Silence, Music, and Deep Prayer 1

 
Starting this Wednesday and continuing on 
Wednesday nights until the week after Easter, 
my friend and colleague, Dr. Rickey Cotton, 
and I will be teaching a course in the parish 
academy of All Saints’ EpiscopalChurch here 
in Lakeland. 



The course is titled Practicing Intimacy with God II: Silence, Music, and Deep Prayer. Over its twelve weeks, Dr. Cotton will share studies and practices of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition and I will present some teaching and musical activities involving what we are calling “prayerful music.” 

As a discipline for myself and as a possible resource for others, I will be sharing lesson plans here. 

January 6 – Introduction and Overview

Early in the class, 

we will have a taste of what we mean by “prayerful music."

• Sing together an example from Taize: “Come and Fill." 

This is simple - easy tune and brief text.

There is nothing in its design to distract us from our devotional experience. 

And it's repetitive.

The hope is that, over time, these words truly become our own prayer.

Or, as it says in the introduction to Songs and Prayers of Taize -

" A few words sung over and over again reinforce the meditative quality of the prayer. They express a basic reality that can quickly be grasped by the intellect, and that gradually penetrates the heart and the whole being."

Click here for a lovely recording of "Come and Fill" in Latin along with beautiful shepherd images.  

An introduction to the class from my perspective

My goals are to support the on-going development of spirituality and community.

In other words, I want to contribute to the nurturing of your souls and mine, and to deepen our knowledge and connection regarding one another.    

My approach to doing those things will involve activities that might enrich our engagement with pieces of music. Participation in those activities is voluntary and I realize participation might sometimes take us out of our comfort zones. While I am a professional musician, I am specifically a pianist and a professor. In this class, however, I will need to do a lot of singing. This makes me feel very vulnerable but I am trusting that such vulnerability - mine and yours - will support the goals of the endeavor.

Why consider music in the development of spirituality and community? Because music integrates and coordinates aspects of ourselves in ways that are unique and profound. 

One example: neurologists have found that memories - and therefore a sense of identity and faith experience - can be embedded in musical experiences long after language skills and a sense of personal biography have significantly deteriorated. If we are seeking to "be transformed by the renewing of our minds" - if we are looking to radically change the way we understand ourselves and others - then it seems we would need to take music into consideration.    

Click here to see renowned neurologist Oliver Sachs speaking eloquently about the responses of Alzheimer's patients to music. 

What is the relationship of music to the pursuit of silence or silent prayer, and how does it fit into this course?

I contend that music can be engaged in as a spiritual discipline along the lines of Henri Nouwen's definition as quoted in Spiritual Direction, "Almost anything that regularly asks us to slow down and order our time, desires, and thoughts to counteract selfishness, impulsiveness, or hurried fogginess of mind can be a spiritual discipline."

To discuss the question more specifically,
 
1. Music happens on a canvas of silence and incorporates silence. (We call those internal silences "rests" which is sometimes how they function.)

2. Silences around and within music create opportunities for us to develop a sense of the other. For example, we pause to breathe after a musical phrase and we remember that first breath with which God animated our race and continues to preserve it.

3. Music moves us in the direction of silence as it focuses us and helps us begin to quiet the noise of our own thoughts as we align together with its processes.

What to expect in this course?

1. An overarching musical concept each evening that might enrich our musical experiences in corporate worship, private worship, and maybe even in the concert hall

2. Experiences of various forms of music and services of worship including Taize, chant, spirituals, compline, world hymnody

3. Guests such as Ed Bryant, Larry Sledge, composer friends, students

Journey

The overarching theme for the musical aspects of this evening's class is the "journey."

It's a familiar contemporary proverb: "It's all about the journey."

But it's also an enduring truth. The pilgrims of Canterbury Tales had some transformational opportunities as they shared stories on the way to the shrine of Becket. And the first disciples responded to Jesus' invitation, "Follow me," whivh immediately put them on a journey with Jesus.

We are sharing a bit of trail as we spend these twelve Wednesday evenings together and we are sharing an even lengthier portion of our journeys during our time in Lakeland and at All Saints. 

But our individual journeys reach back before we were all here together.

• Take a few moments to share with those around you where you came from - denominationally, geographically, etc. You might also consider sharing something you have left behind as being on journey involves leaving as we move forward.  

In the next ten or fifteen minutes, we will be engaging with a hymn about journeying, and we will do so through several activities that highlight different aspects of the experience of this hymn. For those familiar with the practice of levio divina, this process will be similar in the way it deepens our experience by considering the work from various perspectives.

Let's begin by generally noting that a musical work is itself a little journey. Much like the accelerated living of travel, a piece of music moves us rather quickly through the shape of a possible life, of a journey with beginning, middle, and end. The beginning, or introduction, frequently gives us some hints about the terrain to be traversed. The ending often involves a broadening or, at church, an "Amen" with which we affirm the conclusion of that particular journey.

The tune to which we will be singing tonight is BEACH SPRING attributed to Benjamin Franklin White. It is a folksy, pentatonic tune that appeared first in 1844 in The Sacred Harp which White edited. Its name comes from a baptist church near where he lived in Georgia. 

Much of the music in the Old Testament appears to be accompanying travel - processions at coronations, movements of troops, the entrance of pilgrims into Jerusalem. The music of the church continues to be mostly at a walking pace.

• Let's walk to this tune and discover what sort of walking it inspires. This is a procedure for getting a general idea of its character from its pulse and meter.

This tune suggests a vigorous sort of walking, a lilting quality, with moments that require extra energy - much like one's gait moving along a path of pilgrimage.

• As we listen to the tune, let's trace the shape of the melody in the air. This will give us a more detailed sense of its terrain. 

In its first two phrases it moves up and down little hills. And the terrain is identical in those two phrases. Then, in the third phrase, there's a rapid rise to a higher plane and through a more jagged pass. In the fourth phrase, it climbs back down and comes to rest in a similar place to where it started.  

• Let's look at Richard Gillard's text known as "The Servant Song" which comes from the 1970s. Gillard lives in New Zealand and is a self-taught guitarist in a folk style.

Verse 1 

We sing this hymn as an invitation and an exhortation to each other. 

This verse emphasizes that we do not journey alone and that we need to be attentive enough to each other that we might provide the right help at the time when it is needed.

• As we sing this verse, you might want to lift your hand as if you are holding a lantern for someone else to see, or you might extend your hand to a neighbor across the table.

Verse 2 

This verse puts identical words in the mouths of men and women and pinpoints the reciprocal nature of Christian service. We need to give and receive service.   

• As we sing this verse, gentlemen please sing the first two lines to the ladies and ladies respond with the last two lines.

Verse 3

This last verse expresses the truth that the journey of life involves joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, regardless of our religious beliefs. And we are reminded that Christ's way was one of agony. He journeys with us. 
   
Click here for "The Servant Song" sung to Gillard's own tune.

Compline

This evening we will sing a two-measure setting of words from the first verse of Psalm 4 composed for the occasion.

Our Compline hymn-activity will be Francis Patrick O'Brien's "Epiphany Carol" which can be sung to the BEACH SPRING tune.

This carol is particularly well suited to the occasion as

1. Today is Epiphany.

2. The Magi were on a journey.

3. The text incorporates images of night and day, light and darkness.

• While the text is read, hum BEACH SPRING as if it were a lullaby to the toddler Jesus.