Sometimes my eyes are blind

We nearly reach the end of the ‘Bible’ sections without meeting any ‘worship-songs’ on the subject. But this simple 12-line hymn by Stephen Crowter is well worth its place. It is a personal prayer, written one Sunday evening in March 1987, like 394 (in the same year) as part of a response to the sermon. It was published first in the quarterly News of Hymnody 74, April 2000, which described the text as a ‘succinct gem’ from the (then) forthcoming Praise! This is its first appearance in a hymnal.

The editors have opted for an older tune, Timothy Richard Matthews’ little-used BLACKWELL HALL. This is repeated at 653, set to the Watts Communion hymn to which GH also attaches it, Jesus invites his saints. There are several widely-scattered Blackwells in England.

b Hastings, E Sussex 1968. BSc in Chemistry and Business Studies; he currently runs his own business in Coventry, ‘Surecar Consultants’, sourcing cars to order. His first hymns were written in the late 1980s, usually on Sunday evenings in response to a sermon. The first to be published are those in Praise!, one of which also features in CH (2004 edn); among other writings is his part-autobiographical Surprise Package: When God wrecks our plans (2003). He belongs to Lower Ford St Baptist Ch in Coventry, W Midlands. His brother Philip (Phil) was a Baptist pastor and internationally-known writer of Bible notes who died in 2008 at the age of 46. Nos.394, 561, 1004, 1030, 1035, 1056, 1095, 5013.