Entering Into the Mystery This Autumn
Some calm and quietitude recently blew into my life, coming from the unlikeliest of places.
My prayers rise like incense. My hands like the evening sacrifice.
Psalm 141:2
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September is the strangest month.
It begins with a long, crass weekend of road trips and camping and laughter and beer. It ends with gusts of wind, leaves blowing across the street, and crisp air that bites our cheeks.
We fold up the pool furniture and store it in the shed. We pull stockings and sweaters from the back of our closets and think about turning on the heat.
An inclination to gaze inward sets in; a desire to simply be, to remain in warm places with blankets and comforts and tea.
Autumn is a time for boots, down vests over sweaters and long meditative walks into wooded spaces. The season calls. It says, “Come into this cozy space. Be enchanted. Be in awe. Be with me.”
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Whenever I’m out biking, I always stop to pick through the free piles left on the roadside in front of homes; skeins of colorful yarn, Christmas tree stands, wine glasses, rusted cookie sheets. The discarded items make me wonder about the people living inside.
Just yesterday I found an insulated coffee mug with this written on the side: “Coffee spelled backwards is eeffoc. I don't give eeffoc until I've had my coffee.” It looks brand new! A keeper for sure.
Although it takes slogging through a lot more muck, from time to time I discover secret treasures on the internet as well.
So long as you promise not to tell anyone else, I’ll let you in on one I recently uncovered on YouTube.
Promise?
Ok, here it is!:
Ok, I know the internet is full of this sort of thing—but this video is a cut above.
The entire video is this one frame, looking over an altar boy to an altar where a priest elevates the Consecrated Host. The boy holds a candle; mists of incense rise behind the priest. It's played before two hours of Gregorian chant.
The photo captures so much. It's a tacit tribute to those qualities that draw so many to Catholicism: incense, flickering candles, mystery, liturgy, mysticism, Gregorian chant, monks in tunics and scapulars, ancient stone monasteries in grassy countrysides. I wonder if the creator of the video also took the photo?
It encourages this reflective inclination brought on by the change in season. While playing in the background throughout the day, your recollections drift to this place of secret wonder.
It provides diversion from the thornier aspects of the Church and recalls its essence: our participation in a mystery we don't fully understand, our awe at a God who comes to dwell in us. It rouses reflections on eternity and on the Church and her wealth of prayers and spiritualities.
I don't even understand all the Latin in this chant. But I want to remain ignorant, in a way. It increases the element of mystery. All of the candles and the calm music reminds me a little bit of Taizé.
I used to have friends who loved Taizé services. Why did they, I wonder? (I did too, just not so much as them.)
What does the video make you recall? What are you wondering as you wander about this autumn?
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