Peace is Her Song: The Life and Legacy of Hymn Writer Shirley Erena Murray, by Anne Manchester

The author’s working life is as a journalist and writer, having served as Editor for the Methodist and Presbyterian newspaper Crosslink, and Editor of the nursing journal Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand. Peace is Her Song was published in 2024 by Philip Garside Publishing. Contacts for enquiries/sales: bookspgpl@gmail.com

Peace is Her Song is 338 pages in length, and set out in six parts: Early Life, Finding Her Voice, Publishing in New Zealand and Abroad, Beyond Parish Life, Working with Shirley, and Shirley’s Legacy. The reviewer reprints some passages from the book without quotation marks. I acknowledge Anne Manchester’s five years of research, interviews within and outside Aotearoa – all with the skills of a professional journalist.

The first four chapters are based on a history of Shirley’s early life written by herself for her grandchildren. We are fortunate to have this account of that private part of her life, with some additions from other sources. Anne writes: ‘As much as possible, I have let Shirley tell her own story.’

John Thornley, as reviewer, while 9 years younger than Shirley, my own life story criss-crosses Shirley’s, starting in Invercargill, where Shirley Cockroft was born in 1931, and joined the Bible Class at the local Methodist church when my father Robert was minister. She writes eloquently about our family, and particularly the example set by Dorothy my mother: ‘Dorothy had a huge influence on me. As a young mother she wore slacks at home, wedgie shoes, and was informal in her dress. She didn’t worry about hats and gloves and continued to teach maths while having the last of her five children. She simply went on with her intellectual life and wasn’t too bothered about what didn’t get done. She was a keen teacher and was always trying to help people get on. The ladies of the parish may not have appreciated her in the beginning, but wartime changed women.’

The book does follow a chronological order to the end of Part Four, Beyond Parish Life, but the time/date sequence moves easily to future events before resuming historical time. This ‘looping’ easily in time gives the work a cyclical movement, with the inevitable repetition reinforcing and expanding key points.

From 1975 to 1993 John Murray (Shirley’s life partner) was minister at St Andrews on the Terrace in Wellington. It was an eighteen year appointment that rescued St Andrews from being sold by its small and ageing members to becoming a vibrant worship centre, with outreach arts and cultural activities, and commitment to radical social activism.

Both John and Shirley experience the social and theological divisions within the Presbyterian church and public arena, including the heresy trial of Lloyd Geering, anti-Vietnam War and nuclear testing, the 1981 Springbok Tour, gay rights and euthanasia campaigns. Shirley had her own campaigns, with a leading role in founding Amnesty International in New Zealand. In coverage of these issues Sea of Faith members will have their memories revived.

An in-depth picture of life in the Murray household is given, once the author had gained the confidence of family members. The three sons - Alistair, David and Rob - and their children shared freely in personal and online contacts. Shirley did her own hymn writing in private, when the children were in bed, off on school trips, or had finally left home. The full significance of their mother’s achievements only came much later in life, and then after her death.

The sons’ insights into their parents provide an insider viewpoint of manse life. ‘There was a bit of yin and yang between Mum and Dad,’ said David. ‘Dad was outgoing and sociable while Mum was more introverted.’ Alistair recalls his father being away all day then home for half an hour, by which time the phone would ring. ‘His dinner would get cold, then he would go off to a meeting. Mum did seven-eighths of the parenting. Dad worked a lot in his study, especially late on a Saturday when he was preparing his sermon. Mum was his support staff.’

None of the sons have maintained church links. A close friend of the Murrays, Canadian Ron Klusmeier, believed that both John and Shirley were disappointed that none of their sons kept any church connections. Shirley worried that their sons’ view of the church had been poisoned by what they saw as the church hurting their parents. I think Shirley felt the church had hurt both her and John, yet she was also proud of what John had achieved within the church.

