Some thoughts on prayer
Posted on February 9th, 2017
Since Christmas a church group I’m part of has been thinking about ‘the prayer of our lives’, which is a theme for the whole of 2017, and we’ve had some discussions about a range of topics linked to prayer. I’ve found these discussions interesting on many levels, as is often the way when people share their experiences of faith. To me, every word and feeling inside me is a prayer, whether I’m aware of them or not. I’ve been in situations where I’ve had a thought, or articulated some thoughts in my head, and then felt the desire to pray those thoughts but felt really silly. In those moments, to direct those thoughts and prayers to God would be like making a ca
ke in front of someone and then explaining what I’ve just been doing, which wouldn’t just be pointless but it would also be patronising to the observer! For me, to think of a prayer to then say aloud or silently to God is like saying the same thing twice, because God knows every prayer in our hearts.
On any given day we need different interactions and stimuli in every dimension of our lives, and I think prayer is the same. For some people, praying for the same things together is important, whereas for others a prayer can made by painting or sculpting. One of the saddest things I’ve found amongst religious people is the way some people find it hard to understand the prayers of others. For example, in the Orthodox tradition, icons are used for prayer. “The most literal translation of the word Greek: εικονογραφία (eikonographia) is “image writing,” leading many English-speaking Orthodox Christians to insist that icons are not “painted” but rather “written.” From there, further explanations are given that icons are to be understood in a manner similar to Holy Scripture—that is, they are not simply artistic compositions but rather are witnesses to the truth the way Scripture is. Far from being imaginative creations of the iconographer, they are more like scribal copies of the Bible.” However, there is a debate over whether icons break the 2nd Commandment given by God to Moses, and there is confusion amongst the use of icons in worship and the implications for belief in one God.
It may be naïve, but I have always had the view that if something helps someone feel close to God then it is not for me to judge them. What someone does is between them and God, and it’s not my business to decide how good or bad it is. I suppose that’s why I like studying other religions, because I love seeing the devotion people show for God. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable to see someone worship their God using their language or actions, but it rather makes me more determined to understand my own relationship with God.
Prayer is a tricky thing to understand, and I think that it is more often than not a tool for humans to use to feel closer to God than for any other purpose. Prayers are often a chance for us to develop ourselves, our characters and our futures. If someone chose to pray for an elderly and unwell neighbour rather than for their own happiness, that prayer has provided them the chance to become more selfless; if someone prays for their own happiness it can be a ste
p towards developing love and care for themselves, an often neglected and stigmatised concern. To pray at all gives us the opportunity to show God that we are open to receiving whatever peace, happiness or love God is willing to impart. And for me, prayer is often the opportunity to realise that nothing I can say to God is really worth saying. There have been times I’ve sat quietly to pray or gone to a chapel to spend time in prayer and found myself at a total loss of what to do or say. I often find this a difficult thing to know how to cope with, but then I remember Jesus’s words: “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7-8)
I suppose that is why I sing, and why I feel closer to God when I sing than at any other time, because all I have to do is open my heart to receive whatever love and peace God will bless me with. And as St. Augustine said, “To sing is to pray twice.”
I’d like to share a chant with you. It’s by a Jewish group called Temple and is the words Moses prayed to God when his sister was very ill: “אל נא רפא נא לה, el na, refa na la — please, God, heal her.” There is something I love about listening to Jewish music, knowing that it is the tradition Jesus lived in, and this prayer is so simple and beautiful. But the true beauty here for me is the repetition that chanting includes. It’s why I love Taizé chants so much; you don’t have to think of a prayer, you can turn your thoughts off and just open yourself up to singing your prayer to God.
Leave a commentEl Camino de Santiago/The Way of St. James
Posted on September 16th, 2012
This morning I went to St. Peter and St. Paul in Muchelney (near Langport, Somerset) for the first time since the concert I gave there in March. I was asked back to sing at their team service, where all the churches in the parish worship together. It was an honour to be asked back and lovely to see so many familiar faces again!
The theme for the service was the Way of St. James, or El Camino de Santiago – the pilgrimage walked by thousands of people a year. Funnily enough, I’d had a conversation with someone on the bus to Taizé about the film called The Waywith Martin Sheen, which is about the road to Santiago, and when I’d got home I ordered the DVD as it wasn’t the first time I’d heard good things about the film.
But the film had just been sitting there, waiting to be watched, until I got a call from the priest at Muchelney asking me to sing and explaining that three of the parishioners had recently returned from walking the Way. The time had come to watch The Way, and it was well worth waiting for. If you haven’t seen it, do! It’s an incredibly beautiful and moving film.
Anyway, so the service today was about this pilgrimage (which I now want to do!). And I think it is the first church service I’ve been in for…years, if ever…that I have felt the power of God so tangibly. There were photographs shown from the pilgrimage undertaken by the three parishioners, who had travelled with a group from the Diocese. There were also stories and reflections, prayers and songs. I felt really moved to have been asked to sing many of the songs during the service.
The most poignant moment was undoubtedly during what would ordinarily have been the slot for Communion. However, rather than sharing the bread and wine, the congregation was called to lay down their burdens. At their entrance to the church this morning, each person was given a pebble or stone to hold, as is done when walking the road to Santiago. The stones are then placed symbolically at one point along the pilgrimage, and this was recreated during the service. This was where I sang several songs, and I felt so blessed to have been part of it. The lead-in to this was a reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew:
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ – Matthew 11:28-30
I then sang this song:
I can’t help but think about the significance behind this act of laying down burdens. I remembered a Good Friday service where the congregation was asked to come forward and lay a nail down at the foot of the cross, to reflect on the closeness of the crucifixion, and this stuck me as just as powerful as that experience had been.
