This hymn is more about the wider ecological emergency than it is about the specifics of climate change but still feels at home within this collection. Few people will appreciate the differences between the songs of different birds, and this may offer an opportunity to play some recordings to introduce the hymn to the congregation and explore this aspect of biodiversity. The bird names are not involved in the rhyme schemes so could be swapped relatively easily for birds that may be more local to the congregation.

Once in God’s garden, songbirds were common,
greeting the morning, up in the trees.
Robin and blackbird,
chiff-chaff and chaffinch,
chorus of difference, blessed by the breeze.

Where are the songbirds that once filled my garden?
Where are the starlings that chirped through my youth?
Pesticides lavished,
habitats ravaged,
nature has vanished, this is the truth.

What is our calling, now we have learnt this?
Singing our vision or calling out wrong?
How can our voices,
save God’s creation?
What is my story? What is my song?

This has a metere of 55.54D and was written to be sung to Bunessan, a traditional gaelic tune that is best known as a setting for the hymn Morning has Broken. Try this singalong video or download the PowerPoint at this link.