The adoption of Shirley’s work in the United States is covered in Part Three, under Chapter 11, Embraced in America. The British hymnwriter, Rev Dr Brian Wren, introduced Shirley to Hope Publishing Company. In early 1991, George H. Shorney, then President of Hope Publishing, wrote a memo stating ‘that Hope represent all of Shirley Murray’s hymns here in the United States and Canada’. Six Hope publications have been published, with the final titled Life into Life Shirley Erena Murray New and Collected Hymns 2019. Shirley’s fifth publication with Hope was A Place at the Table: New Hymns Written Between 2009 and 2013. This time, her dedication was to George H. Shorney, ‘who never having met me before, greeted me with an instant hug. In happy memory of his large vision, encouragement, friendship and marvellous generosity of spirit, with love’. Hence, Anne’s choice of heading for Chapter 11!

The rest of this article looks at those sections dealing in depth with the hymn writing. Immediately following Embraced in America there are Chapters 12 and 13 on the Art of Hymn Writing, then Chapter 14 Introducing New Hymns, which should be compulsory reading for all leaders of worship. The better part of these three chapters are Shirley’s own words. One sentence will suffice to bug my readers: ‘I am not that attached to the great classic hymn writers like Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley – perhaps I sang too many of their songs in my youth’.

I move to Part Five titled Working with Shirley. New ground will be opened up for many readers, with portraits of nine hymn writers who have corresponded and collaborated with Shirley: Colin Gibson and Rev. Ian Render of New Zealand, Ron Klusmeier of Canada, Jim and Jean Strathdee of California, Rev Per Harling of Sweden, Lim Swee Hong of Singapore, Carlton (‘Sam’) Young of United Methodism in the United States, and I-to Loh of Taiwan.

Their stories illuminate how and why Shirley Erena Murray is regarded as one of the most significant hymnwriters of the twentieth century, carrying the torch of congregational singing into the twenty-first century. One new hymn arising from these friendships will serve as illustration. Shirley sent the Strathdees a text titled ‘Where the Green Will Rise Again’. As Jim said, ‘It had been around for a few years, and she said, ’It doesn’t have a home, you need to give it one’. She would send us stuff from her “bone pile”, as she called it – these were often texts that needed redoing’. The tune chosen was the Strathdee arrangement of ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, a Swedish/Irish folksong. Shirley’s hymns addressing the environment are central to the roving ministry of Jean and Jim Strathdee.

The coverage of the two Asian hymn writers gives some explanation of why Shirley’s hymns appeal to Asian church people. From I-to Loh: ‘I have not seen any poet in Asia who has covered such wide and serious issues for social justice, human rights, ecology and peace as Shirley has done. All these issues are also my concerns. I am grateful to Shirley for inspiring me to compose in Taiwanese and Pan-Asian musical styles, to feel God’s glory through Asian artistic expressions. Although Shirley was a Caucasian, she was from the Pacific or Oceania, and had much contact with Asians and Maori people. She understood Asian culture and feelings, so most Asians could resonate with her feminine, motherly, introspective yet at times bold, courageous and provocative hymns’.

Part Six titled Shirley’s Legacy covers six hymns of special note, illustrating how easily a hymn becomes a sermon. Different writers contribute. The chosen hymns: ‘Where mountains rise to open skies’, ‘Star- Child, Earth- Child’, ‘Touch the Earth Lightly’, ‘Who is My Mother?’, ‘For Everyone Born a Place at the Table’, ‘Lift High the Cross’.

Anne was able to have a face-to-face interview with Colin Gibson, in March 2021, before his death in December 2022. As Shirley’s lifelong and closest collaborative hymn writer, he should have the last word! Colin’s contribution to this book is extensive, including a reprint of the eulogy given at the funeral of Shirley Erena Murray, 31 January 2020.

I share three quotations from Anne’s interview titled An Instinctive Poet, the opener to Part Five, Working with Shirley:

‘One of my great disappointments is that most clergy are profoundly ignorant about matters musical and hymnological. Theological colleges spend their time talking about how to create a sermon - and that’s about it. But for consumers or churchgoers, a third of every service is musical. Sadly, there has been little recognition of this in the training of ministers over the years.’

‘Shirley’s poems were finished in the way a Mozart sonata was finished, completed in her head before written down. Her hymns had that sense of being well thought out, well understood, before being committed to paper.’

‘She is an acquired taste. Young people may grow into her when they are tired of the loud, happy-clappy stuff, when they become more interested in the words they sing.’