In Search of Reverence
There was no preacher, no message, no announcements, no hierarchy of leaders, no “modern-sounding” music. The chapel was very dark save but a few candles. The room was lined with iconic pictures of Jesus and various saints. Pews faced what appeared to be the front of the chapel and along the walls on both sides were more seats facing inward. In the front (or what appeared to be the front) was nothing but a few carpeted steps leading nowhere and pillows scattered about for people to lie on. Nearby there was a cross where you could come throughout the service and rest your forehead upon in an act of humility.
As soon as the music began I realized that this would be one of the best experiences, in regards to church services that I would ever have. A wave of peace swept over me as the music filled the room and drenched me in beauty. Piano, violins, horns, guitar and a few other instruments led the most beautiful chanting music I’ve ever sung in a church. Throughout the next hour or so, we would sing a few chants, say a few prayers aloud and then sing more chants, some in Greek, some in English.
Kathleen Norris, in her book The Cloister Walk says this,
“Recent neurological study has shown that in religious rituals around the world, poetry is generally chanted with a pulse between two and four seconds, a pulse that researchers now believe to correspond to an internal system in the human brain. This system, epitomized by the traditions of Gregorian chant and plainsong in the Christian West, seems to help integrate the workings of the right and left hemispheres of the brain in processing information. As a contemporary monk has written, this may explain why ‘the ritual chanting of sacred texts contributes in a unique way to a profound, largely subliminal, absorption and engagement having many more dimensions than mere rational understanding.’”
I can see the effect that chanting has on people. It soon takes up its residence within you until you are no longer repeating the words; you are now breathing them in and out. They become a part of you. The evening ended with everyone standing up and holding hands around the room as we sang a beautiful praise chant. I stared at the elderly women in front of me as they wiped their eyes continuously throughout the night, wishing that I could experience it that deeply as well.
As I sat and listened and soaked in as much of what was going on around as I possibly could, everything felt holy. Everything felt sacred. God’s Spirit was thick in the room. I could feel it in the separate voices joined together as one singing praises but then pleading for God’s mercy upon their children, suffering alcoholics, the war to end and so much more. I realized that it is possible for the church to come alongside someone.
They left no room for criticism because how can you criticize a group of people who lead services like this, where they encourage people to stay in their local churches, have refused to become a movement and have always been centered out of a love for your neighbor and God?
My suggestion is that we all find our Taize, that we all find a place, be it our church, a monastery, a Bible study or music that we can go to, to help us breathe, to center our vision. The last thing that we need is this generation to produce more cynics. We have enough as it is. So let’s continue to question, let’s continue to re-think our methods. But let us not become hard-hearted to what God is already doing amongst us. The sooner that we can recognize what God is doing in our midst and beyond, the sooner we can join Him to make His dream for this world become a reality.
And if anyone finds a copy of that MacArthur book, my friend Eddie wants to use it in his youth group for a study on dating.
Posted on July 23, 2007 12:00 AM
Comments
Hey Jon, I'm looking for Stratham's book you mention, but I'm only coming up with, "The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right" by Robert Lanham. I hope that's the same book because I just put it on hold at my local library.
Posted by: Bryan Catherman | July 23, 2007 1:45 PM
I appreciated your article Jon. I often balance on that line between questioning and judging. I'm glad you're still asking questions and I hope your search brings you into new ways to interact with God.
I found the book "Sacred Pathways" by Gary Thomas to be helpful in understanding how important it is for each of us to find our own ways to worship. It has given me a new appreciation for styles of worship that I used to think were kind of lame. So good luck on your journey and keep going to Taize, it only gets better with time.
Posted by: Melody | July 23, 2007 4:49 PM
"Love is holy because it is like grace-
the worthiness of its object is never really what matters..."
-Marilynne Robinson in Gilead
I also find it hard to build and break at the right times with the proper respect.
Keep in mind that I hate most kinds of "Christian" merchandise. I'm not convinced that moneychanging should have a place in the church at all. That said, grace shows up in the oddest of places and gives herself to the oddest of things. And if love is behind an endeavor, commercial or otherwise, that endeavor has a good chance of glorifying Christ.
