Cultures

 

ALL CULTURES CHOOSE TO NAME A GOD

Tune: MELCOMBE

Samuel Webbe 1740-1816

1. All cultures chose to name a God
   To fight for them in times of war,
   To spread fertility and love
   And be their God for evermore.

2. Most people felt they could control
   A God whom they had clearly named.
   To name gives power so they all thought
   But God cannot be bound or tamed.

3. The unnamed mystery is God
   C That we lack methods to control,
   The great “I AM” who always was,
   With boundless life and loving role.

4. We meet that presence every time
   We merge into a oneness state
   When all the boundaries disappear
   And there is neither wall nor gate.

5. When we are one with other life
   With atoms, plants or with the Sun,
   Or union with another’s flesh
   We find that two are really one.

6. In merging with the mystery’s world
   We meet a presence with no name,
   A sacred peak experience,
   A fire which sparks our holy flame.

7. When all our words collapse as dust
   Within that silence God still dwells,
   The source of Spirit’s liveliness
   That feeds our sacred inner wells.

Text© William Livingstone Wallace

Click Here for Full Index to William L. Wallace’s Series

Hymns “Cosmic Mystery”

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William (Bill) Livingstone Wallace is a retired New Zealand Methodist Minister and one of our most prolific contributors. Bill says that his work springs from communicating with the fire in his gut and his observation of both the internal and external aspects of the Cosmos. Since an early age, he has been both sympathetic to and critical of the church, announcing at the age of 13 his belief in evolution. In his youth, he struggled with the disconnection between art and spirituality in his own and other denominations and with the way in which all of the liturgies prior to the sermon were regarded as preliminaries and longer sermons were viewed as superior to more concise ones.

He holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Dip. Ed. and is the author of nine published collections of his hymns as well as other resources on our website. His aim is to help people be empowered by the divine within them and the Cosmos and to work to overthrow the forces of personal and institutional greed which destroy both the ecosystem and human society.

Click Here for a Full Biography of William L. Wallace

Click here for a complete list of his work on ProgressiveChristianity.org