We carry around so much unnecessary baggage and so often we ignore what we are holding onto – perhaps because someone we know is suffering and we consider their burden greater than ours, or perhaps because we find it difficult to face the difficulties we experience.
It was a great blessing to share in the experience of the pilgrims this morning. The question I am left with now is: will I walk? And the answer may well be yes!
Leave a commentWhy do we sing?
Posted on April 19th, 2012
This evening I went to the first rehearsal for the Salisbury Diocesan Choral Festival. I’ve never taken part before, but I’m excited about joining together with (potentially) 300 people to sing in Salisbury Cathedral, Sherborne Abbey and All Saints in Westbury!
I love singing and always have, and I am well aware that the majority of people I meet would agree that they at least like it. But WHY? What is it about singing which makes us enjoy it? There is enough biblical evidence to say that it’s a good way to praise God and I could do on for hours about why it’s used in worship, but it doesn’t answer the question.
To help with this musing here is a quote from Josie Long about music in the Orthodox Church (which is usually chanting and quite dissimilar from other church music):
In his work, Byzantine Sacred Music, Constantine Cavarnos states: “The aim of this music is not to display the fine voices of the chanters, or to entertain the congregation, or to evoke aesthetic experience…The aim of Byzantine sacred music is spiritual. This music is, in the first place, a means of worship and veneration; and in the second place, a means of self-perfection, of eliciting and cultivating man’s higher thoughts and feelings of opposing and eliminating his lower, undesirable ones.
“Its use as a means of worship consists in employing it to glorify God, and to express feelings of supplication, hope, and gratitude, and love to Him. Its use as a means of veneration consists in employing it to honour the Holy Virgin and the rest of the Saints. Its use as a means of cultivating higher thoughts and feelings and opposing the lower ones is inseparable from these. There is not one kind of music employed as a means of worshipping God and honoring the saints, and another kind employed for transforming our inner life, but the same music, while having as its direct aim the former, incidentally leads also to the fulfillment of the latter.”
I like the focus on God here, and I wonder if that’s what we enjoy about music? Not only does it make a beautiful sound that is pleasing to the ear, but it also allows us to really BE with something that is beyond our worries and concerns, our distractions and our thoughts. We can engage with singing (or with music in general) in such a way as we just exist for a little while. We become what we are – human beings – rather than what we often seem to be – human doings! Here is another beautiful quote which really struck me on this, this time from the Catholic Church:
“To sing with the universe means, then, to follow the track of the Logos and to come close to Him. All true human art is an assimilation to the artist, to Christ, to the mind of the Creator.” – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Leave a commentChanting, chanting, chanting…
Posted on March 31st, 2012
Christian chant goes back to the very earliest Christian communities and even further, to the Psalms themselves which traditionally were sung rather than read. Today I’ve written a few chants which I am hoping to use at some point in the future. Having spent time with interfaith groups, I know that there are great chanting traditions in the Eastern traditions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism) but other than Taizé, Christianity often seems to get left out here. I found a beautiful Jewish chant while I was doing a bit of research which you might enjoy as it is based on words of Moses – Ana El Na Refa Na La
Taizé is my inspiration for singing songs to celebrate the Lord and I am really hoping that writing my own chants will help me express the peace and presence of God that I feel when I sing Taizé music. When I release a CD of chants, you’ll have to let me know what you think!
There’s something about chanting which reminds me of something I read recently about ‘slow prayer’. Here’s the extract – “St. Teresa of Ávila recommended this technique to another nun: Pray the Lord’s Prayer, but take an hour to pray it. Spend a few minutes entering into each individual phrase, until it becomes truly the prayer of your heart, and you become the prayer.” I’ve got a lot of time for the contemplative saints and this quote really rings true for me. By chanting you can grow in the words you are singing. They can mean something different to you each time round. They can reach a crescendo and they can be soft. It’s a beautiful experience to sing chants, and that’s why I love Taizé. The simplicity of the words lets you really open yourself up to their meaning.
So when I was writing some of these chants earlier I was using the words from various Anglican rosaries, which I discovered just this morning! I hadn’t realised that rosaries had made it into the Anglican tradition but have really enjoyed reading about them today. They’ve been around since the mid-1980s according to this website – http://www.kingofpeace.org/prayerbeads.htm. I have toyed with the idea of setting a whole rosary to music and recording it the right number of times so that it is like singing a rosary. I’d love your thoughts on that one!
Chanting is a way to sustain personal prayer. As St. Augustine said, ‘Singing is praying. He who sings prays twice.’ Beautiful! Today I have really felt the unity of these different things – that chanting is a way to pray slowly and thoughtfully, to delve into a relationship with God by using beautiful music to open up the heart and receive the love which God is desperate to share with us all. Here is a chant I’d love to use at some point (I’m working on my Hebrew!) The words are from Hosea 2:18. Video below.
VECHARAT I LAHEM BRIT BAYOM HA-HU
IM CHAYAT HASADE VE IM OF
HASHAMAYIM VE REMES HA-ADAMA
VEKESHET BE-CHEREV U-MILCHAMA ESHBOR
MIN HA-ARETZ VEHISHKATI LAVETACH (BIS)
In this day I make a covenant
with the beasts and the birds
with all creatures that walk on this earth
and bow, and sword, and battle disappear from the land
so that all may safely rest