In her American best
seller
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, the poet Kathleen Norris compared
growing in religious faith to writing a poem. “It takes time, patience,
discipline, a listening heart. There is precious little certainty, and often
great struggling, but also joy in our discoveries.”
The discovery that
brought me the greatest joy was the Bible. It was like finding some
long-lost family treasure that had lain untouched in the attic for
generations.
There was always a
Bible in our home when I was growing up—on the shelves somewhere amongst the
Lenin and the Marx and the Rosa Luxemburg—even though we were an atheist
family. But I doubt that it got opened. My own Bible now is opened
frequently, as I avidly pursue stories of great divine acts that formed and
transformed our world. For me there is an intense spiritual element to
reading the Bible.
I have experienced
more joys: of worship and prayer. And with a listening heart I have
experienced the presence in me of God’s holy spirit, usually when I did not
expect it.
I recall my baptism,
one wintry Sunday morning in 1994, some months after my commitment to become
a Christian. I was to read a testimony to our church congregation,
explaining my religious journey. Then I was to be fully immersed underwater
in the church baptistery, in recognition of my “rebirth”. I had seldom been
more nervous.
Don’t worry, everyone
told me. The holy spirit will take over. You’ll feel like you’re flying.
It didn’t happen, of
course. I read my testimony in a strained voice. I stepped into the water,
dressed in white, my pastor next to me. He recited a verse from the Bible, a
verse that he “presented” to me, to serve me for the rest of my life in my
Christian journey.
Next, in a judo-like
move we had rehearsed in his office, he supported me as I plunged backwards
into the water, then back up again. I stepped from the tub, my wife handed
me some towels and I went to the men’s toilets to dry myself and get
changed. I put my listening heart into overdrive, trying to discern some new
feelings, new sensations, a change in me, anything that indicated that the
holy spirit had arrived, that I was a different person. I just felt wet and
shivery.
When the service ended
members of the congregation came up and shook my hand and slapped me on the
back. I felt like a child having a birthday party at which all the guests
are adults. I smiled weakly and tried to be polite.
We had lunch with
friends—still no feelings—and then went home. I had promised my children I
would buy them an ice-cream each, and we started walking together to the
local milk bar.
And suddenly I
realised I was flying.
What an extraordinary
sensation. I seemed to be floating along the roadway. Floating past all the
houses and trees—no; floating through the trees—no; I was the
trees—and wanting to laugh and scream. I was bursting with love. I couldn’t
contain it. I loved the world. I wanted to hug and kiss my children. Every
passer-by. Every dog and cat. I wanted to embrace the sour old Chinese
refugee who ran the milk bar and shouted at customers. I wanted to buy my
children everything in the store.
The feeling lasted
about five minutes, and now, like so many Christians, I have a listening
heart that is also a pining heart, yearning for the spirit to lift me and
caress me like that again.
I find myself drawn to
those worship services that seek to impart a feeling of God’s presence.
Until it disbanded, I often attended a weekly
Taize worship service at a Carmelite monastery near my home. For 30
minutes worshippers sat in prayerful silence around a candle-lit cross. Then
for an hour we sang melodic, contemplative hymns from the famous monastery
in the French village of Taize, repeating the simple lyrics again and again,
often experiencing a deep feeling of God’s presence in our hearts.
As I was writing this
book I attended a two-week seminar on the role of the church in a
post-modern age. Our lecturers were two New Zealanders,
Mike Riddell and
Mark Pierson.
Mike, who has billed
himself as an “unemployed theologian”, is a talented and provocative
novelist and non-fiction writer. Formerly a Baptist pastor, he once led a
housing protest to the Auckland City Council and interrupted the meeting by
stripping to his underpants. He then told the councillors that this was what
they were doing to the poor of the city: stripping them of their dignity and
leaving them naked.
Mark is pastor of an
inner-city Auckland church, and is constantly devising innovative,
ritualistic styles of worship that attract artists, musicians and many young
people.
During the seminar
they taught us a little about the depth of spirituality that is part of the
Christian heritage, such as Celtic worship, with its emphasis on creation
and the environment, its mystic traditions and its stress on the feminine.
They also showed how art, music and poetry can be integrated into worship,
playing tracks that ranged from Pink Floyd to Sinead O’Connor to the
Dances with Wolves soundtrack.
Music has, of course,
traditionally been one of the means for worshippers to gain a sense of the
divine, and it is little wonder that, in a world that is searching for God,
sacred music is seeing such a revival. After the Three Tenors and The
Four Seasons, some of the best-selling classical CDs of today are
recordings of Christian music.
