Centering and stillness

In a busy, impersonal and frenetic world, we all need to come to stillness, to be centred. To centre and be still, welcoming time spent in the quiet recesses of the heart where God may be found, and truth may be experienced, is what is meant by centering.
 

Be still and know that I am God, Psalm 46.10

When we come to prayer we begin by setting up the environment that may help us to achieve this focus. Sometimes we need help to settle down and be quiet. Each of us has different ways of finding what helps. Some turn to music, art, or poetry as a way in.

The arts as ways to God

Art, poetry, literature and music are gifts of God, nourishing us on the journey of life, enlarging our hearts and lifting our spirits. The creative essence of each centres us in our relationship to God and gives our souls a stillness the noise of the world cannot shatter.
The composer Albert Schweitzer wrote:

All true and deeply felt music, whether sacred or profane, journeys to heights where art and religion can always meet. One illumines the other.

"If music be the food of love, play on" says Orlando in Shakespeare's play, Twelfth Night. Music, the most abstract of the arts, is spirit food. It may hold us in the tender, fearful power of the moment; transform and elevate our mind, be heart-wrenching in its beauty, exhilirating or confronting in its majesty. It may cause us to break into jubilation or to lament and grieve in sorrow. It can draw humanity together in a universal common experience.

Composers, artists, and writers are reflective people. They interpret the world around them through the senses, using imagination as expressed through word or movement, colour, texture and musical symbol. They convey in their own distinctive ways what we find difficult to express. They lead us into another world and at times enable us to see the world differently, and in a new light. The old is illumined by the new. We are led to ponder and wonder.

In the Loreto education tradition there has always been a firm place for the arts, not simply for what they are but because of their humanising power, their proximity to the spiritual.

In a similar way when we honour the sacred in others, listen attentively to the God speaking within them, we begin to understand the power of spirituality. It could well be therefore that in making a retreat, and in discerning life's issues, the arts will provide the very key that leads us into the truth we seek.

Liturgy

Liturgy depends on ritual, and good ritual is where the meeting of the arts takes place. Word, music, movement, all play their part in the ceremonial, drawing us into prayer. 

A hymn combines poetry and music in theological discourse.

A mantra repeats over and over a simple message.

Chant keeps us focussed through its singleness of line.

Choral music opens up a world of wonder and beauty through its harmonies and the interplay of voices.

Music that has no particular sacred connection can speak to the human heart equally powerfully. We all have our taste in such matters but it is easy to take a Paul Kelly or Leonard Cohen lyric and apply it to the human situation in which we find ourselves. This in turn may put us more deeply in touch with our feelings and send us to find what Jesus would have done in such circumstances, how he would have felt, and how he cares for ‘me too’ in such a situation. If 'Finding God in all things' is the Ignatian/ Mary Ward way of spirituality, then all created things can speak to us of God, can help us integrate our lives.

Come as you are

Text and music by Deirdre Browne ibvm
From the album, COME AS YOU ARE including the best of Still Waters by Fr Paul Gurr
Published by Spectrum Publications Pty Ltd

Come as you are
That's how I want you
Come as you are 
Feel quite at home
Close to my heart
Loved and forgiven
Come as you are
Why stand alone?
No need to fear
Love sets no limits
No need to fear
Love never ends
Don't run away
Shamed and disheartened
Rest in my love
Trust me again.
I came to call sinners
Not just the virtuous
I came to bring peace
Not to condemn
Each time you fail
To live by my promise
Why do you think
I'd love you the less? 
Come as you are
That's how I love you
Come as you are
Trust me again
Nothing can change
The love that I bear you
All will be well
Just come as you are!