Tibetan monks and indie church

Ho boy. I went to church today. But, let me explain.

The motivation to visit this place, a local indie church that meets in a conference room of an office park, was their notice in the paper: 10 Tibetan monks would be their guests today, presenting "Sacred Chanting and multiphonic singing". The monks are in town on a national tour in support of their "refugee monastery" (their fascinating and sadly descriptive term) in southern India. The church is a DIY effort, organized by volunteers and led by consensus, that seeks to affirm the sacredness of all spiritual paths and the divine in each person. A great intention, for sure. But I could tell right away that my antisocial side (waxing toward the full, lately) was gonna have a little trouble getting through this. Friendly greetings, eye contact, so many hands to shake, optimistic brotherlylove singing with piano and guitar. And, too: fluorescent lights. Straightback chairs. Such close physical proximity to others. Yeah, this isn't easy. I want to leave already, and it's only just started. But at the same time, it's worth the effort of being here, in the grip of all these shallow discomforts, for this little insight: much of the stuff that makes me, and I think many others, uncomfortable in churches has nothing really to do with churches. It's the same stuff that makes me uncomfortable in classrooms, and in banks, and in doctor's offices: the well-meaning but artificial "comforts" of climate control, organization, predictability, and interpersonal social constructs that we've taken on by living far too much in cities, and buildings, and institutions. In structures, of whatever kind.

But I had to stay, and not only because this seemed a worthy and unusual human experience. I had to stay because of a dream. Years ago, after I had left the sad, sterile, intellect-suffocated church in which I spent all my younger years, I embarked on its healing and my own, in a series of dreams. In one of these, a row of monks, in coarse brown robes that looked Franciscan, stood at the front of the old church, and bathed all its members in a wash of light and sound, humming and chanting that shook the floors, stretched the walls like they were breathing, lit up the roof with a light like the sun's, both more brilliant and infinitely more gentle, and reverberated in my chest like ocean, like deep earth, like sound as a living being, even after I woke up. This was years before I had ever heard throat singing, or any monks' chants. I didn't even know much about Franciscans then. I only knew, for the first of many many times, that there was beautypower and lifebreath out there, that could so outshine and heal through all the impoverished experiences I had so far endured in the name of religion. This dream assured me, and was one of many such knowings that kept me alive to the hopeful search. So. I had to stick it out, today, and see if the singing of these monks, in a setting of similiarly absurd contrast, would prove as vibrant, as life-bringing.

And it does. The monks most definitely erase the momentary unease of the rest of the service. A solid line of scarlet and saffron, one singing bowl, one small chime, and one microphone for the monk who seems to be the lead voice. And a wave of sonic healing that swooshes across and shushes and subsumes the room for 25 minutes. Deep, vibrating, round tones, like a massive engine powering up, that I associate with the Tuvan throat singing with which I'm more familiar. Solid middle-level hums and beams of sound, sometimes shaped into syllables, the most frequently occurring of which sounds like "JOY". And a thread of higher pitch that weaves in and out of the music, barely audible, often like a coyote's howl, and sometimes very much like the spirally static noise you might get while tuning through an old radio late at night, in between stations.

They move easily, eyes closed, between all these realms of sound, standing in complete stillness. The song is one long, spacious house with many different rooms, which are not separated by doors. At one moment the middle-hum rises, dives, lofts and the JOY! swoops toward the ceiling, almost gets away! like a balloon a kid has just let go. But it's caught, reeled in, smoothed down to silence, and suddenly the chant is over. They give us the blessing of 5 minutes of total silence afterward, for which the entire room is tangibly grateful, so intense was the sound, and its leaving, and our need now for a space to find re-entry.

I ended my visit as I've done more than once at such gatherings: sneaking out, from my last-row seat, before it ended. So as not to endure any more kindness from friendly extroverted strangers. So as not to lose contact with the healing just brought to the mind by way of the body. So as to continue the dream of grace, life, and healing, that travels so far into the places where words just don't go.