Forgiveness
If Terror Rips Our Life Apart

 

Tune:  BRESLAU 88.88

Melody of “O Jesu Christ,

meins Lebens Licht” adapted by

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

1809-1847 for ‘St Paul’

 

1. If terror rips our life apart,

    If we lie shattered and confused,

    In touching our oppressor’s heart

    We find how they were once abused.

 

2. Abuse takes many, many forms,

    Abuse of body and of mind;

    The hurts that form a cross-shaped now

    Or ones which hist’ry has defined.

 

3. We each have hidden in our hearts

    Past warfare of our kith and kin

    Destroying others in Christ’s name,

    Defacing God who dwells within.

 

4. Before condemning dark desires

    To kill or maim both me and you

    Recall Christ pleading from the Cross

    “They really don’t know what they do”. *

 

5. Forgiveness is the Spirit’s way

    To heal the grief of broken hearts,

    It binds the fragments into one,

    A whole restored from shattered parts.

 *Luke 23:34                             

Text: © William Livingstone Wallace

 

Click Here for Sheet Music –  Breslau

Click Here for Sheet MP3 – Breslau

 

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