The trouble with its staunch belongers
is the detached way they watch the news.
The trouble with our Sunday buildings
is people staying glued to their pews.

The problem with religious people?
They can't read graffiti on the wall,
they argue finer point of dogma,
their ears are too full to hear the Call.
The problem with those holy people
is that they are too sure they won't fall.

So many males, mitred in splendour,
are stifling their passion like a yawn,
telling peace-makers they should 'cool it',
huddling in prayer while earth is going-gone.
The holy people in procession
are leading (having) us on and on and on and on....

No wonder Christ wept for the city,
over the rulers and Pharisees,
he sings the blues of love and struggle:
'If only you knew the way of peace'.
He still calls his people to follow,
to fight against death and make a feast!


Fred Kaan (born 1929)   
© 1985 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Fred Kaan died just a few weeks back, so no more gems like this from his pen.  May he rest in peace, and we be stirred to hear God's voice.

At the moment one of the joys I encounter daily is my walk through the Botanic Gardens on my way to church.  Although the crispness has given way to sogginess, the late autumn colours of the trees are stunning and I love the way they carpet the paths as they fall (though I'm sure the gardeners don't!).  The change of the clocks back to GMT means that it is now, for a while, light again after a couple of weeks of sunrise strolls, and I miss the stillness of the early darkness.

A week or so back at church we sang 'Colours of Day' which is, I finally spotted (duh!), an urban hymn not a rural one.

'Go through the park on in to the town' is exactly what I do each morning, and I love it!

'Go down in the city, into the street, and let's give the message to the people we meet'

In the red-gold-brown soggyifed-former-crispness of leaves in the park the song lifts my spirits and I almost skip along to work each day.

In a world where sad and bad news abounds, it is good to recall one of my favourite portrayals of God, in the film Dogma (which is pretty grim overall): God is a young woman turning cartwheels in a garden.  A God who delights in colour and brings hope amidst the 'stidegeon gloom' - this is Good News indeed.