Last
weekend I travelled into deepest Worcestershire and attended a weekend Advent
Retreat.
I can’t think of a better way to start this season of waiting and wondering than sharing in forty-eight hours of purposeful silence sustained by thoughtful spoken reflections and beautifully crafted liturgy – oh and the food was good too!
On the Saturday evening as it grew dusk we gathered in the chapel to be led through one of those reflections. It was all going so well until the CD player failed and a crucial piece of music couldn’t be played. It was the hymn ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’, often sung at this time of year but the version she had chosen was a wonderfully evocative one played on the Saxophone by Christian Fawshore.
My heart went out to the person leading. The moment felt a little ‘broken’. Yet she tried to pick it all up and move on as seamlessly as she could.
We all then began to notice a few folk stumbling around in the darkness at one end of the chapel searching for a hymn book. Once found a retreatant asked our leader that, as the CD had failed, could she sing the hymn to the group instead.
It was a spine- tingling moment as her beautiful unaccompanied voice pierced the darkness. She sang the hymn with such sensitive phrasing and interpretation that I suspect many of us left the chapel with tears in our eyes.
Of course none of this was planned; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Yet what happened was one of the most moving moments of our time together. It was almost ‘parabolic’ in that it contained in just a few short moments the essence of what this Advent Retreat was all about. Our lone singer, with such a generous and spontaneous reaction, really did redeem a broken situation.
And isn’t that the essence of the Advent message. That God comes among us in Jesus to restore our fragile world with fresh hope, healing and vision.
Advent is a season full of hope. For God is still at work bringing light out of darkness, confidence out of fear and love out of indifference.
And last Saturday, as our fellow retreatant sang those first few lines I think we all felt that hope and gave thanks to God for it.
I can’t think of a better way to start this season of waiting and wondering than sharing in forty-eight hours of purposeful silence sustained by thoughtful spoken reflections and beautifully crafted liturgy – oh and the food was good too!
On the Saturday evening as it grew dusk we gathered in the chapel to be led through one of those reflections. It was all going so well until the CD player failed and a crucial piece of music couldn’t be played. It was the hymn ‘Let all mortal flesh keep silence’, often sung at this time of year but the version she had chosen was a wonderfully evocative one played on the Saxophone by Christian Fawshore.
My heart went out to the person leading. The moment felt a little ‘broken’. Yet she tried to pick it all up and move on as seamlessly as she could.
We all then began to notice a few folk stumbling around in the darkness at one end of the chapel searching for a hymn book. Once found a retreatant asked our leader that, as the CD had failed, could she sing the hymn to the group instead.
It was a spine- tingling moment as her beautiful unaccompanied voice pierced the darkness. She sang the hymn with such sensitive phrasing and interpretation that I suspect many of us left the chapel with tears in our eyes.
Of course none of this was planned; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Yet what happened was one of the most moving moments of our time together. It was almost ‘parabolic’ in that it contained in just a few short moments the essence of what this Advent Retreat was all about. Our lone singer, with such a generous and spontaneous reaction, really did redeem a broken situation.
And isn’t that the essence of the Advent message. That God comes among us in Jesus to restore our fragile world with fresh hope, healing and vision.
Advent is a season full of hope. For God is still at work bringing light out of darkness, confidence out of fear and love out of indifference.
And last Saturday, as our fellow retreatant sang those first few lines I think we all felt that hope and gave thanks to God for it.
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