Taize – Vreemde plek – Vreemde mense – Genadige God

Hoe beskryf ek ‘n plek soos Taize aan iemand wat nog nooit daar was nie? Dit is telkens my frustrasie wanneer ek iets van my belewenis met mense wil deel van dit wat ek by Taize beleef en ervaar het. Om te reflekteer oor die intens spirituele belewenis is op sigself reeds moeilik. Vertel ek van honderde jongmense wat op ʼn Vrydagaand 21:30 steeds in die kerk sit om in stilte by ʼn kruis te bid? Nee, die gebedsdiens is reeds verby. Hulle kon al geloop het en iets by die kafeteria gaan kry het om te drink. Hulle bly egter, opgevang in die stille teenwoordigheid van God. Paasnaweek het die laastes die oggend 04:00 die kerk verlaat.

Toe ek die laaste keer selfs  ʼn DVD aan ʼn klomp predikante gewys het en gevra het wat ons by Taize kon leer, het een opgemerk dat dit net  ʼn week-lange vakansie vir ʼn klomp jongmense is. Regtig? Duisende jongmense tussen 16 en 30, tot sesduisend oor die Paasnaweek, kom vir ʼn week na Taize om drie keer per dag in ʼn gebedsdiens te sit, een keer per dag  ʼn uur Bybelstudie by te woon en dan ook nog ʼn kleingroepbyeenkoms in die middae, en dit vir vakansie? Dan is die maaltye nog boonop eenvoudig en hulle moet werk, wat insluit skottelgoed was en badkamers skoonmaak. Dit klink nie na vakansie nie. En kan ek byvoeg, die bybelstudie is ʼn goeie stuk Bybeluitleg wat later in die kleingroepgesprek gedekodeer moet word vir die daaglikse toepassing daarvan.

Taize se gemeenskap bestaan uit 70 broers wat in eenvoud en gemeenskap saam lewe. Hulle primêre roeping is om jongmense op  ʼn ontvanklike wyse aan Christus bloot te stel. Hulle doen dit deur voorsiening te maak vir die twee grootste behoeftes wat ons jongmense vandag het, maar nooit sal erken nie. Die een is aanvaarding en die ander is stilte. By Taize is jy welkom, op die voorwaarde dat jy nie ouer as 30 is nie en indien jy jonger as 18 is, moet daar ʼn groepleier saam kom. Ouer mense word op beperkte skaal geakkommodeer, maar Taize is primêr vir jongmense. Hier kan jy jou vrae kom vrae en jou twyfel kom uitspreek. Jy gaan egter nie vermaak word nie. Die drie gebedsdienste is trouens in klassieke aanbiddingstyl met van die liedere wat met orrel begelei word, maar meestal met ʼn kleinerige sleutelbord en selfs geen begeleiding nie, behalwe die stemme van voorsangers wat ook nie sigbaar is nie. Almal sit op die grond met die fokus op God.

Die skoonheid en eenvoud van hierdie aanbidding, die stilte en die totale fokus op die aanbidding van God, werk egter op so ʼn kragtige wyse dat trane dikwels deel van die aanbidding is. In stilte werk die Heilige Gees en ontmoet ʼn genadige God mense in die oomblik. Jongmense sal onbevange na die dienste met die broers gesprek voer. Hulle is saans na die laaste diens 21:30 steeds in die kerk tot beskikking van die jongmense.

Wat leer ek by Taize?

God is ongelooflik goed. Kan ons nie meer in ons eredienste doen wat Hy in sy woord ons leer nie – Sy huis is ʼn plek van aanbidding, nie vermaak en goeie preke nie, aanbidding.

Jongmense se diepste begeerte in die geloofsgemeenskap is nie vermaak en opwinding nie, dis opregtheid en ʼn ontmoeting met God.

Stilte is vir baie erg bedreigend en ons eerste reaksie is om daarvan weg te kom of dit opnuut met iets te vul. Dit kos baie opoffering om stilte in te rig, maar daar is geen kragtiger leermeester as juis stilte nie. Daar word jy met jouself gekonfronteer en met God omvou.

Aanvaarding: Om mense onvoorwaardelik te aanvaar bly steeds my grootste uitdaging, ek dink dit is die kerk, in die algemeen, se grootste uitdaging. By Taize hoef jy nie eers te verander en dan is jy welkom nie. Jy is welkom, God sal jou op Sy tyd omvorm.

(Jong)Mense kan vir hulleself dink. Gee vir hulle die Woord onverdund en lei hulle om dit self in hulle lewe toe te pas.

Ons hoef nie mense te leer om te bid nie. Gee hulle net die ruimte. Aanbidding van God is in ons wese ingeskape.

