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In May two local churches—neither my local parish—at polar opposites of my liturgical denomination sponsored prayer events. They looked similar in intent: listening to God. Similar in their physical, relational dynamic: something like "parallel play," in which individuals share a room but don't directly interact. On other counts, the two offerings looked very different. A charismatic congregation, worshipping in a windowless warehouse sanctuary, opened its doors and cleared its floor for an evening of "soaking prayer." Four days later the buttressed cathedral offered a labyrinth prayer walk north of the limestone pulpit, beneath a rose window.
I knew people who'd been profoundly touched by both forms of prayer. What was I missing? Aware of the liturgical season, the expectant void between Ascension Day and Pentecost, I decided to experiment.
The charismatic church is a place where people repeat praise songs, speak prophecies, and make intercessions, occasionally in unknown languages. They're talkers and doers. Their church time is participatory. If they're listening, it's to Bible readings, sermons, or the Eucharistic Prayer.
But not this night—the one "open" session of a two-day event requiring registration. Yes, the evening started with congregational singing and a lengthy teaching, about intimacy with God. But then the lights dimmed and the format changed. We in the audience weren't expected to join in as the musicians played or sang soothing music meant to "soak" us with the love of God. "This is Mary time," a handout said, referring to the woman Jesus commended for sitting at his feet rather than scurrying about, like her sister Martha. "Focus on the Lord's presence within you." We weren't even expected to sit on the chairs, set up in only half the room. We were encouraged to stretch out on the carpet, to "rest in the Lord" (Psalm 37:7), to "be still" and "meditate within your heart" (Psalm 4:4), to "lie down" as if "in green pastures" and let the Holy Spirit spiritually "restore" us (Psalm 23:2-3).
Many two-day participants were lying on blankets. I had brought only a small pillow, on which I lay my head, having claimed a coffin-sized spot on the floor near the PA control panels. In The Luminous Dusk, Dale Allison commends a physicality of prayer. "When prayer is rightly made, matter is joined to spirit, and together the two seek the divine grace." He's discussing bowed heads, closed eyes, pressed palms, bent knees. Supine soaking? It wasn't part of his vocabulary.
For an hour I stretched out on my back. I listened.
There's nothing new about the power of music. In The Psychology of the Saints, Henri Joly noted that music so dramatically "ravished" Ignatius of Loyola that he became "unconscious of pain." As a child I'd found Jesus through song-driven altar calls: "come home, come home." As a young-adult parishioner I'd let praise music draw out a river of spirit-cleansing tears. Alone, in my car or on my couch, I've let recorded hymns and spiritual songs sweep me into the joy of the Lord. But I'd never listened to meditative Jesus-loves-me music in communal recumbency. Much of the music was instrumental—keyboard, violin, guitar. If there were lyrics, they mirrored biblical imagery: Come to the wedding feast, not as a guest but as the bride. Come to the water, not just a fountain but a river.
I went home refreshed and at peace but a little disappointed. This wasn't a deeper at-wellness than I'd experienced before, listening at length to Randall Thompson's "Alleluia" or Gavin Bryans's "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" in the privacy of my own living room.
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