please click photo to enlarge

S E MURRAY has blessed the world with the hymn Touch the Earth Lightly perfectly complimented by C Gibson’s tune Tenderness. Encounter with a host of tender-hearted people in the past few days has served as counter to some of the causes for sadness in our contemporary world. This hymn provides a similar sort of counter and encounter – and is also a helpful prayer:

Touch the earth lightly;
use the earth gently,
nourish the life of the world in our care:
gift of great wonder,
ours to surrender,
trust for the children tomorrow will bear.

We who endanger,
who create hunger,
agents of death for all creatures that live,
we who would foster clouds of disaster,
God of our planet, forestall and forgive!

Let there be greening,
Birth from the burning,
Water that blesses and air that is sweet,
Health in God’s garden,
Hope in God’s children,
Regeneration that peace will complete.

God of all living,
God of all loving,
God of the seedling, the snow and the sun,
Teach us deflect us,
Christ re-connect us,
Using us gently, and making us one.