Posted by: grace | July 23, 2007 7:26 PM
God bless you in your journey. If I can make a recommendation: Church History and the lives of the saints each have a lot to offer in the way of discovering wholeness in the Christian life. Christians have experienced God holistically for 2000 years, so we don't need to reinvent the wheel. There is a wealth of wisdom and practical advice that is time-tested and true. Sure, there are blotches of bad in Church History--there's corruption, and some very wrong things--but Western Christianity (after the schism of 1054 AD) isn't the whole story. The Church wasn't all bad before Martin Luther.
Posted by: Cameron | July 24, 2007 12:34 PM
I see and feel what you are saying, but I believe WE are the only ones to bring change in our respective body. If we only question and complain with no agenda of improving our membership, it is all in vain. That is why young & old alike need to be involved with the church function, volunteering, making suggestions, unless God leads us to a different body to be utilized fully. I say this because I feel the same way about my fellowship on occasion, and have complained for years to only feel more "frustrated" than before. BUT God is good and now change is on the horizon...patience is a virtue
Posted by: dj | July 24, 2007 4:06 PM
bryan,
that is the correct. that would be my bad.
Posted by: jon | July 26, 2007 10:28 AM
Thanks Jon. "American Christianity" is a religion within itself whether we would like to admit it or not. I appreciate your attempt at taking a stab at some of our flaws as a culture, family, and as a way of life. Before we start taking things apart I hope that we as a collective have the ability to take a good look at ourselves and ask the ever so emergent question of "why".
Posted by: Eddie | July 26, 2007 1:13 PM
Jon, i know what its like to be cynical and for me it was (is)easy to go too far and end up wanting to quite. It is hard to see the good in all the bad; also, we need to remember, like in the early church, not all who are in our communities are our brothers. Good thoughts Jon
Posted by: adam | July 27, 2007 8:36 AM
Jon, great comments. I agree. We need to stop being cynical and critical of others because God has each of us in different places. What I love, someone else may cringe at...and vice cersa. God is teaching you so much. The Taize service sounds cool. Would love to experience that. Mom
Posted by: Anonymous | July 28, 2007 10:17 AM
Jon,
I enjoy your wit and humor. I have some questions, however. These are meant in the best possible Spirit. In the beginning you were critical of the church you attended. Then you felt guilty because some people were saved. But I'm not sure you needed to feel guilty. It's good that people were saved, but why should that mean you were wrong in your original criticism? There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let demonstrate what I mean. At the end you say that we all need to find our Taize. But are all Taizes equal? Is one Taize better than another? I agree with you that cynicism is bad. But so is relativism. By the end, you seem to have argued against evaluation. You go from being critical to having no criticism at all for anything, as long as it is sincere. Please feel free to correct me.
Posted by: Devin | July 31, 2007 12:34 PM
devin, i see what your saying and i'm trying to process through it. my point in that we all need to find out taize has its flaws because i'm saying that as long as are being refreshed then everything is ok. but what if being refreshed is going to a cult where we drink the blood of virgins (an extreme example)? in that way, it's all in the eye of the beholder which borders on relativism. so i can see why there is flaws in my "everyone needs to find their taize" point.
i suppose my aim was more towards those who are in my spot (burnt out, critical, on the verge of throwing it all away). my encouragement then was for people to not continue being criticial (at the expense of our well-being and spiritual health) and to be pro-active in finding something that will give us a breath of fresh air. it was an encouragment to not give up (as i have seen far to many people do). it is an excouragment to pull ourselves out of this rut so we may come alive again. but then again, that wasn't stated in the article.
does that make sense and am i understanding your point correctly?
Posted by: jon | August 1, 2007 2:56 PM
I found a Taize service in Massachusetts for next Sunday night. I'm excited to go. Thanks for the article, this is giving me an opportunity to grow.
I'll make sure to write my thoughts on it in my blog.
Peace!
Posted by: Chris A. | August 3, 2007 1:08 PM
Thank you, Jon, that makes you a little clearer. And no, do not give up. Let us listen to our fathers: He who wants God as his Father, must have the Church as his Mother.
