12-9-19<\/p>\n
I have been blessed to be in some of the world\u2019s great places of worship. I mean Christian churches, mostly \u2013 cavernous cathedrals; ancient basilicas; rough-hewn Gothic, grand Renaissance, and gaudy Baroque; story-telling tapestries, stunning mosaics, stained glass windows that are miracles of art. Many small side-chapels, or the seemingly endless nave and chancel and ambulatory expanses themselves, crossed by mighty transepts.<\/p>\n
They inspire awe, and wonder, and worship because they were designed to do just that.<\/p>\n
A profound experience of mine was in France almost 20 years ago. Near Angoul\u00eame it was, in the Charentes. I was taken as a guest to the Abbaye of St-Marie de Maumont, I think it was, a Benedictine abbey of sisters devoted to worship, prayer, service, and outreach. Mostly, however, it is what a Protestant American expected of a monastery or nunnery \u2013 an ancient site of worship; silence and reverence; modesty, sisters in cowls going about their business. And that business was, indeed, largely prayer \u2013 almost constant prayer, private and public \u2013 and worship in song.<\/p>\n
My friend sped that evening along narrow rural roads between Bordeaux and Angoul\u00eame, on winding roads without lights on a moonless evenings\u2026 perhaps I was already in a prayerful mood. In truth I was not at all prepared. In an old candle-lit chapel, the sisters sang worship, hymns, and liturgy for four hours; in Latin, French, and Old French. Words I seldom recognized but did understand. Free to sit \u2013 observe \u2013 in the pews, what is left for the visitor? To worship. Pray. Reflect.<\/p>\n
In this setting, enveloped by all that heritage, the sense of God\u2019s presence, and His manifestation in the art and lives of that place; the essence of what it means to surrender and serve; to dig deep into self and reach high unto God; to feel \u2013 and be \u2013 a million miles from the world\u2019s distractions\u2026 that is the kind of worship and contemplation, allowing the purest of Christ-centered meditation, that we seldom know in contemporary life.<\/p>\n
I was visited, during those four hours, by past sins. I knew afresh the forgiveness of God. I met again my Savior Jesus. I was lost in the forests of a forgotten corner of Christendom, yet felt at home as if in Heaven, already.<\/p>\n
There were no steeples, no mighty organs, no golden chalices. On the other hand \u2013 speaking as an American evangelical \u2013 there were no drums and electric guitars; no words projected on a screen; no clapping; no Starbucks in the lobby; no announcements of Holy Jazzercize on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
There were perhaps 60 souls there that evening, but, really, one heart beating. As I cried and as I laughed in my pew, I realized something about Christianity in the centuries since the Early Church \u2013 past the Age of Cathedrals \u2013 to our Age of Praise and Worship shows.<\/p>\n
God touches us \u2013 or, perhaps differently said, we feel better able to touch Him \u2013 when worship experiences are at variance with the worlds we inhabit. In the \u201cDark\u201d Ages, when poverty and disease were common, Christians devoted every ounce of their talents, ambitions, and resources into building astonishing cathedrals that reached up, up, up to Heaven and sought to reflect His glory.<\/p>\n
In our day, when our multi-media world bombards us with every sensation; when celebrities have replaced heroes and sinners are elevated over saints; when the consumer culture insists on telling us what to like abd what to hate, what to believe and what not to believe\u2026 maybe people need to reject the hype by simply getting lost in Christian glitz and entertainment.<\/p>\n
Holy bling is not my cup of tea. But, then, even tea is not my cup of tea.<\/p>\n
Perhaps our souls need to find God by realizing that He is different<\/em> than we are, and our worlds. And He speaks to us in different ways, at different times, in different places. I have heard something like that somewhere.<\/p>\n I just wish that people in our time can discover what used to be profound in the earlier phases of human history. \u201cGet thee to a nunnery\u201d? I have heard that, somewhere, too. All of us should at least taste of those experiences. After all, they were what eventually brought civilization to where we are now.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n