NeuroDivine

I wrote this hymn slowly, paying attention to water.

Not water as an idea, but water as something that moves, waits, gathers, seeps, and returns. Water that has weight and sound and temperature. Water that holds memory.

Baptism is often talked about as a moment—something that happens and is done. For me, baptism has always felt more like a condition I live inside. Something ongoing. Something I have to keep re-entering, especially when language, community, or church structures feel overwhelming or misaligned with how my nervous system moves through the world.

This hymn grew out of that sense of baptism as accompaniment rather than achievement.

I chose to name particular rivers—the Barrow, the Boyne, and the Lee—because abstraction doesn’t help me pray. Place does. Land does. Knowing where I am, and whose footsteps and faith have pressed the ground before me, helps anchor belief in something real and textured rather than theoretical. These rivers are not symbols standing in for something else; they are witnesses. They have carried grief, blessing, colonisation, survival, prayer, silence, and praise.

The water imagery throughout the hymn is intentionally sensory: rain on bogland, tide on a western shore, wind over stirred water. As an autistic person, faith arrives for me through texture and pattern before it arrives through certainty. The Spirit “hovering” is not meant to be dramatic, but steady—present in movement that doesn’t rush or overwhelm.

This hymn is also communal by design. Baptism does not make us uniform, tidy, or finished. It binds us to Christ and to one another while leaving our particularities intact. The saints named here are not only the officially remembered ones, but the quiet, local, often unnamed faithful—the saints of oak and heather—whose lives held grace without spectacle.

The final sending is gentle on purpose. It does not assume energy, capacity, or triumph. It simply asks that we heal where we can, act kindly where we are, and trust that being washed and welcomed is already enough to be sent.

I offer this hymn for baptisms, for renewals of baptismal vows, and for those moments when remembering your baptism feels less like celebration and more like survival. It is written for people who need faith to move at the speed of breath, water, and trust.

Christ before us.

Christ within us.

Baptised—not once, but daily.

Suggested tune: Manor House 87 87 D.

Christ who calls us through the waters,
Lead us to Your living spring;
As we walk the ancient pathways,
Hear the songs Your people sing.
From the wells of holy Ireland,
From the Barrow, Boyne, and Lee,
Guide our steps with quiet wonder,
Set our hopeful spirits free.

Spirit, hover on the waters,
Breathing life in wind and wave;
As the font is stirred before us,
Mark the ones You come to save.
Like the rain on thirsty bogland,
Like the tide on western shore,
Let Your mercy fall upon us,
Making all things new once more.

Blessèd Christ, You stand beside us,
In our rising and our fall;
Clothe us now in grace unending,
Bind our hearts to You in all.
With the saints of oak and heather,
With the faithful gone ahead,
We give thanks for love that holds us,
Raised to life from what was dead.

Send us out, O God of promise,
Washed and welcomed, claimed and known;
May we heal the earth with kindness,
Sow your peace in field and town.
As the wild geese trace their journey,
Keep us steady on Your way;
Christ before us, Christ within us,
Blessed, baptised for ev’ry day.

Text copyright 2026 Michael McFarland Campbell. All rights reserved.