|
 |
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
[ Back to index of October articles ] BEARINGS: By Martin L. Smith
It seems almost too much to ask for, and yet I dream of a church that helps us resist the tyranny of clock time. Such a church would invite us to forms of worship that enabled us to break through to different levels of consciousness and realize the inner potential we all have for intuitive awareness of the presence of the Eternal One unbound by time or space. It is a lot to ask for, because our current regular forms of worship are bound to strict schedules. It often seems all important to keep the liturgy squeezed within an hour because we all need to be going on to the next thing. And the pace of many our services is rapid - as if we had to keep going to get it over in time. There's no room for spontaneity. In some churches, if a celebrant merely tries to be faithful to the rubric of pausing for a moment's silence at the breaking of the bread in the eucharist, members of the congregation can be irritated by what seems to them like a hitch or uncomfortable gap. Some of these opportunities can be very simple indeed. I have particularly cherished contemplative eucharists which follow these very simple guidelines: a quiet carpeted space cleared of furniture; worshippers hunkering down on the floor, kneeling or sitting on stools and cushions; no shoes, no watches, no books or service leaflets; a simple low table for the altar, a few candles, maybe a little incense. The worshippers learn a few simple chants beforehand in preparation, and the service unfolds in a leisurely way allowing lengthy breathing spaces. We actually have time to let the readings sink in. The homily comes out of silence and then returns to it. There's no hurry to cease a particular chant as long as it is lifting up our hearts. There's ample time to examine our hearts before confession, to prepare in adoration to receive communion, to linger in thankful appreciation after receiving. And the celebrant can improvise the eucharistic prayer in a rare, lovely experience of not being "stuck in the book." Time and again I have heard people say that they lost track of time, or that they had no idea that they had it in them to just let go and be in the present moment with God. Maybe we spent an hour and a half, and yet it might seem longer to some and shorter to others. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the experience of festal liturgies and liturgies of pilgrimage where people gather in greater numbers than most of our average Sunday congregations. If the full potential of these occasions can be realized, especially through the grandeur of heartfelt singing and chanting en masse and rituals that help us use both sides of our brains, they can be times when we experience the transcending of individuality through the Spirit and a powerful sense of integration as the body of Christ. And once again, a symptom of our collective entry into that different state of consciousness will be a sense of liberation from clock time. Sometime it takes travel to be reminded of the power of this kind of worship, whether it is in African worship with its freedom to devote hours to allowing this experience of transcendence to emerge, or in the liturgies of the Orthodox churches whose rhythms deliberately unwind us from our tense subordination to the clock. Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He is on the staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. [ Back to index of October articles ]
|
|
||||||||||
In our culture clocks and schedules rule our lives so much that we almost come to believe that "clock time" is the norm, and our harried clock-watching state is "reality." Yet other ways of experiencing time occasionally break through and even the most driven of us have moments when we enter a different kind of consciousness. We come out of the theater where we have been caught up in a superb play, and it can seem that years of experience and living have been packed into a couple of hours. Dancing into the early hours of the morning, we lose track of time in the group ecstasy prolonged by the rhythm. Or in serene times of solitude or intimacy by the ocean it can seem, as we say, that "time stood still." In all these experiences where clock time no longer rules, we become aware of different ways of sensing life that are just as valid, and indeed have greater claims to reality. They enable us to tap into depths of awareness that we don't have access to under the repressive regime of perpetual scheduling.