Touch the earth lightly

Touch the earth lightly. Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020). Written in 1991, this hymn powerfully expresses the writer’s sense of threat to the sacramental character of the natural world. It was first published in Shirley Murray’s initial American collection, In Every Corner, Sing: The Hymns of Shirley Erena Murray (1992), where it is set to Colin Gibson*’s tune TENDERNESS, and has since been published in a number of New Zealand, Australian, North American, Asian and British hymnals such as Alleluia Aotearoa (1993), VU (1997), Together in Song (1999), Worship and Rejoice (2001), The New Century Hymnal (1995), Common Ground (1998), Worship and Rejoice (2001), Sing for Peace (2004) where it...