This is one of the reasons I’ve fallen so deeply in love with the high catholic liturgy (albeit in a Lutheran church) this last year or so.
I want — I need — more reverence in my life. Our modern world can be so harsh. It moves so quickly. It’s consumeristic, utilitarian, and individualistic at its core. In it, we’re socialized to get what’s ours and discard the rest. Whatever is of benefit to us is utilized while everything else is trashed in short order. Faster, faster, faster. If the metrics don’t add up, scrap it.
I yearn for slowness, silence, non-competition, and paying my respects to the sacred nature of things.
When I see the different icons in our sanctuary of blessed Mother Mary, JS Bach, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer — candles flickering in front of their framed images, I pause for a moment to offer silent reverence to they who’ve worked so passionately to shift the hearts, minds, and hands of humanity.
When I bow to the cross as it’s processed through the isle, I bow to a symbol that represents God’s compassionate and endless love towards all of creation — the ultimate non-binary symbol (as my pastor puts it) that levels and unites us all calling us forth in love.
When I smell the incense during service, I breathe in the pervasive nature of the Holy Spirit that flurries through us all.
When I dip my fingers into the font and mark the cross on my body, I remember my baptism in a timeless tradition and take notice of my continual death and resurrection in Christ.
When I recite the creed, though I may not personally agree with every single line, I say the words with the reverence of a tradition that goes back ages far beyond my postmodern ego.
When I sit in the quietude once the meditation bell has been rung after the sermon, I let the words move through me knowing they’re moving through everyone in the small church sanctuary that enfolds us in that sacred space.
I’m a junkie for this. My modern world is so flimsy and feeble. It rests on a foundation of digital sand. I need the rock of ages and the reverence that transcends my fragile ego and immature righteousness.
This is reverence.
This is my anchor.
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This post was previously published on Jonas Ellison and is republished with the permission of the author.
Photo courtesy iStock Photo.
About Jonas Ellison
Jonas Ellison is a writer and a blogger based in Chicago, IL. His daily(ish) publication, On Living, is one of the top single-author publications on Medium.com. You can also find his work in The Huffington Post, Observer, Fizzle, NoSidebar, The Mission, and more.
