NeuroDivine

There is a curious moment in the life of any hymn writer.

For hours, days, weeks, perhaps months, even years, the words belong only to you. They are shaped in quietness, revised in silence, prayed over, sung tentatively around the house or at the organ. They live on the page before they ever live on the lips of another person.

Then one day they leave home.

Today I saw a photograph shared on Facebook from the nineteenth meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-19) in Belfast. Taken by Dom Martin Browne OSB and shared with his kind permission, it shows Called to One Hope printed in the official conference booklet, ready to be sung by Anglicans gathered from across the Communion.

The hymn has also continued its own journey. For its use at ACC-19, an additional fourth verse was written by the Revd Dr Sam Wells of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, reflecting the conference theme and completing the hymn for this particular occasion. It has been a privilege to see the hymn become a shared piece of work in service of the Church’s worship.

It is a strange feeling.

Not because my name appears on the page. That is almost incidental. What moves me is the thought that these words are no longer mine alone. They have become the Church’s prayer.

That, after all, is what a hymn is for.

The words begin in Belfast:

“From Belfast’s heights our voices rise,
its lough and river shine…”

But they do not stay there. They travel “from every coast and island home”, joining voices from many cultures and many languages in the one hope we share in Christ.

Perhaps that is true of every offering we make to God.

We begin in one small place—with our own parish, our own community, our own experiences. Yet grace has a way of carrying small things further than we could ever imagine. A prayer whispered in one place becomes a blessing elsewhere. A hymn written in quietness becomes the song of a gathered Church.

As I looked at the photograph, I found myself thinking less about achievement and more about gratitude.

Gratitude for those who have encouraged me to write.

Gratitude for those who helped shape the hymn for this international gathering.

Gratitude for those who are singing it.

Gratitude that God can take something as ordinary as words on a page and weave them into the worship of his people.

Every hymn writer eventually learns that a hymn is never finished when the final verse is written.

It is finished when God’s people sing.

Read the hymn as originally written.