Spirituality

I began a new semester about a month ago.  I teach a music appreciation class (called “Great Music Listening”) every semester.  This class is offered both for people who genuinely want to study music, but also for those who are simply looking for General Education credits.

This class is designed to help us, as hearers of music, to appreciate the experience of listening to music.  In approaching the subject, then, we dissect music from a variety of directions, six approaches, to be exact.  The first of these “approaches” is an examination of music’s role(s) in society.

Since music is the way it is, this discussion always leads to discussing religious/spiritual music.  Music, more than perhaps any other medium, is able to communicate in a spiritual language, and this is important to understand if we are going to make listening to music more meaningful.  Anyway, the point of the discussion is that there is a difference between music that is spiritual and music that is religious, or at least I tell the students that there is.  Religious music is music that was written with a specific religion or religious group in mind.  Religious music exists to teach doctrine, to relay the liturgy, and to bring the religious “community” closer to God.  Spiritual music, on the other hand, is music that is powerful in a spiritual sense, but lacks the “attachments” of “religious” music.  Spiritual music is music that wasn’t necessarily designed as a religious exercise or as a teacher of religious ideas, but communicates in a “spiritual” way nonetheless.

I attended a concert last night that was absolutely sublime.  It was, I think, one of the most transcendent musical performances I’ve experienced…and I am inches from a PhD in Musicology, so I’ve experienced a lot!

The concert program was a performance of J. S. Bach’s six motets.  Bach has this way of either being terribly pedantic and banal or glorious and exalted.  A lot of the difference between the annoying and the inspiring Bach lies in the performer(s) adeptness.  This concert, performed by Bach Collegium San Diego, was one of those inspired ones.

This music was certainly written as “religious music,” according to the definition above.  I don’t speak German all that well, so most of the meaning of the texts escaped me.  Still, the message of the music was easily understood.

This performance really spoke to me—it spoke to me spiritually.  In fact, in many ways I’d classify this experience as what we might call a “spiritual experience.”  I felt lifted, comforted, and lightened.  I felt I really understood, if only for a brief moment, the “glory of God.”

I’ve been thinking about this, and the idea that this thing that we call “spirit” is in all things.  Everything is as much spiritual as it is physical.  So often, I discount the possibility of finding spiritual enlightenment in outside-of-my-religious-practice activities.  I tend to compartmentalize my life into sacred vs. secular activities.  I don’t look for spiritual light in those activities that I think of as secular.

I am realizing, however, that if I am willing to listen, if I am willing to look with my spiritual eyes, there are a great many “spiritual experiences” waiting to teach me.  Cleaning the house can be a spiritual experience.  Preparing lessons for my classes can be a spiritual experience.  Playing with my children can be a spiritual experience.

Last night’s concert taught me (or at least reminded me) that the Lord is in everything.  The Spirit of God is everywhere.  He wants us to know Him.  If we are willing to look, willing to listen, we can find His hand in everything; we can see evidence of Him and His love all around us if we will allow ourselves to consider them.

Daily

I have never been good at really, truly diligent daily prayer, scripture study, or contemplation.  I’ve never been really good at daily anything, really.  Perhaps I get distracted, perhaps I am not committed enough to follow through; still, it remains that I always struggle to be a daily-doer, if you will.  I wish I was better at it.

Why is it that we are told so often to study the scriptures daily?  Why must we “pray always?”  Doesn’t doing something so frequently make it seem insignificant, as only part of some routine?

I’ve been thinking about the importance of doing repetitive things.  What is the difference between reading a chapter a day for one month and reading 30 chapters in one day?  The thirty-chapters-in-one-day exercise certainly feels more significant and more affecting than the monotonous-ness of one-chapter-a-day.  As I’ve been thinking about this, as I said, and I’m coming to the realization that there is something significant about monotony, something beautiful about doing repetition, even when it seems pointless.

It is hard to explain how this happens, but I have realized that it is often in the more monotonous and pedantic parts of our lives that we find the most connection with God.  Most Eastern religions stress meditation as a central activity toward spirituality and communion with God.  I am finding that doing those seemingly meaningless, mundane, and/or laborious daily things is kind of like meditation.  Sometimes it is simply an activity done out of obedience and faith, but sometimes it is truly transcendent!  It can’t be transcendent, though, if we ignore it, if we write it off as meaningless or mundane.

I don’t know why, but I don’t think that that transcendence comes from reading 30 chapters in one day.  For some reason it is really easy for me to realize this, to believe it intellectually, but quite another to really, actually do it.  Perhaps you can help me find ways to be better…