Within our darkest night

Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire that never dies away.
(Taizé song)

Tuesday of Holy Week:
In my years of church music I had played only one Taizé service. This evening was my second.

We use Taizé music during communion at our 9:00 service. I have attended Taizé services, memorably one at the Hymn Society Conference in Maryville, Tennessee decades ago, where Bob Batastini was introducing the songs and prayers of Taizé to American church musicians and clergy. Each night that week for the end of day, we crowded into the little chapel, many of us standing in the aisles and back, singing these songs, all of them new to me. It was there, from Batastini, that I learned how important the dynamics are to this music – it is not all slow and soft, as some musicians seem to think. Within most of the songs individually, there is an ebb and flow of dynamic – within the little eight or sixteen bar structure, and on the larger scale as the song repeats and the sound grows and softens and (perhaps) grows again and finally ends.

More recently, I was at a memorable Taizé service at the 2013 Hymn Society Conference (Richmond, Virginia). I wrote of it here.

Should the coming decades bring what I expect, the quiet witness of these Brothers [of Taizé], just Brother Roger at first and then for many years fewer than ten of them, stands as a model for those facing times of famine, death, tumult and war. No matter what the circumstances, it is always possible to live the Christian life in community, and to serve as Christ's hands in the healing of the nations.

More specifically, we church musicians must keep the Taizé songs and their manner of worship in mind. There is more strength to these songs, these prayers, than one might think.

This night, this Tuesday of Holy Week 2016, will stand in my memory alongside those other Taizé nights.

Partly, it was the company assembled: twelve of us, all of them people I know and love. Partly, it was the context: the Islamic State attack in Brussels was on the minds of many, the depressing spectacle of the U.S. electoral season with its attendant fears for the future of our country on others – my Intention as I lit a small candle during the silence was for my little godchild and student, who was among those present, that Christ might be with her whatever comes her way. And we gathered during Holy Week, when it is most clearly seen that Christ walks before us into every suffering, every darkness.

And partly, we made Real Music. The songs went as well as could be with a small group, for many of the twelve were good singers – not just vocally, but in terms of singing “with the spirit and with the understanding also.” The space was as it should be for a Taizé service, being made so by my friend and fellow-laborer John, with candles and a cross, elegance and beauty. There were readings and prayers and silences, all guided by my friend Raisin, whose understanding of this sort of liturgy is profound.

If I had one wish, it would have been that the songs and silences and prayers would have been longer. We sang and prayed for an hour; it seemed but a few minutes, and it was difficult to leave any of the songs. The best I could tell, every one of them achieved the goal that is behind Taizé singing – song as an icon, a window into the Eternal.

One of the twelve persons, who arrived late, said afterwards “We should do a lot more of this. Maybe every week.” No. This night, this confluence of time and space and persons, was enough, at least for now.


In closing, I note that two of the sixty musical bits that now lie before me are Taizé songs:

Stay with me, remain here with me.
Watch and pray.

This will be sung in procession Thursday night, just before Psalm 22 and the Stripping of the Altar.

And the other: Laudate Dominum. In its place – communion during the Great Vigil of Easter, and again at the 9:00 service on Easter Day – it says what must be said, and what in this parish could be said by no other song.

Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes.
Alleluia.