Audio Meditations- Sacred Music

Monastic Choir St. Elisabeth, Minsk

The prayerful and meditative quality of music is hard to miss. Over the course of my life I’ve had the joy of hearing some incredible sacred music. The college where I finished my undergraduate degree had both a phenomenal choir and a real mechanical carillon that two of the music directors would play for concerts in the summer. In addition, during my time there, a community of Tibetan Buddhist nuns helped introduce my ears to their method of chant.

I’ve served in a regional cathedral church which had a glorious tracker organ and a very proficient choir, not to mention choristers and junior choristers learning the arts of sacred music as children. This existed side by side with a preschool, and summer camps where cheerful praise songs were belted out a cappella or to the strumming of a guitar.

In my previous congregation and in the street mission where I served, we experimented with audio meditations on Saturday and Thursday nights. We were constantly seeking the songs and sounds that would invite the partcipants into a state of sacred awareness, presence, and attunement with awe. To say nothing of the amazing efforts of the annual community chorus to perform portions of Handel’s Messiah during Advent. What’s more, the dulcet tones of the folk chant of the monks of Weston Priory are a mere 45 minutes from my front door.

I feel blessed to enjoy the worship support and choral offerings of the music team at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church each Sunday and Holy Day. Music definitely glues the liturgies together with mystic weavings.

Finally, I love singing together with my siblings whenever the Order gathers together, whether in regional fellowships or in Chapter. We are blessed by the presence of several accomplished musicians.

Even with all of these opportunities, I still find that there are significant gaps in my week and year between them. I believe that listening and even singing along can be a powerful experience of grounded presence and meditative awareness.

One time, during a dry spell in my daily office, my own director at the time encouraged me to listen to the daily office being sung by the monks from Spencer Abbey in Massachusetts (another monastery I once lived quite close to!). Giving myself that time to listen with deep intention and absorb the sound and feel it in my body was transformative. It did not replace my practice of the Office, but it absolutely saved it.

I frequently sit with folks who include listening to deeply moving and anchoring sacred music from across the centuries as one of their key practices. Indeed, I am listening to a seasonal playlist for the Time After Epiphany on Spotify curated by Sacred Ordinary Days as I write this letter. I would invite you to consider the sonic landscape of your spiritual life.

Reflection Questions:

Be gentle with yourself, you are worth it.

Peace and Everything Good,

The Rev. JM Longworth, OEF Spiritual Direction and Trauma Care

https://www.sdicompanions.org/sdi-profile/GreenMtFriarOEF/ To book an appointment: https://calendly.com/greenmtfriaroef