Whispers of Peace

Notes about Contributors and their Songs

Digby Hannah (There is a Whisper - and - Let's Do Justly)

Digby Hannah worked for two decades at Philip Island conducting outdoor environmental education programs for socially disadvantaged families and teenagers.  He was editor of Zadok publications for five years and for the past 7 years has pastored St.Kilda Baptist Church in inner city Melbourne.  A CD and music book of his songs entitled The Tide has Turned, and useful for contemporary worship, is available by contacting him.
The song There is a Whisper is a beautiful song speaking of God's Creation and the harm humans have done to it (such as through the nuclear experiments at Maralinga) and to themselves, and the whisper of God's Peace, the rumour of angels and tremor of love stirring within.  Let's Do Justly takes up the words of Micah and the challenge to 'do justly, love mercy and walk humbly' with God.

David MacGregor (Do Justice - and - On Earth In Our Day)

David was ordained as a Uniting Church Minister in 2001, having worked since 1987 in youth, children's and family ministry - in Brisbane, Rockhampton and Cairns.  In 2001, David began chaplaincy ministry at Forest Lake College in Brisbane - an ecumenical partnership between the Anglican and Uniting Churches. Since formative years in gospel music groups from the mid 1970s, music has been a special passion; with opportunities in congregations, camps, national and regional conventions, church synods and assemblies.  Songwriting has been an important part of this - with songs for both children and all-age worship.  Material has been published in a wide variety of hymnbooks and songbooks, across a diversity of publishers, as well as through David's own Together to Celebrate lectionary-resources website.
 
Do Justice is a slight-reggae interpretation of Micah 6:8, while On Earth in Our Day seeks to express the words of Christ from the Beatitudes in particular - the latter suggesting the Beatitudes as a lifestyle to be lived ... "blessed the faithful who live as they pray: the blessings of heaven on earth in our day". On Earth in Our Day was written especially for the DOV project.

Monica Brown (I Can Be A Peacemaker - and - One People One Land)

Monica is one of Australia's most highly respected Christian composers and workshop facilitators, with great expertise in personal development, spirituality and the integration of creative process.  In response to the need for renewed evangelisation and Australian made creative resources, she founded Emmaus Productions in Sydney in 1985, as an independent, non-profit group providing experiential programs, workshops and events, using music, scripture, ritual and imagery, as well as publishing Australian music and other audio visual resources.  Monica has composed and recorded 15 collections of songs for children, youth and adults, in both cassette and disc form, complete with music books, as well as directing and producing videos and other resources.  In recent years, Emmaus' ministry has expanded across the world andf the mission continues to make God a reality in people's lives.  Please visit the websites www.emmausproductions.com and www.liturgyplanning.com for more information...
The songs I Can Be A Peacemaker and One People One Land were both used at the DOV in Australia national release in 2003 - the first being a song (especially good for children) reminding us of how everyone, however small and fragile, can be a peacemaker; and the second a powerful Australian anthem of unity, founded on the spirit of Australia's ancient land and peoples.

Peter Holden (Peace To The Nations And Praise To The Lord)

Ordained a minister of the then Methodist Church in Australasia in 1963, Peter has held a wide variety of ecumenical appointments at national and international levels (including Executive Director of World Christian Action and founding Executive Director of the Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism), travelled, written and contributed extensively to national and international issues.  His hymns reflect his unique life experiences.
Peace to the Nations and Praise to the Lord was written in April 2003 where the immediate context was the war in Iraq and the events leading up to it, and the hymn was part of Peter's own offering for peace at this time.  The use of the tune Russian Hymn is deliberate as its militaristic associations are very appropriate for reversing the trend to war, and Peter's hope is that people of different religions will be helped to find commonality in the striving to praise God and to work for peace in God's world.

Barbara Brown (Reach Out In Peace)

Kevin Bates (Razor Wire is Sighing)

