Taize Friday

At the risk of this becoming a running narrative of my toe-dipping at St. Joe's, I feel like I need to balance Ash Wednesday, and what might have sounded like a depreciation of "intimate" worship experience.

I've long been drawn to the unique worship that grew out of the community of prayer that began as Brother Roger and a few associates sought some refuge from the horrors of WWII Europe in Taize. It's simple, it's ecumenical, and it is grounded in Spirit. It allows for silence, and at least for me invites a deep attention to the movement of Christ's passion and the words of Scripture that are spoken.

No surprise that I would want to attend when it was announced on Ash Wednesday that there would be a time of Taize prayer on Friday....4:30 P.M. "to make it easier those who don't want to go out at night." No surprise, either, as we made our way into the dark sanctuary that there would be none of the searching for seats that impressed me on Wednesday. A pianist, cantor, reader, and maybe a dozen other souls sat quietly, waiting for that moment of beginning.

Maybe one of the things I find powerful about this service is that I somehow am able to abide my own brokenness as the quiet chants, and the breath that sings them, fill me in ways that accommodate the slow leak--the quiet hissss that singing Taize feels like to me. I am peripherally aware of the other worshippers, and at times my mind flits to what it is that they seek in the sounds and silence of this place and time, but I spend a good part of the service with eyes closed, aware of myself in the dark.

I'm never quite sure what will touch my soul, but there are very few times that I have been a part of Taize prayer that there's not been something. Yesterday, it was a chant I'd sung a hundred times...."Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." It was clear from the first notes that I would not croak along with this one--it was to be sung for me. Aware of that thief who hung beside Jesus, with Wednesday's reading a sort of echo (as Jesus was questioned as to how he could possibly eat with tax collectors and sinners) I wonder why I for so long have tried so hard to be somehow worthy of God's presence in my life.

Felix cupla! Blessed fault! It is just that brokenness, and our need for healing, that draws God close, yet in that quiet place I feel the quickening of my reformed, Calvinist pulse. Yes, it is our sin that draws God close to us, oddly at the very moment that we seek to pull away from God! But what chokes me mid-chant? "Jesus, remember me..."

It's one thing to be found by that God who leaves the 99 to find the lost 1. It's another to ask to be remembered. and I'm not even all that sure what the difference is. I know that the rock-solid witness of the Gospel is that God will in no wise forget us. Not a sparrow falls to the ground that God does not know. "Forgetfulness" was the fear that haunted and prodded the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and I guess Heidegger resonated so deeply for me because the fear of being forgotten--"left behind"-- has been so palpable for me. "Jesus, remember me."

This particular Taize service ends with a longer time of chant, as people are invited to pray at the cross in silence while those gathered create something like a sound-fort around them: "Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray, watch and pray." This week it was just fine to be part of that Greek Chorus that chanted along. Maybe that's why community is so very important to the Christian journey: because when you are on the verge of forgetting, or fearing that you are forgotten, there's someone a few pews back staying, remaining, watching, praying. It doesn't take a church filled to the last row of the balcony. A couple handful of praying folk, gathered for whatever mixed motive will do.

It's not a Taize tune, but it was in my ear as we stepped back into the twilight:

I will never forget you,
My people
I have carved you
on the palm of My hand
I will never forget you
I will not leave you orphan
I will never forget My own