| This
hymn evokes the God of creation as wind, a brooding bird,
and the word spoken through images of New Zealand’s wild
rivers, mountains, indigenous forests, coasts and skies. The
four verses end with an invocation, asking the Creator to
absolve, pray through us, change us, and work through us.
It therefore follows the emotional logic of the liturgy from
the confession to the dismissal.
It
is based, in the first instance, on a powerfully evocative
poem by James K. Baxter (1926-72), one of New Zealand’s
most famous and prolific poets. His Song to the Holy Spirit
ends with a prayer, ‘Guide us, wound us, heal us. Bring
us to the Father.’ It is sometimes read at midday prayer
by New Zealand Anglicans ,who use The New Zealand Prayer
Book (1989).
Jane’s
music conveys a sense of longing and fulfilment, ending
with an upward movement. Suitable for major feast days,
national days, school assemblies and in Lent.
As
in Romans 8: 19-23, creation groans in expectation of the
fulfilment of all things in Christ. The one whose voice
is ‘as bold as the flood tide’ evokes the ‘son
of man’ of Revelation 1:15.
Each
verse is a union of opposites: greatness/humility; sadness/joy;
prophetic boldness/being cowered down by injustice; and
beauty/darkness. Like Baxter, the worshipper addresses God
directly as ‘You’.
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