Thought For The Week 2 February 2020

Many of us have enjoyed Shirley Murray’s hymns over the years.  Her writing has always been thoughtful, challenging and inspiring.  So it is with sadness but also with thankfulness that we remember her passing last Saturday, the 25th of January.  This is what her great friend and collaborator Colin Gibson has shared with the Church:

“Our community has lost a brave bright soul, a distinctive prophetic voice and New Zealand’s finest religious poet. Her work is known, admired, and sung throughout the Christian world. Her hymns and songs will be her legacy for many years to come; her latest volume (published by Hope) reached her a short time before her death.

In one of her poems, Shirley wrote:

Something beautiful for God,

in my seeing,

in my being,

something beautiful for God

let the Spirit make of me.

Something meaningful and true,

in my living

and believing,

something meaningful and true,

something beautiful and new.

I think we can all agree that her wish was fulfilled.”

Many Blessings,

Rory Grant