NeuroDivine

I’ve been sitting for a while with the idea that faith is something made as much as it is believed—shaped by hands, time, weather, and patience. This hymn grew out of that sense of slow, faithful craft.

It’s written with stone in mind: quarries and chisels, walls raised and repaired, the quiet devotion of people whose work often goes unnoticed but whose labour holds sacred space together. I was thinking especially of the way churches—like people—are never really finished. They’re built, worn, restored, and entrusted again and again.

One verse names stones of Ireland themselves: granite, limestone, basalt, sandstone. Not as geology for its own sake, but as a way of honouring place—the particular materials through which prayer has taken shape on this island.

At heart, the hymn is a prayer: that the Christ whose cross was “hewn in stone” would go on shaping us too—steadily, humbly, faithfully—into something that can bear love and shelter hope.

1
From quarry’s edge to chancel arch,
Their chisels sang Your praise;
They shaped the bones of holy ground
Through long and faithful days.
In wind and rain their labour stood,
A witness carved and true;
O Christ, whose cross is hewn in stone,
Build now our hearts anew.

2
For hands that lift the ancient walls
And tend them still with care,
For those who guard the stories held
In timber, slate, and air:
We bless You for their faithful work,
For skill and patience worn;
Through them Your steadfast love is known,
Renewed with every morn.

3 — Ireland’s stones
From Wicklow’s granite, cold and bright,
To Clare’s deep-layered shale;
From Galway’s limestone honey-veined
To Antrim’s basalt trail;
From Kerry’s red sandstone that warms
Each wall in setting sun—
Your island’s heart is quarried still,
Its strength in every stone.

4
O Trinity of shaping grace—
The Ground, the Way, the Breath—
You hold the craft of human hands
Beyond the reach of death.
In every arch that lifts our gaze,
In every wall restored,
Teach us to build with humble strength
A world that sings You, Lord.

Text copyright 2026 Michael McFarland Campbell. All rights reserved.