Inspired by his friendship with Sister Helen Prejean (which began with Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking, based on Sister Helen’s book of the same title) and his own struggle with spirituality, Heggie commissioned the texts for this cycle from Sister Helen. As Heggie describes in his Program Note for the song cycle:

“…I asked her [Sister Helen] about her own sense of what “spirituality” means. (It is a constant struggle for me, personally.) She answered that at one point in her life she’d had to throw away all the ‘stuff’ she’d been told she needs…She went to the deepest waters of her being, and it was there she found the core of her spirituality: the deepest desire of her heart.”

The song cycle is comprised of four sections, beginning with a flute solo, which Heggie has named “The Call.”

–Christie Finn