I walked a labyrinth at 6:00 a.m. this morning from my kitchen table. I’m trying to be intentional each day during this Holy Week with a different Spiritual Practice. My original intention this morning was – maybe still will be – to find an accessible labyrinth that I could walk meditatively sometime later this week. While I was online trying to locate a labyrinth within an hour’s drive more or less of my home I came across several online labyrinths. I’d seen a couple of them before. I’d even “walked” a few at other times – or at least I had been a casual observer of them before, but this morning I fully engaged the experience of doing an online labyrinth walk. It was far more meaningful than I’d anticipated.
Doing a version of the very ancient practice of labyrinth walking through a technological adaptation unimagined even a few years ago got me thinking about the ancient-future worship model that often holds deep meaning with Postmoderns. I was reminded as well of a worship serve I attended with a few friends a couple years ago at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Seattle where close to 500 mostly twenty-somethings each week gather for a 9:30 p.m. Compline service (http://www.complinechoir.org/) that is chanted almost entirely in Latin. There seems to be something very meaningful about practices that reach deep into our faith traditions and yet encourage us to live out those traditions in new and relevant ways.
I came across a quote about worship and worship practices this past weekend from Brian McLaren: “… we need to explore an alternative to (1) using symbols that make no sense to people and (2) getting rid of symbols: [we need to be] (3) using symbols and finding ways to make them enticing, attractive, and penetrable for people unfamiliar with them.”
So, on this afternoon of Holy Week I’m wondering what are some of the Spiritual Practices that you have found most meaningful on your faith journey. Do you resonate with ancient-future worship practices? What symbols of our faith could we make more “enticing, attractive and penetrable”?
For those wanting to explore further: A search of “online labyrinths” will provide lots of options. Four that I’ve found really helpful are:
(http://www.gratefulness.org/p/labyrinth.cfm)
(http://www.gracecathedral.org/labyrinth/interactions/index.shtml)
(http://www.labyrinthonline.com/)
(http://web.ukonline.co.uk/paradigm/)
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I also have a handheld labryinth that sits on my office desk, and I'm amazed at how many people pick it up when they come in to visit me!
ReplyDeleteOne other spiritual discipline, that could be ancient, or future, or whatever - is prayerful art. I started out the Lenten season keeping a prayer journal with pastels and a diary someone gave me. Unfortunately, that practice fell apart as I lay on my couch for a week or so recovering from surgery (ironically, when I probably needed it the most). But in a recent "Reporter" there was an article about art and worship and I have really found artwork to be an extremely moving spiritual discipline.
Perhaps the most meaningful symbol in my faith journey is music, especially hymns written in the last 150 years or so. But when I am leading worship, I see few people who seem to be engaging with this worship art.
ReplyDeleteColleen has a theory that one barrier may be the way we have learned to hear music in the last couple generations. She suggests that earlier music operates on an internal beat, and that rock and other modern forms have developed and external beat (e.g. the drum set or thumping bass). Her hope is to add some texture to our traditional hymns by including rhythm and bass along with the organ in order to make "church music" more engaging and accessible, or "enticing, attractive, and permeable." In so doing we may find an opportunity to re-engage Christians in the worship practice of sharing music while remaining connected to our tradition.
I know that I am a Mystic in terms of my spiritual type. I connect most deeply with God through prayer and medidation--labyrinths and images that lead me more deeply with God. Yet at the same time, I have found that I really need to be intentional about carving out time to engage these ways of worship--like an hour or an afternoon. Anyways, I don't go more deeply because I don't take the time...
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, last night I was able to participate in a Sedar meal at a local Jewish congregation. I thought about Eric's comments about symbols while I heard the story of the Exodus and liberation told both with story and symbol. Everything we ate was a symbol and tied in with the story. Very cool experience.