Richness Via Chant

Night before last, SG introduced me to Gregorian Chant.  Not that I hadn’t listened to it before, but never to actually experience it.  We sat together, one sister helping another through a difficult time by just being, and allowing the music to enter our souls.  

I have never been so affected by music.  A different kind of world, worship, prayer and emotion touched my soul.  In this world, the pace was observant, sensorial and wondering.  Emotion responded unfettered, accepted, essential.  Worship followed by acknowledging the understanding of God gained by the new (or old) pace.  Prayer was deep; a warm blanket combined with a cool spring.  

Last evening, I put the music on again, and read through a prayer from The Valley of Vision.  “Read through” is a crass use of terminology, though, for “pray through” or “meditate on” are more appropriate.  I never understood meditation.  Whenever I tried, I basically ended up thinking so hard I stretched my intellect until it was by no means what we refer to as “meditative,” but rather stressful.  Yesterday was different: I experienced that prayer, meant it, believed it.  I chewed on it, digested it, not as a mental exercise, but as a joint function of heart and mind in the soul. 

Applying to my activities the world communicated by Gregorian Chant brought this about, and I want to keep experiencing God in this manner.  In fact, to live in this way appears a wonderful alternative to majority western culture.  Of course, intellect must apply, and sometimes primarily, but I would like to learn to walk passionately through life sensorially observant and simply contemplative.  It may be slower, but oh, how much richer!

Perhaps a former music major has run away with her thesaurus.  Perhaps a theology major has turned mystic.  

Perhaps the happy-faced intellectual understanding of God so prevalent amongst evangelicals truly misses out on rich stores of interaction with God.