The touching place

A bronze war memorial showing a woman supporting an injured soldier.
‘Compassion in Conflict’, a war memorial by Andrew Edwards in Maghull, Lancs.
Photo (c) Rodhullandemu, Creative Commons-SA-4.0

Today’s hymn is “The touching place” by John Bell and Graham Maule, also known by its first line “Christ’s is the world in which we move”. It’s a sort of lament for the many ways in which people suffer, and the Christian response to their need.

The first verse sets the tone for the rest: the world and its people belong to Christ, so it is his voice calling us to care, and (if we feel the task is too great) he is the one who “meets us here”.  The remaining verses list the many forms of suffering that, with Christ, we may feel called to address. As with many of John Bell’s lyrics, he uses some unconventional and memorable phrases: “strange or bereaved or never employed”, “the women whom men have defiled”, “the baby for whom there’s no breast”, “the lonely heart, conscious of sin, which longs to be pure but fears to begin”.  What all these people have in common – and between them probably cover nearly everyone at some time in their life – is that we are called to “feel for them”, to have empathy.

The chorus is equally memorable in its wording, and using only a slight variant of the tune of the verses: “To the lost Christ shows his face, to the unloved he gives his embrace, to those who cry in pain or disgrace, Christ makes with his friends a touching place”.  “With his friends” is important: we should both pray for Christ’s compassionate help for those in distress, and do what we can for them in our circumstances.

Writing this later in the day after seeing John’s use of the hymn in morning prayer, may I express a bit of surprise at the brisk pace at which he took it.  When we’ve sung this hymn in my own church, the music director always directs a slow pace to match the emotional burden of the words.