Listen to my prayer, O God

‘And I said, O that I had wings like a dove: for then I would flee away, and be at rest … We took sweet counsel together: and walked in the house of God as friends … In the evening, and morning, and at noonday will I pray …’ So Miles Coverdale expresses some of the many memorable images from this longer Psalm of disappointment, desperation, and trust. David Preston’s version completed in July 1998 and first published here reflects the other David’s original heart-cries, and also sounds a sharply contemporary note in stz 2. (A recent Canadian version offered, ‘My friend appears now as a traitor,/ a sleek-tongued covenant violator./ His speech was smoother still than butter … / it was all feigned what he did utter.’) The tune WHYTELEAFE also appears first here. Its composition followed a request from David Preston (who discovered some of John Crothers’ work in the archives of Timothy Dudley-Smith) ‘and hoped for a tune in this difficult metre’ (JC). John Crothers wrote it at his home in Lisburn, N Ireland, on 28 Dec 1998. Believing that tune names should be both memorable and unique, the composer named this one in memory of his friend Evelyn Giddins (formerly organist of W Croydon Methodist Church) whose local railway station was Whyteleafe, Surrey. They had first met at an organists’ congress in 1990, and in 1992 he half-jokingly promised that one day he would name a tune after it. Sadly, she succumbed to cancer in 1993, but the Lisburn composer kept his promise.

b London 1939. d 2020. Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School, Kennington, London; Keble College Oxford (MA Mod Langs.) He worked as a French Teacher, including 11 years at Ahmadu Bello Univ, Nigeria, and gained a PhD on the French Christian poet Pierre Emmanuel (1916 84). A member of Carey Baptist Ch, Reading, for many years, he later moved to Alweston, nr Sherborne, Dorset. He compiled The Book of Praises (Carey Publications, Liverpool) in 1987, with versions of 71 Psalms; these include modified texts of Watts and a few other classic paraphrasers, but most are by contemporary writers including himself. 60 of his metrical Psalm versions are so far published, including one each in Sing Glory (2000), the Scottish Church Hymnary 4th Edn (2005) and Sing Praise (2010), and 3 in the 2004 edn of CH; also 10 tunes. His writing and composing has taken place in Leicester, Reading, Nigeria and his present home; he was a member of the editorial board throughout the preparation of Praise! and had a major share in the choice of music for the Psalm texts (1-150). His convictions about the Psalms, as expressed in the Introduction to BP, are that ‘There is nothing to compare with their blend of the subjective and the objective, the inner life and practical goodness, the knowledge of one’s own rebellious heart and the knowledge of God…Today’s general neglect of congregational Psalm singing is a symptom of the spiritual malaise of our churches. When the preaching of the Gospel has prospered, bringing into being churches vibrant with spiritual life, men and women have taken great delight in praising their Maker and Redeemer through these scriptural hymns’. 15 of his own, self-selected, feature as his share of ‘contemporary hymns’ in the 2009 Come Celebrate; he has also served as a meticulous proof-reader. Nos.1, 2A, 5*, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19A, 24A, 27A, 30B, 32*, 33*, 38, 40, 42, 43, 47, 51*, 52, 55, 57*, 64, 66, 74, 76, 77, 84, 90, 91A, 96*, 97, 99, 100B, 101, 114*, 120, 126, 132, 139, 142*, 143, 145A, 147*, 824*, 830*, 963*.