Tuesday, February 20, 2018

a hymn for Lent


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I don't know if I've posted this previously, but after we sang it in worship last week a couple of folks suggested that I share it. So, here's a Lenten hymn I wrote years ago set to a pretty familiar hymn tune. If you use it, please let me know. It's always fun to think of other folks singing any of my songs.

This is the Fast

1. Is this the fast I choose for thee
Of ashes, tears and empty misery?
Or rather this: To share abundant bread
That all my children will be loved and fed

2. Why do you fast yet still not see
Your sisters suffering in poverty?
Their children cry and still you do not hear;
their fathers bowed and broken by their fear.

3. This is the fast I choose for thee
Of justice, peace and human liberty
Not forty days, but all your yearning years
My love will wipe away all human tears

4. Break, bless and eat; then drink this wine
The fast I choose makes ev’ry midnight shine
You shall be called restorers of the street.
Arise, now shine! And make your fast complete.

Tune: Truro (Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates; Christ is Alive!; Live Into Hope!)
c. D. Ensign, Lent, 2005