Kevin Bates was ordained as a Marist priest in 1972 and has worked in many capacities in developing liturgy and education (not least in establishing and directing the Marist Centre at Toongabbie in Sydney's west and as Director of the Aquinas Academy in Sydney, as well as with school and teachers across Australia, and with Catholic, Uniting, Anglican and Baptist churches in a multitude of youth, parish groups and Sunday congregations).  The development of his music ministry has been a major contribution to this work and he has now published 9 albums, together with numerous other songs commissioned by schools, conferences and parishes, a 9 song, song-cycle based on the Enneagram, and, most recently (2004) a song-cycle based on the Beatitudes.
His ministry, through his music, has long included a strong social justice element, and his website www.kevinfbates.com has from time to time been an effective vehicle for advocacy for those in need of a just response to their situations.  The song Razor Wire is Sighing is a powerful example, and poignant song about just one story of refugees (and the lack of compassion of recent Australian Government refugee policies).  The song was written after hearing of a woman detained in Woomers in 2001.  Her husband, who came to Australia first, had alreday been processed and was out in the community.  As no one told her the right words to say when she was seeking her status as an asylum seeker, she languished in Woomera for many months, with her three children, sick and without access to proper medical or legal assistance.  When she was finally found by a lawyer who heard her story, he decidede she had a case against the Government, though she was brought in to him in handcuffs accompanied by two burly guards.   The day before her case went to court, she was released by the authorities, but then flown to Brisbane - the authorities all the while knowing her husband was in Melbourne!

Tanya Riches and Paul Peipman

Tanya and Paul are members of the Hillsong community, which has grown spectacularly in numbers and impact over the last few years, not least through the spiritual appeal of its highly prolific music ministry, and Tanya helped with the choice of materials for this initiative. 
Peace On Earth is a characteristically powerful and lively contemporary expression of faith, expressing the peace that may be known by those who base their lives on Jesus Christ.

Peter Ninnes (All the World)

A member of the Uniting Church based in Armidale in New South Wales, Peter is a university teacher and educator with passion and expertise in international development.
A submission to the DOV in Australia music competition in 2003, All The World catches up the central concerns of the Decade to Overcome Violence in Australia, the diminishment of all where others suffer and the call for each of us to share in the God's ministry of reconciliation for the whole world.

Ron Milligan (Listen)

Ron is a retired schoolteacher and a member of the Geelong Folk Music Club who became involved in folk music in 1995.  Committed to Aboriginal land rights and reconciliation, he is also treasurer of the Geelong One Fire Reconciliation Group' and a council member of Reconciliation Victoria.
He wrote the song Listen at a songwriters workshop at the Lake School of Celtic Music, Song and Dance', which is held at Koroit in Victoria each year.  It won the 'Song of Tolerance' award at the 2002 Port Fairy Folk Festival.

John Coleman, Ian Bartle and David Adam (Circle Me)

John Coleman, based in Tasmania, has worked for many years as a leader with the L'Arche Community in Australia, and, with Ian Bartle, has contributed a wide variety of songs expressing the L'Arche call to healing and walking together with one another sharing each others hearts and gifts. 
The song Circle Me is based on a prayer of David Adam (spiritual writer and former vicar of Lindisfarne, Holy Island, in Northumberland in the UK), and is an expression of Celtic Christian spirituality, where the power of God's encircling (the caim) protects, strengthens and inspires, in the face of whatever oppresses or threatens.

Anne Michelle Thistleton (Prophet of Peace)

Anne currently works as a primary school teacher in Brisbane and has recently completed a Master in Religious Education.  She also operates Creating in the Spirit, which aims to facilitate retreat programs and workshops, to assist individuals to unlock their creativity, through art music and drama, in order to shape and make sense of their lives.  She is currently in the final stages of recording her own CD called Gathering in the Spirit, a compliation of music for schools and parishes to use in prayer, worship and liturgy.

Sr.Sandra Sears CSBC (Grant Us Peace)

Sandra is an Anglican Sister with the Community of Ss. Barnabas and Cecilia (in formation), which was formed in 1997 to minister primarily in music, but also other ministries, and prayer.  She has been composing for about 20 years, all of it Christian music. Sandra has been published in As One Voice, volumes 1 & 2  (Willow Connection), and writes for (usually) churches with limited resources.
Grant Us Peace is a song in two parts, which can (as on the CD) be sung as a sort of round. - a good way to help people sing in harmony, which they may otherwise not be able to do. The song was written especially for the DOV project.

Robin Mann (How Long? - and - How The World Was Won)

Robin Mann is one of the leading Christian singer-songwriters in Australia and assisted with the recording of most of the songs on the Whispers of Peace CD.  A Lutheran, based in South Australia, his songs express the Christian Faith in readily accessible contemporary ways.
The song How Long? is a moving lament and call for response in the Decade to Overcome Violence, and How The World Was Won, written during the build-up to the war in Iraq, is a powerful re-statement of the menaing of the Incarnation and of Christian salvation in modern form.