I used to listen
mainly to ‘60s and ‘70s pop, and I also had a passion for world music. Now,
I find myself drawn to Gregorian chant and to the divine vocal music of
groups like the best-selling American female quartet
Anonymous 4. (One magazine
described them as “the fab four of medieval music”, and another as “the
sound of heaven”.)
I listen to the
compositions of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German Christian
ecstatic mystic whose music and poetry is sometimes quite startling in its
passionate sensuality. One recording of her music, A Feather on the
Breath of God, has sold over a quarter of a million copies.
It is surely no
coincidence that three of the most talented and respected classical-music
composers in the world today are deeply spiritual Christians:
John Tavener (British, but a member of the Eastern Orthodox church), the
Estonian Arvo Part
(also Eastern Orthodox) and the Polish Catholic
Henryk Gorecki.
Their sparse, haunting style has become known as “holy
minimalism”.
Tavener has no doubts
about the nature of his calling: art is inseparable from religion, he
declares; music is a form of prayer. His Song for Athene was played
at the funeral of Princess Diana. Meanwhile, Part says he spends far more
time in monasteries than in concert halls.
Gorecki’s Third
Symphony, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, is based on a 15th-century
Polish prayer known as the Holy Cross Lament, and on a prayer to the Virgin
Mary, inscribed on a death-camp wall by an 18-year-old Polish girl
imprisoned by the Nazis in World War II. A 1992 recording of the symphony
has sold more than one million copies
It is music that is
simple and uncluttered and unmistakably modern; there is little that is
ornate or decorative. In the third movement the same quiet melody is
repeated again and again, like waves gently lapping around your body. And as
you listen you are at first just hearing the waves, but then you feel them
and then you are in them, floating softly up and down with the rhythm. It is
music that inspires hope and faith; music you might have thought was no
longer being composed in a cynical age like ours.
So, the spiritual and
mystical traditions of Christianity have become an important part of my
life. Yet I also see dangers in veering too far towards this side of
religion—in putting all the emphasis on the experiential.
That is what worries
me about idealistic young Australians who seek out an adviser for
instruction in Eastern and New Age spiritualities. Too often, these people
operate in “pick ‘n’ mix” fashion, moving from one fashionable, articulate
guru to the next, absorbing a bit of Oriental philosophy and timeless wisdom
and achieving some transcendental-like experiences. They feel they are on a
voyage, journeying closer to the divine. Often it is little more than a
pilgrimage deeper into their own egos.
In Japan, the country
of the East that I know best, a person engaged in a spiritual journey will
normally become attached to a teacher, and that teacher will be attached to
a hierarchy of other teachers, some of whom will have many decades of
experience. These teachers will be revered and respected, and they will put
enormous stress on hard work and discipline, some of it intensely
unpleasant. Dedicated study of traditional scripture will be required, and
the teachers will also be likely to emphasise continuing humility, duty and
service. There will probably be a strong ethical overlay.
Unfortunately, too
often the Australian Oriental experience is designed to give people a quick
fix, to make them feel better about themselves. And though there is, of
course, nothing intrinsically wrong with feeling better about yourself,
especially if you have problems, the point is that it is a short-term fix
only. When big difficulties crop up in your life, you may find that you have
nothing solid supporting you. For me, it is the support of God that has
proven to be one of the major differences between my past Buddhist
experiences and my present life as a Christian.
I find that I am
continually drawn back to the Bible, and to the figure of Jesus. Perhaps
because of my political upbringing I see him not only as God incarnate on
earth, but also as a political figure.
For Jesus fought
against the political and religious culture of his day. In his Sermon on the
Mount he preached a powerful revolutionary message. He demanded that his
followers not resist evil people; that they give their property to anyone
who asks; that if someone slaps them on one cheek, they should offer the
other cheek to that person, that if someone takes away their shirts, they
should give their coats as well. “You are to be perfect, even as your Father
in Heaven is perfect,” he told them. He continually took the side of the
underprivileged.
The Sermon on the
Mount has proven an inspiration to many great people. The Indian freedom
fighter Mahatma Gandhi was drawn to its message of non-violence. The Russian
writer Leo Tolstoy was so influenced by it that he called for the abolition
of the Russian army and police, and he tried to give away all his property
to his servants, to the great distress of his wife and children. In our
society, where so many are seeking values, and where so many feel such a
spiritual desolation in their lives, I suspect that the answer is a
genuinely listening heart, open to the message of Jesus.
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