Geography of Hymn Writers: Where to Visit Their Creative Spark

“Geography of Hymn Writers” takes the stories of hymn writers and organizes them according to the geography of the authors – where they were born, where they served, or where they found a creative spark to produce their hymns. Like a travelogue, it is designed as a useful guide to provide you an index of geographic locations of the hymn writers, so that in your journeys, you can look up the authors of classic hymns and the locations from where their hymns were born.

Here is the challenge. Which of the author’s locations to feature? Should locations be organized by the author’s birth or death, where the author attended school, fell in love, experienced tragedies or events which influenced the hymn. Should it be organized by the hometown or the most important career position? The guiding criteria is this: VISITIBILITY. I attempted to identify the geographic location which generated the creative spark for the author’s hymn. Many people have lived in more than one location. If I were visiting a place where a hymnwriter wrote, which location would be the most likely I’d want to visit? For example, if a hymn author was born in Dublin, Ireland but ended up on Ontario, Canada – where his life experiences led him to write a hymn – the Ontario location would be featured. Other times, a place of birth or career is significant.

The stories in this volume all come from my book “Hymns: Their Stories and Their Messages”, which is a compendium of the seven books I have written about hymns. That book has more detail and includes meditations about the messages which spring forth from the hymns. “Geography of Hymn Writers” is a rearranging of those same stories, sorted by geography. May it serve you well in your journeys and guide your curiosity to consider where our hymns came from.