Taize: A Meaning to Life

Rating:
Summary: Through singing and silence...
Review: Clement is a Russian Orthodoxer; he teaches at the Orthodox Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris, and is a prolific theological writer. One of his primary interests has been a striving for greater understanding and sharing between Eastern and Western Christianity, an interest I deeply share. Being located in Paris, he is near the Taize community, another embodiment of the twentieth-century hope for greater cooperation and communication among the Christian communities.

--The Community of Taize--
The community of Taize is a monastic group founded by Brother Roger in the aftermath of World War II. Brother Roger recognised that, in the course of barely a generation, the Christian world had involved the entire world in two tragically devastating conflicts, and the potential for more was very apparent.

Beginning in Eastern France, Brother Roger called together men of differing faiths, called upon them to retain the distinctiveness of their faiths while binding together in the community with each other. They worked in various professions, were self-supporting, and humbly went about their tasks. In doing so, their mission became noticed such that today, fifty years or so later, Taize is a major pilgrimage site for people, particularly young people, of all faiths, who seek the unity Taize reflects. A Roman Catholic order of sisters lives nearby, and assists in the necessary tasks of welcoming and hospitality to the pilgrims. Church leaders from all major faiths, including the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, senior Lutheran and Presbyterian leaders, and Orthodox archbishops and metropolitans, have all visited the site with prayerful and reverent devotion and gratitude.

Various aspects of Taize add to the spiritual dimension; perhaps the most commonly known is their distincitive musical style. It was Augustine who is supposed to have said that those who sing, pray twice. Taize chant, a modern simplified plainchant that can be done in parts or in simple lines, has been adopted by people, again particularly youth groups, of every denomination the world over. At the actual community of Taize, the singing in done in Latin; this is not because Roman Catholic chant was done in Latin for so many centuries, but rather because all people in the chanting can come together in Latin, for Latin is no one's first language.

The brothers at Taize seek to live and seek share 'in the spirit of the beatitudes: joy, simplicity and mercy.' Today there are Taize cells in New York City, in the Caribbean, and various other places of need around the world. They strive to reflect the simplicity and unity of the Christian message to all they encounter, without dogmatic or denominational overlays, without insistence or oppressive intentions.

--Clement's Book on Taize--
This book is not so much a story of Taize or a philosophy or theology of ecumenism, but rather Clement's personal reflections on his encounters at Taize. There is a growing understanding among theologians that all theology, while striving toward and recognising the ultimate and absolute, still remains for each of us an intensely personal and subjective enterprise. Thus Clement's questions become questions for all of us, and our own answers, which we are called to find, can be shaped by his strivings.

This is a short book, a mere 80 pages of loosely printed text. However, do not be deceived by this. The shortest parable can contain the deepest of meanings; the simplest of actions can have the most profound impact. Clement is embodying in his text the simplicity of the place. He begins by discussing what the title speaks to -- the meaning to life.

There is what Clement describes as an unselfish listening in the community that draws people to it. Using the idea of communion as a parable, Clement describes his feeling and reflections on what community should be, and how that is reflected in the community of Taize, and what others strive to carry forward from this place into their own lives.

The phrase A Meaning to Life I find very significant. So many people strive to find the the meaning of life; how many of us, and I fully include myself in this lot, work to put a meaning to life? Here perhaps the reflection of the French language pokes through with a profundity easily lost; the translation of Clement's thoughts from the French mindset, from the Orthodox perspective, into the English Western framework leads to mysteries well worth pondering.

Clement's final reflections are powerful, too. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Christianity is the concept that, to convert people, one must threaten with punishments and fears of hell; much evangelism has been done throughout 2000 years based not on the love of God, but rather the fear and hope of avoiding damnation. We need only look at the world around us to understand the concept of hell. Hell is most noticed when the love of God and neighbour are absent from out lives. It is the prayer of the community of Taize, and the prayer of Olivier Clement, that all will, in their own unique ways, open themselves to reflect this love in their own lives, so that all may be instruments of peace.

Through the silence and the singing, through the simplicity and the crush of thousands of pilgrims, through the vision of the founder to the practices of people who cannot locate Taize on the map, the hope for a community of the world reflecting the unity of God permeates the people at Taize, and shines forth on every page of Clement's book.

As the angel said to Augustine, 'take and read'. It can change your life.