Reviewed by Lins Honeyman

Released as a companion to the Wild Goose Collective CD of the same name, this music book contains 17 songs either written or arranged by the Iona Community's John L Bell. In typically Celtic fashion, Bell has used separate and mostly individually named tunes and has superimposed Christian lyrics to these pieces of music. Whilst the blurb suggests that this collection contains music for everyone, it would be feasible to assume that perhaps a couple of songs could be inserted into your church's worship sessions to add further variety or the whole collection presented in a performance setting with appropriate Celtic instrumentation. The majority of the music has been written by Bell himself with the exception of the likes of Robert Lowry's American folk hymn "How Can I Keep From Singing?" and the Scottish folk songs "O Gin I Were A Baron's Heir" and "The Rowan Tree" becoming "Were I The Perfect Child" and an adaptation of Horatius Bonar's "I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say" respectively. In most cases, Bell has also written the lyrics but has also creatively used text excerpts from poets such as W H Auden in "He Is The Way" (from his poem For The Time Being (A Christmas Oratio) and a poem by Pat Bennett adapted for "In This Darkness". There are many themes contained within this collection ranging from meditative reflection on the love of God to laments for the loss of a child ("A Cradling Song") and for countries at war (the poignant "If The War Goes On"). Bell provides brief overviews of each song which help set the scene but at times his narrative unfortunately comes across as somewhat arrogant. Sweeping generalisations such as "somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, western Christians lost the ability to lament" in his notes for "If The War Goes On" tend to take away from what Bell is validly trying to say through his songs. Elsewhere, Bell explains that "('I Will Sing A Song Of Love') is the antithesis of the smug, egocentric 'me and Jesus' praise song which - in the face of biblical testimony - denies the importance to God of the voice of creation and encourages the false presumption that worship is synonymous with good feelings." This only succeeds in casting Bell as someone who seems prepared to pigeonhole present day worship music and disregard its value. This absurdly blinkered view brings no credibility to a man who elsewhere documents his sorrow at the stunting of artistic creativity shown by Scottish churches throughout the centuries.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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