God of Kiwis and Kangaroos and the Dolphin Christ

At morning prayers this morning Lucy D'Aeth wrote us some wonderful prayers - including a great blessing which had the phrase "God of kiwis and kangaroos". Her prayers of intercession were good too. Full liturgy here. Jill Hawkey led prayers and Peter Prove preached a great sermon, about which more in a later post.

We also sang two wonderful hymns I've never sung before. Singing of them made me think once more of Erik Routley's wonderful phrase "hymns are the folk tunes of the church militant". The first was called Where Mountains rise to open skies by Shirley Erena Murray. Here's an extract:

From broken word, from conflict stirred,
from lack of vision, set us free
to see the line of your design,
to feel creation’s energy.

The second new hymn to me is by Colin Gibson and called Where the road runs out
It spoke to me deeply today as we sang it but it also made me smile, I love the line "be the dolphin Christ"

Where the road runs out and the signposts end,
where we come to the edge of today,
be the God of Abraham for us;
send us out upon our way.
...
When the coast is left and we journey on
to the rim of the sky and the sea,
be the sailor’s friend, be the dolphin Christ;
lead us on to eternity.

You can find more details of New Zealand hymns here.
Hymns are the poetry of the church so often today they are replaced with songs. It was good to sing hymns this morning and be enlivened by words and music.