Allan Hoare (Spirit of Peace)

Allan has been writing original compositions for about 27 years, totally over 1300 compositions which explore all forms of music, including songs of two musicals performed throughout Victoria in the 1980s ('He is Alive' and 'Behind the Ring').  He is currently part of the music team at the Port Melbourne Uniting Church.
The ideas within the song 'Spirit of Peace' had been with Allan for about 18 months before taking shape, as he explored our need to be accepting of people from all races in order to spread peace across nations.  The song is therefore a prayer that the true Spirit of Peace may descend on us to strengthen our faith, enable us to be servants of love, and for justice to be done through the grace of God.

John Seddon (Come, God of Justice)

John was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1961, serving in the Diocese of Sydney, and, since 1968, has been writing hymns for children, youth and adults.  On his retirement in 2002 he has continued to write, with his 'Hymns from the Heart' being published in that year.  'I try to write hymns', he says, 'which relate the Faith to life today and in the language of today.'  This includes such subjects as the great themes in biblical theology, parenting, marriage and divorce, the church in today's world, Australia, social concern, the struggle to overcome evil and establish God's rule in the world and discipleship in the 21st century. 
'Come, God of Justice' is a combined effort: words and tune by John; tune transcribed by Margaret Middleton and harmony added by Jenny Fink, both musicians from John's parish church of Southlakes in the Diocese of Newcastle.

Natalie Oliver and Robert A.Hood (Unfinished Business)

Natalie Oliver is a song writer and vocalist based in Sydney. Primarily working as as jazz perfomer with her band "Beeba", she's also a member of the Reconciliation group called ESORA, or Eastern Suburbs Organisation for Reconciling Australia. The song "Unfinished Business" was inspired by her many feelings about Reconciliation having fallen off the Australian political agenda, and where this leaves all Australians in our growth as a nation. It is frustrating that more than ten years on from milestone issues such as the Report into Aborignal Deaths in Custody, the Mabo Wik land rights decisions, and the many reports on Indigenous community health problems, much of white Australia remains unconvinced, or reticent, about the need to act for their Indigenous bretheren and to recognise their sacred position in Australia.

The song was first performed at a National Council of Churches' function in Parramatta and it met with popular reaction.  Robert A Hood, also based in Sydney, is a guitarist and vocalist. His recently released CD "Six String Espresso" contains compositions of his work as a jazz guitarist. Natalie and Robert can be contacted on 0404 216 719 or by emailing beeba_jazz@hotmail.com

Monique Lisbon (Evermore)

Monique is a Melbourne-based singer/songwriter and minister-in-training with the Churches of Christ in Victoria, with a specialist itinerant ministry exploring issues of healing from childhood sexual abuse and fiding hope in the midst of suffering.  Under the label MonoMusic (www.monomusic.com.au), she has produced 6 albums of her own compoistions about finding hope in suffering, including two about her own journey of healing.  She regularly runs training for church leaders and others on 'rethinking pastoral care after child sexual abuse', does media interviews on these subjects, and is currently working on a combined book/CD project exploring issues of healing from abuse, based on her own life story. 
Her song Evermore (from her album If the Truth Hurts) is a song of hope amidst war and destruction, based on Psalm 46, and she was greatly instrumental in bring Whispers of Peace  to birth (through her musical arrangements, production of sheet music and graphic design for the project).
To find out more about her music or ministry, or her computer services, contact her on 0403 264 263, or via her webiste www.monounlimited.com

Dale M.Wright (Peace Offering Song)

Willie Denley (Shine Your Light)

Willie is an Anglican who lives in Stockton, Newcastle.  Six years ago she started writing songs even though she had had no aspirations of becoming a songwriter.  Her first album River of Life was however produced in 2001 and the album Shine Your Light released in 2004. 
Willie submitted the song she was working on - Shine Your Light  - for the DOV in Australia music competition in 2003, and is pleased to be part of this initiative, hoping that all will embrace such songs in our worship services to enable a new awareness of the Christian vocation to help overcome the curse of violence as we focus on Him who is our Peace. 

Dave Andrews (One Day)

Dave Andrews is a founding member of the grassroots Christian community the Waiters Union which lives among the poor of Brisbane's West End and shares the struggle to live an authentic life of Christian discipleship in the midst of an oppressive world. 
Dave's song One Day is but one of many he has written for, and out of the experience of, the Christian community in Brisbane's West End and it is a powerful expression of hope in the ultimate victory of God's Kingdom and the transformation of all other claims to authority over our lives.

Allan McDougall (Come Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace)

Allan is a member of Gawler Baptist Church and works for the State Disaster Organisation in South Australia and the State Emergency Management Training Officer.  He enjoys writing music and playing pipe-organs as a hobby and has written numerous Christian songs.
The song Come Lord Jesus Prince of Peace was written specifically as a submission to the DOV in Australia music competition in 2003.