My heart is ready, O my God

This Psalm combines the endings of two earlier ones (57 and 60) which, says Derek Kidner, begin under stress but end strongly, though David is hunted in one and defeated in the other (quoted in Light upon the River, p261). In 1981 Symphony magazine was searching for new Psalm versions, and Christopher Idle’s text first appeared in Issue 12, being included later in BP. It was revised in 1988 to restore direct speech in stz 5, and the final lines were also tidied. The author adds in LUTR: ‘As in 83 above, this text loses the names but tries in stzs 4 and 5 to express their significance; the last line links with the first stz to express its unity’. SAN ROCCO is the tune first suggested by David Preston, and published with the words. Derek Williams wrote it in 1968, while organ scholar at Selwyn College Cambridge, for Give me the wings of faith, to which it was sung that year in Lichfield Cathedral at a service commemorating Bishop Selwyn. It was published in an RSCM Course Book in 1974, then in New Church Praise (1975) with Albert Bayly’s Lord of the boundless curves of space, and set to both texts in Hymns and Psalms 1983 and Rejoice and Sing 1991, and to others elsewhere. John Barnard called it (in 2007) ‘a completely new way to sing Common Metre’. The tune name comes from the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, the 1517 Guildhall housing a large collection of Tintoretto paintings which the composer had visited.

b Bromley, Kent 1938. Eltham Coll, St Peter’s Coll Oxford (BA, English), Clifton Theol Coll Bristol; ordained in 1965 to a Barrow-in-Furness curacy. He spent 30 years in CofE parish ministry, some in rural Suffolk, mainly in inner London (Peckham, Poplar and Limehouse). Author of over 300 hymn texts, mainly Scripture based, collected in Light upon the River (1998) and Walking by the River (2008), Trees along the River (2018), and now appearing in some 300 books and other publications; see also the dedication of EP1 (p3) to his late wife Marjorie. He served on 5 editorial groups from Psalm Praise (1973) to Praise!; his writing includes ‘Grove’ booklets Hymns in Today’s Language (1982) and Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (2000), and The Word we preach, the words we sing (Reform, 1998). He edited the quarterly News of Hymnody for 10 years, and briefly the Bulletin of the Hymn Society, on whose committee he served at various times between 1984 and 2006; and addressed British and American Hymn Socs. Until 1996 he often exchanged draft texts with Michael Perry (qv) for mutual criticism and encouragement. From 1995 he was engaged in educational work and writing from home in Peckham, SE London, until retirement in 2003; following his return to Bromley after a gap of 40 years, he has attended Holy Trinity Ch Bromley Common and Hayes Lane Baptist Ch. Owing much to the Proclamation Trust, he also belongs to the Anglican societies Crosslinks and Reform, together with CND and the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. A former governor of 4 primary schools, he has also written songs for school assemblies set to familiar tunes, and (in 2004) Grandpa’s Amazing Poems and Awful Pictures. His bungalow is smoke-free, alcohol-free, car-free, gun-free and TV-free. Nos.13, 18, 21, 23A, 24B, 27B, 28, 31, 35, 36, 37, 48, 50, 68, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 95, 102, 108, 109, 114, 118, 119A, 121A, 125, 128, 131, 145B, 157, 176, 177, 193*, 313*, 333, 339, 388, 392, 420, 428, 450, 451, 463, 478, 506, 514, 537, 548, 551, 572, 594, 597, 620, 621, 622, 636, 668, 669, 693, 747, 763, 819, 914, 917, 920, 945, 954, 956, 968, 976, 1003, 1012, 1084, 1098, 1138, 1151, 1158, 1159, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1221, 1227, 1236, 1237, 1244, 1247, 5017, 5018, 5019, 5020.