When aimless violence takes those we love

When aimless violence takes those we love. Joy F. Patterson* (1931- ). Written in 1992, and published in Patterson’s Come, You People of the Promise (Carol Stream, 1994). A hymn about comfort in suffering, Patterson has written movingly about it in The Hymn 49/3 (July 1998), p. 47. It was adapted by Daniel B. Merrick, editor of the Chalice Hymnal (St Louis, 1995) for a service after the bombing in Oklahoma City in April 1995 as ‘When senseless violence takes those we love’, with verse 2 beginning ‘When unexpected crises shatter life/ when those with loathing all their hate impart’. Patterson’s original of those two lines was concerned with the illness and death of elderly loved ones: ‘When...