FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness Is A River

Tunes:

DOVE’S DESCENT 7676D
Melody: William L. Wallace
Harmony (a): Daniel Cooper
(b): Marlene Phillips
KING’S LYNN 7676D
English Traditional Melody
Coll. arr. and harmonised
Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-195

 

Forgiveness is a river

That flows from God’s own heart;

It seeks to enter each life

To dwell and not depart.

It knocks at every heart’s door

And seeks to enter in.

Resentful hearts are locked hearts

Whose pain can never win.

 

2. To claim we can’t forgive them

Until they first repent

Replaces love with judgement

And not the dove’s descent.

The culprits’ hateful cycles

Arise from deep within,

A hell that blights their whole life

And means they seldom win.

 

3. Within each culprit’s heart lie

Old wounds of hurt and pain

That call for understanding,

Not judgement once again.

To follow Jesus’ pathway

We need to learn to say

“Though they show no remorse yet

We can forgive today.”                  *

 

4. Past wrongs remain in mem’ry

But love enfolds them all

Till our heart’s pains are mellowed

As love dissolves each wall.

Forgiving helps us feel new;

Through love we find new loves

That feed our hungry spirits

So they can fly like doves.

*Luke 23/34

      Text and Melody for Dove’s descent © William Livingstone Wallace
      Harmonies for Dove’s descent © Daniel Cooper and
      © Marlene Phillips

 

Click Here for Sheet Music – Descent Wallace/Cooper
Click Here for Sheet Music – Descent Marlene
Click Here for Sheet Music – King

Click Here for MP3 – Descent Wallace/Cooper
Click Here for MP3 – Descent Marlene
Click Here for MP3 – King

 

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