Art that helps through grief

There are multiple influences behind this collection of songs; primary among them was the seeming dearth of material for use in times of grief. For many Scots, a funeral has meant Psalm 23 and Abide With Me, with the alternative Thine Be The Glory if we wanted a happy send-off.

It seemed to me that the Christian church shows its pastoral best when we do not stick to a fail-safe selection of well worn hymns and prayers regardless of who died and how, but rather we honour each deceased person, made uniquely in the image of God, in their death as in their life. The loss of someone who has met a tragic end is very different from one who has died in peace. The death of a child is different from the death of a veteran believer.

Additionally, for those who mourn, there should be words of consolation which let them know that others have been there before, among whom is Jesus, whose tears at the tomb of Lazarus show the depth of his solidarity with those who grieve.

All of the songs came out of specific circumstances; none were written for publication or recording. That is the way my colleagues and I have always worked. The focus – as in the psalms – has to be on this person, these people, this spiritual insight, that situation. I can therefore recall the origin of most of these songs, without having recorded the time of their conception. Some resulted from conversations, some from a clear need for an appropriate text, some from a fresh consideration of a biblical text.

They first appeared as a hymn collection in a book entitled 'When Grief is Raw'. GIA, our American publisher, took the collection and then suggested that I might arrange some of the songs for choral use and accompany them with short reflections. They were keen to do what is rare for commercial publishers; namely produce material which will not have an immediate appeal and climb the best-seller list, but rather have longevity as a comparatively rare resource to enable people to deal with death which is one of the only certainties in life.

The recording was made in Chicago with the Cathedral Singers, a professional ensemble founded by the late Richard Proulx. Bad weather caused me to miss the first recording. I was later relieved not to have been there, as it turned out to be a highly moving experience, particularly when soloist and choir recorded There Is A Place, a song written after the merciless killing of children in a primary school in Dunblane.

In 1996 the material The Last Journey was published, but only in North America. It was a great honour over twenty years later to have SPCK ask if it could be made available in a new format in the United Kingdom.