Hope Rising

Hope Rising / The Flood Remembered

Words: Various texts and attributions below
Music:  Paul Halley (1952-)
 

Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land,
and all that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men shall cry. 
                                      (Jeremiah 47:2; KJV)

The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice,
The floods lift up their pounding waves.
                                     (Psalm 93:3; New American Standard)

The rain it rains without a stay / In the hills above us, in the hills;
And presently the floods break way / Whose strength is in the hills.
The trees they suck from every cloud, / The valley brooks they roar aloud—
Bank-high for the lowlands, lowlands, / Lowlands under the hills! 
                                      (“The Floods” by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936 )

(Children)
O Father, think on me
When floods the tempest high;
When on doth rush the enemy,
O Father, be thou nigh!
                                           (Synesius of Cyrene, 430; trans. A. W. Chatfield, 1876)

The eye shall look, the ear shall hark / To the hills, the doings in the hills,
And rivers mating in the dark / With tokens from the hills.
Now what is weak will surely go, / And what is strong must prove it so—
Stand Fast in the lowlands, lowlands, / Lowlands under the hills! 
                                            (Kipling)

We share our mutual woes,
our mutual burdens bear,
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.

A glorious hope revives
our courage by the way;
while each in expectation lives
and waits to see the day.
                                           (John Fawcett, 1740-1817)

(Children)
O Father, think on me,
that, when the flood is past,
I may eternal brightness see,
and share thy joy at last.
                                            (Synesius of Cyrene)

Fold to your heart your sister and your brother:
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

Follow with reverent steps the great example
Of him whose holy work was " doing good " ;
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.
                                               (John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892)