In the years of my ministry, as I was testing out ways to express my thoughts, I tried writing hymn texts. After a while, having fallen into a scheme I called Cantica Sacra, I found that the hymn texts I created were useful. On occasion, I would import them into worship, a text pertinent to what was being read as the scriptural basis of the day set to a familiar hymn tune; that made the transfer easy for the congregation. But they also served me well as a first reflection in one genre on the scripture from which I would be preaching a few weeks later. This book picks up that developing system twenty-odd years after the beginning, providing a settlement into the text and a resonance much like that which a hymn offers to one singing.
