Common Ground Song 114 ‘Singing, we gladly worship’
Words: Christine Carson / Music: John Bell © Wild Goose / Iona Community
YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDVz532Lh4o
Featured image: ‘Sembradores confiados y despreocupados’
from sersaldelatierra.blogspot.com (original artist unknown).

The editors of Common Ground deliberately included several worship songs from around the world. This one is a version (not really a translation, more a paraphrase) of one from Guatemala, using the original tune. The tune itself is a syncopated one, typical of Central America.

The theme is ‘sowing seeds of peace and love’ (in the words of the chorus), something that is desperately needed in this time of war. I write in the first week of the American/Israeli war on Iran, which has already resulted in shocking civilian casualties. We are encouraged in the song to ‘bring hope into a world of fear’, ‘bring kindling to light the path of peace’ and ‘banish hatefulness and violence from our hearts’. This is not an easy task, if we are honest, and humanly it seems impossible. But we are not alone. The chorus reminds us of two things: that this is a shared task, and one that should arise naturally from our worship of God. ‘Singing, we gladly worship the Lord together’.

The long story of God’s people in the Bible has its many ups and downs, times of war and peace, good kings and evil ones. But worship is a golden thread running through it. The treasury of the Psalms, between them written to mark the whole range of human experience and emotion, reminds us that worship should never be disconnected from our actual experiences of life. In many of them, the writer goes from despair to joy as they worship God, trusting in his unchanging nature and inextinguishable love. As we worship the Lord, together, we not only pray for peace and justice, we also offer ourselves, together, to be part of the way to reach them. Whether in Central America, Great Britain or wherever we find ourselves, we can be part of that shared journey of God’s people. Quoting again from the chorus, ‘Those who are travelling the road of life sow seeds of peace and love’.