Waking Up at Church

Four thousand miles from home, in a city where I didn’t speak the language, I’d staggered off the plane more than a week ago but I still couldn’t get myself in focus. Then we went to a concert. The first piece was Gregorian chant, a familiar passage from Wisdom. Hearing it, tears came to my eyes and extra air somehow returned to my lungs. In the music and text I rediscovered myself, my own inner voice, my capacity to act.

Liturgy – even this small dose of liturgy - can wake us up, take us from clock time to kairos-time, re-situate us as active listeners. Singing, responding, we’re put back together, restored again to our own capacity for what social scientists call agency - an idea that is studied in all the human sciences and generally means the capacity of people and groups to act independently towards their own goals.