God, whose farm is all creation

God, whose farm is all creation. John Arlott* (1914-1991). Written in 1950 at the request of the compilers of BBCHB (1951) and published in that book, together with two other hymns by Arlott (who at that time was working for the BBC). It was taken up by hymnbooks and supplements of the 1960s and 1970s such as New Church Praise and 100HfT, and thus it came into A&MNS, A&MCP, and A&MRW. In the original version the last line of stanza 1 was ‘Crops we grow that men may live.’ It is a most effective harvest hymn, with a fine simplicity and economy, describing the processes of farming and neatly suggesting that the farmer’s work is his prayer (a re-working of the monastic theme of...