This originally appeared as part of the article "Singing the Sovereignty of Christ Over Creation" where you will find additional reflections and other congregational song suggestions on similar themes.
“Lament for the Earth”
Words: Shirley Erena Murray © 2015 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188.
Music: Lim Swee Hong © 2015 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188.
Words and music are available through Hope Publishing and can be downloaded for use in worship with an active license from CCLI, OneLicense or by emailing permissions@hopepublishing.com.
Background
Communities familiar with the texts of Shirley Erena Murray will recognize the prophetic tone that characterizes “Lament for the Earth,” which like Donaldson’s hymn begins its call to justice with the image of the garden of Eden. Murray has already given voice to the call to care for the hungry and poor, welcome the stranger, and pursue justice for those marginalized by status, race, gender identity, or sexual orientation in hymns such as “Child of Joy and Peace,” “For Everyone Born,” “Community of Christ,” and many others.
Recently, Murray has consciously turned her efforts toward articulating an insistent eco-theology in song. Writing from New Zealand, Murray’s engagement with the Pacific Islands makes her and those around her intensely aware of the effects of climate change on their way of life. Responding to the developing effects of climate change that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations, Murray’s recent hymn laments the melting of ice floes, widespread loss of habitat, and depletion of natural resources as the human invalidation of a contract made with us in Eden.
Analysis
Murray’s well-known text “Touch the Earth Lightly,” written in 1991, is an exhortation to “use the earth gently,” treating with care and respect the world that is ours, as Psalm 24 suggests, only on temporary loan. Its compelling line “let there be greening, birth from the burning” brings to mind the surge of new growth that can follow a forest fire as heat from the burning pops open the pinecones and seed pods. It also hints at the image of the mythical phoenix, who rises from the ashes of its predecessor like the dawn of a new sun.
The tone of “Touch the Earth Lightly” is insistent but plaintive, concluding with a call for unity of Christ’s people as servants of each other and of the earth. Some 25 years on, in contrast to this, “Lament for the Earth” is a frank call to action on behalf of a world whose care we have neglected, even scorned. Long-gone is the confident pastoralism of “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Like “O God, You Planted a Garden,” “Lament for the Earth” draws on scriptural imagery to voice its prophetic message. Murray references Romans 8 with the line “now all creation groans as nature changes form,” a reference that suggests, like Paul’s letter exhorting a radical change in community consciousness, that we are called to hard self-examination of our part in “desolation’s day.”
Performance Suggestions
Murray’s lament would be most effective if sung from an invitational stance, particularly by saying a few words about it to establish the context—and even set the stage—for its message prior to inviting the community to share in singing it. Swee Hong Lim, in composing his tune CARTERET ISLANDS, was also concerned with the impact of the text. Located in the South Pacific and forming part of Papua New Guinea, the Carteret or Tulun Islands have recently been affected by serious flooding as climate change causes water levels to rise. The storms and floods of salt water have eroded land areas, swept away homes, destroyed local crops, and contaminated supplies of fresh water, turning many of the island’s inhabitants into climate change refugees.
Murray’s text repeatedly uses the line “the greening of all life is dying in our care,” and it is this message that Lim wished to foreground with his poignant tune. He kept the tune very simple; the drone-like harmonic underpinning could be supplied by a lightly-voiced organ or keyboard, with flute or oboe supporting the melody. Lim’s many hymns and songs draw on a wide variety of musical influences, including many from across the Asian continent, resulting in what ethnomusicologist I-to Loh might refer to as “a pan-Asian idiom.” Lim describes this tune as a kind of minimalist Tibetan- or Korean-style meditative song, whose spare harmony and stepwise, deliberate melody foreground the weight of the text.
Where “O God, You Planted a Garden” ends with a rallying cry to action, the prophetic message of “Lament for the Earth” is more open-ended, uncertain, even longing. This open-ended quality would make it an excellent choice in worship as a lead-in to another liturgical action. Consider using this hymn as a communal meditation prior to a sermon on climate change, or leading in to some other form of call to action. It would also be effective if single stanzas were interspersed within a sermon or message on eco-theology and climate justice.
It is tempting in worship to want to “wrap things up,” to end a hymn or worship action on a positive and conclusive note. Hymns like “Lament for the Earth” resist this impulse, holding us instead in a place of poignancy, dissatisfaction, or unsettlement; the congregational song equivalent of the tense moment just after Jesus had overturned the tables in the temple and no one knew who to look at. If we can trust moments of uncertainty such as this and make room for them, the Spirit may lead communities, congregations—and even us, the planners—in surprising and revelatory directions.
