March 5th, 2008 - Silence, Rock, Burnt Chocolate and Song

We sang, we heard God’s word read, we experienced silence during worship tonight. We also smelled burnt chocolate that permeated the air. I am not exactly sure what the story was as to how it happened but it was certainly not something to be ignored.

Yet it was the silence in tonight’s worship that truly caught my attention. There is silence between the readings during all Wednesday services but the silence tonight felt communal and personal at the same time. There was an expectation, and listening for something that was present with us.

Each of us brought a rock to worship tonight. Pastor Dayle asked us to think about our individual rocks and, when we lit a candle, we placed both our rock and the candle in the water beside the cross.

The prayer corner was another focal point of the evening. As the congregation sang I felt again this sense of being both in community and withdrawn from it simultaneously.

After worship was choir practice. The choir practiced a number of pieces we will be performing in the upcoming weeks. One, Mozart’s Ave verum Corpus, felt very pure as we sang. It is hard to describe what happens when a piece suddenly breaks away from a concern for performing the music correctly to giving way to the power of the composition but it definitely keeps me coming back to practice.