February 2025
My time at Salisbury Theological College (1969 -71) was full of innovation and stimulus under the Principal Harold Wilson. With increasing numbers through merging with Wells we were understaffed and there were opportunities for students to contribute a variety of liturgical material including canticles that were printed at the College. Parallel and more thorough work was being done by the Liturgical Commission.
I do recall the intensity of community living in college, eating, sleeping, studying and worshipping under the same roof. Getting out into the city and countryside, along with humour, were important for sanity in following a vocation.
After a curacy in the Lowestoft Team Ministry, I worked for a Diploma in Pastoral Studies at Birmingham University under the Revd Dr Michael Wilson. The larger part of my following ministry was a Hospital Chaplain in Oxford and Worcester, where later this included Deliverance Ministry.
After retirement Stanley and Elizabeth Baxter took me on as a voluntary chaplain at Holy Rood House in Thirsk. Otherwise I found myself led in different directions through a lively village climate change group and a poetry group. Both were creative experiences for sharing and learning. Holy Rood House had a group under Jan Berry of Luther King House which published Hymns for Healing. Although not part of this group I was writing poetry and it showed me what could be done using familiar hymn tunes. My own early attempts were improved, especially as regards meter, with suggestions from Wendy Wilby who had been Precentor at Bristol Cathedral. Some feature among the resources on the Green Christian website.
The periods of Covid lockdown afforded me time to write more. Some hymns I wrote were occasionally sung in the Lower Wensleydale Benefice and now in the Heart of Eden Benefice where my wife Olivia and I now live near Appleby.
ANOTHER COUNTRY
I vow to you our country, all earthly things below
to cleanse what we as humans have done to nature’s show.
Our rivers are polluted, and air that creatures breathe.
Discarded waste and effluent now cloak both land and sea.
The climate’s been disrupted, affecting food supplies,
and all of God’s creation, is raising piteous cries
But there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago
a garden full of beauty, where nature’s free to grow
with seas and skies of freshness, with land that’s lush and clean.
We have what God now gives us, to bring back what has been.
So we should be resourceful and with a firm intent
restore our lovely country, to such as we have dreamt.
Words: Lisle Ryder
Tune: Thaxted
Notes
“I vow to thee my country” was written by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice just over 100 years ago as a patriotic hymn following the First World War with all its suffering and sacrifice.
These new words represent a different suffering, that of nature, and another sacrifice, that of God’s creation. We are part of that nature involved and responsible as were our forefathers for the suffering and sacrifice of Christ.
The melody was adapted by Gustav Holst from his Planets Suite, though the original melody related not to our Earth but to Jupiter.
As we pray “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”, it presents a challenge for each of us to play a part in restoring our lovely country.
May 2024
View Lisle Ryder’s collection of nine hymns
More about the history of Sarum College
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