Monday Morning Music Ministry

6/3/2012

A few years ago when I lived in California, I helped organize retreats for the people in the office where I worked. Spiritual getaways, opportunities for refreshment. We availed ourselves of landmarks of the state’s rich heritage, and held them at ancient missions that dot the coast. Few of us were Catholic, but the solemnity and Christian dedication of these oases were special indeed.

Early settlers built a network of missions along the Pacific coast so that travelers could be within foot (or horse, or mule) distance of one day from mission to mission. Most still stand today, active as religious communities that also welcome visitors… including individuals or groups who want a place to worship God or meditate on the Word. My friends and I visited Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside.

These experiences were so good for my soul that I gratefully learned about abbeys, fewer in number, also each hundreds of years old, that likewise welcomed visitors. The abbeys are more active religious communities, however; and conforming to the rules of the order was more of a requirement. I arranged to stay at the Benedictine Abbey of St Andrew in Valyermo. It was to be for three days, living, even dining, among the monks. Participation in worship was not required, but silence – one of the order’s strictures – was.

One has free run of the beautiful grounds, including the Stations of Cross, a precious tool to reflect on Christ’s sacrifices; and the abbey’s library. There was no “lights out” policy in the Spartan rooms, because there were no lights. But the library, with many volumes and a cozy fireplace, was open all night.

When I went to the abbey I was not enduring a spiritual crisis, but I needed refreshment (we all do, always; whether we realize it or not is the matter), and I arrived expecting all sorts of insights, breakthroughs, and revelations.

I received none. None that I hoped for, or expected. I was not disappointed, but I was confused. In the silence, I had expected to hear God’s voice, but I did not. In nature I expected to see Him more clearly, but I did not. In the solitude, I expected to be free to bump into God at every turn, but I did not.

Yet after three days, without insights, revelations, or breathroughs to headline a journaling page… I was closer to God than I ever had been.

I had the sense – a reminder, really – that a curse of modern life is that we often are too busy to meet God on His terms. In modern religion, we are taught to construct “expectations” and then devise ways to meet them, all the time thinking that such paradigms will please God. In modern spirituality, we tell ourselves that we are on progressive paths to know God better and better and better.

… where, sometimes, the stark realization that we cannot fully know Him, is to rediscover the sense of awe at His majesty, His omnipotence, and His mystery. We have lost a sense of God’s mystery. It does not threaten to make God more distant; it does, however, make Him more God-like to us. Our goal must not be to be God (if that were possible), but to be Children of God. We should not think we can be Christs, but we are instructed to be Imitators of Christ. Yes, it is one of our charges to “know God and make Him known,” but we cannot have a presumptuous attitude: if we fool ourselves into thinking we can know all there is to know about Him… there would no longer be a need to know Him.

I came to appreciate, not regret, that “space” between our knowledge of God and God Himself. It is not empty, as we sometimes fear, but is that mysterious zone where we can just stop and have reverence and awe and wonder at the unknowable power, and love, of God.

That mysterious zone, of course, is called faith.

Embrace its vastness, do not scurry to shrink it. Love the fact that God created and maintains it as a special gift for His children. To lose yourself in the mystery of real faith is to feel, to KNOW, that you are closer to Him than you can ever teach yourself to be, or work towards. To try is futile, to surrender is divine.

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Writing our stories into God’s song, BEING the glory of God, is the essence of Christa Wells’ moving song “How Emptiness Sings.” Let your tune resonate in the open spaces.

Click: How Emptiness Sings