Blog #4: Reflections from Taizé, Part Two

Greetings from Lyon! This morning I wrapped up what was a very fulfilling visit at Taizé. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to come back here and to stay a second week which allowed me to go deeper in relationship with the community and with the questions I’ve been asking. I’d also like to reiterate my gratitude for everyone who has supported this project, and especially the Jakab Family and Marks Center at Juilliard for enabling the travel to Taizé.

After continuing my inquiry into Taizé’s practice for a second week via reading, conversations with members of the community, and reflection on my personal experience, I’ve arrived at a working thesis on Taize’s music. The thesis summarizes my most significant findings related to the practice, with the caveat of “working” added to leave the door open to the possibility of further reflection and/or more fully-fledged academic research in the future. Below I’ve shared this thesis, followed by reflections on a few related themes.

Working Thesis on Taizé’s music:

Through embodied knowledge and expression of distinct facets of the human condition, Taizé’s practice of meditative singing fosters solidarity and belonging via a recognition of the breadth of our common experience and a collective turn toward the mysteries of life.

I. Embodying Truth

The first theme I would like to explore further is embodied knowledge. I believe that inherent in Taizé prayer is a process by which one internalizes the messages carried in the text of the songs in a way which is fundamentally different and deeper than intellectual knowing. Brother Roger, the founder of the Taizé community, wrote that each of the short songs “express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind … as the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually permeates the whole being."[1] In other words, the musical practice embeds in us the songs’ simple truths in such a way that goes beyond the memory of our intellect and becomes a more tangible presence within our being throughout everyday life.

This aspect of embodiment is of great importance in the context of seeking, as is often said at Taizé, a living God, whose truth is discerned through a collaboration between scripture and lived experience. Brother François, a recently passed member of the community, wrote that “the witness of the Bible has to be confirmed by our own … otherwise it has no effect.”[2] François referred to the result of this collaboration as “the living Word,” and in the following paragraph from his writing entitled “It Is the Word That Is the Bread of Silence,” the brother lays out well how the Word offered in scripture can become a living truth through the process of embodiment.

“The Word offers itself as a food. It has to be “eaten” slowly if we are to draw from it all the nourishing substance it contains. We ruminate it (“chew it”) at length, for that is the way in which it becomes digestible, capable of penetrating us. It is given, in fact, to become one body with us, to enter our bloodstream and shed there the energy and heat proper to it. The comparison with food shows clearly that the assimilation of the Word is not something that is merely done intellectually. It involves the whole of our being, body and soul.” - Brother François [3]

Brother François’ perspective here resonates with those of other brothers I’ve had a chance to speak with on the topic this week. In Taizé’s prayer, the practice of music becomes a vessel by which the community aims to achieve such embodiment of the Word. Through the meditative singing of simple, life-giving truths rooted in scripture, the practice creates a dialogue between Word and our lived experience which allows the two to be woven together in the fabric of our being. This function speaks to the power of solidarity that can arise from Taizé’s music in that it results in the recognition of our shared human condition not only at the intellectual level, but in an embodied way of knowing which is felt in our innermost depths.

II. Inner Life & Solidarity

In a conversation with Brother Emile, he suggested to me that a crucial aspect of Taizé’s singing is a “collective turn towards God.” Considering that this refers to a living God who is sought both through the Word and in reflection of one’s experiences, the turn Brother Emile refers to would therefore be both inward toward the particularity of one’s inner life, as well as outward toward truths and especially questions we hold in common. The Bible indeed leaves many questions unanswered, and though the Church has often filled in the blank, the community of Taizé, as Brother François writes, “leaves [these questions] in God, respecting God’s mystery.”[4] François advocated for the importance contemplative practice through which one listens for an inner voice which “bears witness to the mystery which is at the origin of all and which sustains all.”[5] I think this point on mystery is key to the accessibility of Taizé’s practice. While folks visiting Taizé come from a wide swath of religious and non-religious viewpoints, we hold in common many fundamental questions around the predicament of the human condition. None of us have solved the equation of life. In Taizé prayer we ask those questions together in song and solidarity, and thus turn both inward and outward in reflection and respect of common mystery.

