Holy Breath
FROM THE RECTOR
One summer during seminary, I was invited to Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I felt honored and flattered to receive the invitation to the garden party that he was hosting for Anglican Communion visitors who were living in England. I had been nominated for that invitation by the principal of our seminary, and, although I was living in the north of England at the time of the party, I was happy to go to considerable trouble and expense to attend.
When I arrived, I discovered that I was one of several hundred guests at the party, few of whom were interested in making small talk and all of whom were interested in clamoring for a few minutes with our host. Not known for his ability to carry on polite conversation with strangers, the Archbishop wandered awkwardly from one eager group of guests to another, nodding and saying how grateful he was that we had come before moving on quickly to another group. On the whole, the best part of the trip was the day I spent in London with a friend, but there was one moment from the garden party that gave me a bit of perverse pleasure.
At the end of our gathering, we moved into the chapel for Evening Prayer. Our host officiated at the service, but, before we began, he informed us that he would like for the congregation to read the appointed psalm in unison but with a monastic pause in the middle of each verse. In religious communities, where the psalms are read that way in multiple services every day, the participants know how to time their pause and more or less begin the second half of each verse as if led by an invisible conductor. In our eclectic gathering of church leaders, most of whom fancied themselves professional leaders of congregational worship, we did not possess that unity of spirit.
As the psalm began, the pause in the middle of the first verse was trampled over by most of the people in the room. Instinctively, we launched into the second half as if we had not heard a word the Archbishop had said. Undeterred, our leader waited a full four or five seconds and then led us again through the second half of the verse. By the fourth verse, many of us had learnt our lesson, but a considerable number carried on as if they did not even notice that the rest of us were repeating words they had already spoken. At one point, more than halfway through the psalm, the normally stoic Archbishop looked up from his prayer book and over his glasses with an ironic grin at the liturgical catastrophe that continued to unfold among us. I giggled mischievously.
Thankfully, the psalm was long, and, in the most remarkable way, by the time we reached the final few verses, everyone was on board. Like a monastic community that had been haphazardly assembled but rapidly forged through its repeated failure, we became one group with one voice. Just before the opportunity escaped us, we spoke and paused in unison as if we had prayed together for decades. The Archbishop did not make a big deal about it, but it felt significant to me. He had helped us discover what it means to be the church. He showed us how a group of Anglican visitors, scattered throughout the country, were part of something bigger, something important.
Normally, when I say the Daily Office by myself, I read through the appointed psalms rather quickly. As I wrote earlier this year, despite recognizing the breadth of the human experience that is contained within them, I often find them long and repetitive. Why would anyone want to make them even longer by pausing for a breath at each half verse? Our Daily Office community, however, usually includes the monastic pause when we gather together for the service. Because of that, when I offer Evening Prayer on Wednesday nights, I usually include the pause, though, as was the case last night, I regularly forget it and plow ahead.
More than a traditional pause, that holy breath makes space for whole world to fit within our prayers. It allows us to coordinate our words and our hearts with a spiritual intention that unites us to each other as well as with the saints in heaven and on earth. It is a way of offering ourselves and our worship to the divine invisible conductor that leads us all. It reminds us that we are all part of something much bigger and more important than we can fathom.
In Eucharistic worship, during which the psalm is a response to another reading rather than a liturgical component that stands alone, we do not bother with the monastic pause. When we say Morning or Evening Prayer, however, we have an opportunity to make space for the Spirit’s breath to fill our own breath during that pause. Try praying the psalms that way. Even if you are by yourself, leave several beats of silence in the middle of each verse and feel a connection with the larger community of prayer. Even if it feels like an empty few seconds, trust that they are filled in ways you cannot see or know. Practice that way of reading the psalms and see if you can tell the difference. See if you can sense what joins you in that holy breath.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan