 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Candle Power: Stone Church musicians (from left) Barbara Roberts, singer; Erik Johnson, clarinet; Laraine Pitcher, flute; and Karen Johnson, piano, pose in the sanctuary.
Peace of Mind
Silence, meditation and music are the cornerstones of Taizé
By Michael J. Vaughn
It doesn't take long to figure out that the Taizé worship service at Willow Glen's Stone Church is something very different. At the end of the first chant, "Bless the Lord My Soul," about the time one anticipates the pastor rising to begin the usual ministerial travelogue through the service, the music strikes up for a second five-minute chant, "Psallite Deo (This Is the Day the Lord Has Made)."
After that, a layperson comes forward to read a brief piece of scripture. Then comes the most startling part: silence. Sixty worshippers gathered together in a dark sanctuary, gazing into an altar covered in concrete blocks and some 70 candles, doing nothing but meditating and listening to the gentle swoosh of cars on nearby Lincoln Avenue. In hyperkinetic Silicon Valley, even the strictest atheist would probably love an excuse to enjoy this kind of peace.
"The silences are very powerful," says Rebecca Kuiken, associate pastor of Stone Church. "It's incredible to be silent with a whole community."
Kuiken, who at the urging of her women's meditation group established the Taizé service earlier this year, stresses the community orientation of the service. Except for a single pastoral prayer, the service emanates entirely from the congregation. (During the intercessory prayers that follow, for example, worshippers speak out subjects for prayer and are answered with a sung "Kyrie Eleison" from the rest of the community.)
"It all comes from a pattern and rhythm of prayer from all varieties of faith expression," Kuiken says. "It's very inclusive. One of the key reasons Brother Roger did the chants in Latin is that [the language] is for nobody, and therefore for everybody." (Five of the eight chants at the Stone Church service are translated into English.)
Kindle Garden: Associate pastor Rebecca Kuiken lights candles for the Taizé service at the Stone Church.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Brother Roger Schultz founded the ecumenical, monastic Taizé brotherhood in 1940, drawing members of traditional faiths to the tiny village of the same name in the hills of southeastern France. Though the brotherhood was founded as a meditative church, it soon became socially active, offering refuge to Jews fleeing the Nazis. The activist tradition continues today; many of the Taizé brotherhood make a point of living alongside the most destitute of the world's poor.
Even that, however, may not match the contribution of the Taizé worship service, developed as a communion not only for Christians of all faiths, but also for non-Christians. This openness and lack of hierarchy has inspired enormous youth participation in Europe, where Taizé's first "Council of Youth" in 1974 drew 40,000 people.
The center of the service is music, and the style of that music is a good illustration of Taizé's basic approach. At a recent service, Stone Church pianist Karen Johnson guided the congregation through repetitions of the chants, each of them a brief and easily sung eight-measure melody. As the congregation repeated the chant, its members were joined by ornamentations from flutist Laraine Pitcher and clarinetist Erik Johnson (Karen's son), and then by harmonies and descants (cross-melodies) from singer Barbara Roberts. In this way, the church was filled with a dramatic, classic musical arch of buildup/climax/denouement, but one steadfastly grounded in the melodic foundation provided by the congregation (some of whom were also heard adding harmonies themselves).
Stone Church, a Presbyterian congregation, is a natural home for such a musical service; its music director is Leroy Kromm, who also directs the San Jose Symphonic Choir.
"We're especially grateful for our wonderful musicians," church member Mary-Alice Collins says. "The songs really are prayers; there's something about the human voice that keeps you in that inner feeling."
The monthly Taizé service has become so popular that Stone Church is offering it weekly during the Advent season at 7 p.m. each Tuesday until Christmas. The church is at the corner of Lincoln and Clark avenues. For information, call 408.269.1593, or visit www.stonechurch.org.
|
|
|
|
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