It is important to note here that the music of Taizé’s prayer does not exist in a vacuum but is embedded within an intentionally contemplative form of liturgy. In Taizé prayer, a period of silence his held in the middle of the service which otherwise consists fully of music, except for brief spoken prayers and readings of scripture in multiple languages. Brother François wrote that “Word and silence are two realities which condition one another.”[6] Brother Emile also spoke of a “mutuality” between the song and silence at Taizé. The songs incline our ear so that we listen more attentively in the silence, allowing the silence to fill us in a unique way. After hearing Word through song, the silence invites one to listen inside, and see what arises. Brother Emile describes the singing as being similar to building a jewelry box, preparing a place for the jewel which arises only in silence. In a similar reflection, Brother François wrote that “when the Word is taken as a whole in this way, it becomes light.”[7] Thus in addition to its interpersonal effects, Taizé’s pairing of song and silence is a unique spiritual process of discerning truth on an individual level. Brother François related this process to the Second Epistle of Peter in the Bible which speaks of the truth found in one’s inner life as “like a lamp shining in a dark place; until day begins to break and the day-star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).[8] Taizé’s music in the context of its liturgy is therefore a vehicle both for deepening one’s inner life as well as that of the community through the combination of contemplation and solidarity.

III. Ecumenism

The last theme I would like to reflect further on is the value of ecumenism which undergirds much of Taizé’s form and practice. Taizé has a long history as a community that not only welcomes but gives a voice to young people from all walks of life. A major impetus for this was the Second Vatican Council, which greatly disappointed Brother Roger due to a lack of action on ecumenism at a time when young people increasingly felt they did not have a place or a voice in the church. Ever since, the community of Taizé has engaged in a vocation of unconditionally welcoming and engaging with young people. One striking story which embodies this value and what Brother Roger eventually coined “the dynamic of the provisional” is that of Easter of 1972. Only two weeks before Easter, the community found out that thousands more young people than expected had registered to visit. Rather than turn anyone away, without hesitation they broke down the and rented a huge circus tent to make room for the additional visitors.[9] While I haven’t experienced anything quite so extreme, the sense of radical hospitality and trust that one way or another everyone will be welcomed is palpable across the community.

As part of the welcome at Taizé, everyone is given a voice. This is true in many respects, from being entrusted practical tasks essential to the functioning of the community to conversations in small groups, collaborative organization, invitations to speak with the monastics and freely voice whatever questions or concerns are on your mind, and particularly in the music. In prayer at Taizé, all voices are welcome. The music is sung in dozens of different languages, and the simple tunes repeated several times means that anyone can feel relatively comfortable joining in, whether or not you can read music. Though the songs are simple, they are richly substantive and classical in the sense that every non-essential note seems to have been stripped out in the compositional process. The result is that every note matters, and each line within the typically four-part harmony ends up conveying a sense of profundity, so no matter your range you are given something meaningful to say.

From composition to practical organization and execution, the community puts in great effort to foster this common musical practice which yields a sense of unity while maintaining respect for our differences and diversity. The practice does not invent false similarity through diluting our differences or reliance on half-truths, but rather utilizes the real common ground of our shared human condition to develop a deep sense of solidarity and trust.

Reflecting on this time Taizé and the gift has been to be here, music speaks a truth that I cannot. Here is a prayer from the community:

~~~

Though I am saddened to leave Taizé, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this experience and all the wonderful folks I had the privilege to meet. I’m also very excited to be presently on my way to Taiwan for the Taipei Music Academy and Festival! I’m psyched to play with a phenomenal orchestra for these next couple weeks, before a bit of down time and getting back to New York City for the new academic year. In terms of the blog, there’s lots more research to do and I have many questions and ideas remaining. I’m not sure yet what time I will have for additional research before getting back to New York. Though as I mentioned at the outset, I am looking at this project as the beginning of a much longer conversation and I certainly plan to keep exploring these important questions. Thanks again for following along and feel free to be in touch!

Peace,

Ben