Lenten Day Twenty-nine:  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

March 18, 2024

“There may be worship without words.”  Longfellow

This blog is a companion piece to Saturday’s, https://spirit-reflections.org/2024/03/16/lenten-day-twenty-eight-thomas-merton/, about the spiritual practice of being silent, of resting in the company of God/Universe/the Divine.  This time, though, I’m reflecting on Sunday worship services, for those of us who attend any kind of religious service.  Have you ever noticed how noisy worship can be?  At my place of worship, a sign is posted on the door into the sanctuary (sanct meaning holy, so a “holy room”) that requests we enter and remain in silence as a way of preparing our hearts to hear God.  However, silence is the last thing happening there, if the chatter and activity are any indication.  Silence can be uncomfortable.

Then there are the words of the service itself:  the prayers, the readings, the responses, the preaching, the reminders and announcements, the lyrics to the songs.  Yes, worship is communal and yes, we share many of these words together, and yes all of that connects us to each other and to God, yet, ironically, there is so little silence for us to rest in, on this day of rest itself.

So, Longfellow’s poem speaks to me.  I came across it on a marker at our city’s botanical gardens last week as I took a long, silent walk among the glories of the spring flowers and the songs of the robins skittering about.  My walk changed my whole mood because the silence gave me the opportunity to pay attention to, and worship, the God of Creation.  Longfellow’s poem holds an important reminder:

My Cathedral

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr’s bones.
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
And learn there may be worship without words.

Yes, there may indeed be worship without words.  I think I will take another walk today, and worship.

Blessings ~ Rosemary