Lesson 13: The Yoga of Choir

My friends and I are coming out of centering prayer. We've been sitting in silence for 25 minutes together, and now we're using the little refrain from Psalm 137, "In you alone, Jerusalem, my joy," to bring us back to this time and place.

We start with a simple monotone chant, still very inward and quiet.

In you alone, Jerusalem, my joy.

Gradually, at our own speed, each of us becomes aware of the others around us, becomes aware that we're singing together.

Then, once our monotone chanting has established itself, we add the middle line of the chant and then the top line. Suddenly out of the monotone emerge harmony and color. It's like a passage between worlds, from the deep silence we've just experienced to the colors, the notes, the harmonies, and the people around us--just like the first day of creation. If psalmody can add intensity and grounding to a personal discipline of contemplative prayer, it can do it even more intensely in groups.

As centering prayer and Christian meditation continue to gain popularity, one of the new forms that seems to be sprouting up is the contemplative prayer "support" group. People come together, usually on a weekly basis, to meditate. They often stay around afterwards to read and reflect together, or to share their personal journeys. To frame this weekly gathering within the context of psalmody can have a very profound effect on the depth and vitality of the silence that follows. It turns meditation into contemplative worship.

In a group, we also have the wonderful (though sometimes difficult) opportunity to practice "the yoga of the choir." One of the core elements in the Christian spiritual path is its emphasis on community. There is a quiet but unshakeable insistence that the inner spiritual experience becomes infinitely more profound, more powerful, and more beautiful when it's shared "as one body."

Practically speaking, this always takes some negotiation, some bridging of the distance between pure interiority and outer sensitivity. I remember once, when I was a young music student, hearing an interviewer ask the famous pianist, Clifford Curzon, "Mr. Curzon, are you one of those pianists who plays in tempo or one of those pianists who plays expressively?" He answered, "I try to play to expressively in tempo."

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