God Bless,
Posted by: Devin | August 3, 2007 9:18 PM
Thank you, Jon, that makes you a little clearer. And no, do not give up. Let us listen to our fathers: He who wants God as his Father, must have the Church as his Mother.
God Bless,
Posted by: Devin | August 4, 2007 8:49 PM
devin, jon IS the Church. we are the Church, with all the bad and good that come with that. i don't buy your quote.
Posted by: Jordan Green | August 5, 2007 12:15 AM
Jordan,
That's too bad. Then you don't buy Augustine. Let me try to defend him.
To say we "are" the church sounds as if only those of us who are breathing now are what make up the church. In doing so you cut yourself off from history. We are not the Church; we are PART of the Church. But it does not begin and end with us. Surely this is Augustine's point. We did not create the Church. Jon did not create the Church. Christ did, that is, he paid for it and then the Apostles and so forth. We inherit the Church, like we inherit the English language. We are only a part of the Church because someone else was part of it before us. We are standing on their shoulders.
It should not be surprising that this is the only way we know who we are, to look back and see what has preceded us. To say that we are the church disregards the cause of our effect. It is like saying I am who am because it's who I am. But in reality we exist because people before us existed. We look (and sometimes act) the way we do because of our biological parents before us. We think and communicate because we listened to other people speaking. Everything that we have has been given to us, including the Church.
My intent was to encourage those who were worried about "throwing it all away," as Jon put it. To Modern ears, Augustine's words are harsh, but in the end he is right. The Christian experience is not whatever you want it to be. The Church is not wherever you happen to be at the given moment--the park, the beach--because we ARE it. That's silly. In fact, that's what has contributed to Jon's cynicism, the idea that we are the Church and that all of life is "worship." In searching for reverence, he asks, "Where is the sacred?" Well, it doesn't exist if you really believe that we ARE the church and whatever we do is worship. There is a huge difference between walking into Costco and walking into a cathedral. Jon does not need to be told he is the Church. Jon, like many of us who have been cut off from the past, is lost. He knows he's not the church because he's not sure he knows what the church is. And he doesn't know what church is because he can't see where it began. He sought for reverence but did not go back far enough. He finds himself 2000 years down the road of Church History and cannot seem to make sense of it. He looks around at the Wasteland of Modernity and says, I guess this is all there is. What he needs to do is follow the road back to find some ancient landmarks, to find some beautiful things that he did not create, things that he can revere, and in doing so, he will be relieved, terribly elated at the thought that God's Church does exist and that he does not have to build it on his own. And if he goes back far enough, he will be like Chesterton: in finishing the last touches to his heresy he may find out it was orthodoxy. For Chesterton says, I know it is THE Church because I disagree with it. I know it did not create it and that I must submit to it.
If we ARE the church then there is no real reverence, for we seldom revere anything we've made ourselves. We revere the things of old, things that have lasted and are standing and were built before we born, pyramids, castles, cathedrals. This is reverence. Surely, this is what Jon was searching for.
Posted by: Devin | August 5, 2007 10:38 PM
devin,
great points! i want to do some thinking about this...
i guess my concern at this point is putting the Church on the same level as Christ, which I struggle with because we can't look to the Church as something to follow in the same way. The Church, after all, has done many good things, but has also been evil at times, just like every one of us. The shoulders we're standing on, as you say, were flawed like us.
I also agree that cynicism is not a positive thing, but I still see the value in criticizing an entity that is not and has never been perfect.
Even a gorgeous church, with towering spires and stained glass reflecting the light from outside...I can certainly see the beauty and reverence in such a thing, but when that building was built with bricks purchased by peasants to absolve sins, it's hard to ignore the discrepancy there.
The old believers who built these things, they may have been amazing people, but they were still human.
I do understand reverence, but I still think this pertains more to God than it does to the history of the Church establishment.
Lastly, while the Church isn't just us, it is still us. I don't mean this in a "wherever we are, that's spatially where the Church is" way. I mean this in a very literal sense: we are each the bride of Christ, and the people we are around see us as Christians.
Anyway, I look forward to pondering your thoughts...
Posted by: Jordan Green | August 5, 2007 10:57 PM