Minder is meer.

http://www.taize.fr/en

Easter Sunday – Christos Anesti – Alithos Anesti!

The angel said to the women he was not there, where they were looking for him, because he was risen. After death we know him no longer after the manner of the flesh – which includes the manner of the imagination. Like meditation, he is not what we think. Like the kingdom , not here, not there

Then the angel told them that he was going before them to Galilee where they would see him. “Now I have told you”, he concludes matter-of-factly. There is no explanation, simply the proclamation. Job done. How could this be made readily understood or explained satisfactorily? The job is to communicate it and hope. If it’s not true, after having seen the possibility and heard the proclamation, everything is drained of colour and energy.

The stakes of the human condition have suddenly increased dramatically.

Strangely, we can’t say exactly what it is the early Christians were communicating and that has formed a continuous chain of transmission since. It was an experience that could not be held in thought or imagination or in the senses, of his being present, in a way that touched and changed them indubitably, not as a memory or an archetype but as a personal presence.

How do we explain any of the most important occurrences in our life?

The women turn back, to do all they could do in the circumstances – speak about it to others. Then there he is. Coming towards them to meet them. Didn’t the angel say he would see them in Galilee? They aren’t in Galilee. Why he is here when they were supposed to see him there? Is he there too?

In seeing him they begin to see that they were in his mind despite (or because) of all he had been through. Death, the great oblivion, had not made him forget them. They must be worth more than they thought. He must be more than they imagined.

Do not be afraid, he tells them. It is fear that shrivels the mind and makes us incapable of the expansion needed to see him and to realise that we can live now in a quite different and fearless way. (Even the angel had told them not to be afraid). Perhaps we are more afraid than we acknowledge even to ourselves.

He too gives no explanation just the experience in itself, of hmself. It leads to an action, a new priority in life, that defines the life of his friends and disciples henceforth – to share this life-changing news with others.

Alleuia, he is risen indeed. Job done. A new creation. Where do we go from here? By Fr Laurence Freeman

Holy Saturday

An early Christian writer whose name is lost to us wrote these words in a homily to describe the meaning of this silent day of transition:

Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

After the drama of trauma there is the long aftermath of ordinariness. It is like a powerful wave of the sea that hit the land with great force and is now being sucked back into the ocean. You even wonder if the great crash ever happened at all, so quiet and empty and mundane everything seems.

As we accept the uneventfulness and the untimed waiting, however, something emerges. It transpires through the immeasurable emptiness that is all that is left. A sense grows of union with what we will not ever again see in the same way. A mutual inwelling and presence to one another in a greater presence that contains everything.  Even in the residual grief of the loss a new kind of peace also shows in an awareness that this new union is as definitive and permanent as the very loss that lies behind it.

So even when nothing is happening – as we learn in the emptiness of meditation where we experience death and resurrection daily – new life has begun to emerge. In the mind of Christ we see that there are two creations, both beautiful and terrible. The first is marked by mortality, the horizon beyond which we can see nothing. The new creation is known by those who awaken to their being one person with the one person who comes back to us over that horizon. By Fr Laurence Freeman

Holy Week

The curtain lifts again and we begin to recount ritually and relive interiorly the great events that took place over a few days a long time ago. The world did not stop when they happened. Only symbolically did the sun darken and the veil of temple split.  Peoples’ commercial and emotional lives carried on as usual through the short tragic drama of the humiliation and extinction of a powerless pawn in the politics of the world. A short show-trial, public torture to keep the crowds satisfied, another execution of a religious (or political) activist who flared briefly in popular imagination and then lost their favour and sunk between the bigger waves of public affairs and personal concerns.

His close friends ran away, disappointed and maybe angry with him, to save themselves. He was left to die with only his mother, one disciple He loved and a few loyal women at the foot of His cross.

And here we are in 2012 telling the story again from the slightly disjointed but unforgettable accounts written down several decades afterwards. We do not have His own words except in translation. He put nothing in writing himself. We don’t know what He liked for breakfast or exactly who He thought He was. He is more present than any other historical or fictional figure and yet when you look at Him closely he becomes transparent and disappears. If we meet Him we are changed but we cannot get a grip on Him.

These inconsistencies and paradoxes that so irritate the rational mind, when it operates in isolation, are the medium of a great transmission.

Children who like a story and those who recognise the value of a great work art are happy to repeat it indefinitely. In this story the repetition itself is an act of faith that strengthens faith and so clarifies vision.

It is more powerful if we act theatrically in the telling rather than sitting like a passive audience. In this story there are no mere observers.

We have a limited number of chances in one life to replay the drama and penetrate its meaning. Not knowing how many is a part of the process that connects us with the One who suffered and died but did not stay dead.

Fr Laurence Freeman