Your Better World

It's Saturday afternoon in the first week of Advent.

In a comment on last Sunday's post, my cousin Casey asked for a picture of an Advent wreath here on the blog. I'm happy to provide such an image above (courtesy of Rocco).

This week, I also discovered the hymn text below. It seems a very appropriate prayer for Advent:

Behold a broken world, we pray,
Where want and war increase,
And grant us, Lord, in this our day,
The ancient dream of peace:

A dream of swords to sickles bent,
Of spears to scythe and spade,
The weapons of our warfare spent,
A world of peace remade.

O Prince of peace, who died to save,
A lost world to redeem,
And rose in triumph from the grave,
Behold our waking dream.

Bring, Lord, your better world to birth,
Your kingdom, love's domain;
Where peace with God, and peace on earth,
And peace eternal reign.

By: Timothy Dudley-Smith, b. 1926.

Copyright 1989, Hope Publishing Co.