A happy conjunction between gifts and experiences shared with close friends in this quote from Pete Rollin's book
The Orthodox Heretic. Whilst it speaks directly of a specific kind of activity, this could equally be broadened out to describe something of religious experience more widely - 'something understood' in the terms of the
poem from which this blog takes its inspiration:
In academic life the said is often privileged over the saying. What is important is that meaning is communicated and, as such, the way it is communicated is important only insomuch as it gets the meaning across. Yet there are forms of communication that give emphasis to the saying over and above the said.
An interesting example of this can be seen at work in the music of Sigur Ros, a band from Iceland that employs what they call “Vonlenska” (or “Hopelandic”) in many of their songs. “Vonlenska” sounds like a language, however it lacks consistent grammar, logical structure, meaningful syllables, and often even discrete words. When a song is sung in Vonlenska, the words that you hear do not “mean” anything; nothing is said in their saying. Yet the saying itself invites a change in the sensitive listener. In contemplating the music, one touches upon a deep resorvoir of emotion that emanates from the song. This mode of “communication” is similar to what we see taking place between an infant and its parents. The grammatical nonsense that is communicated by the infant to the parent and by the parent to the infant is a discourse in which nothing is said, but a connection is established or deepened.
When we are facing difficult situations is it not true that the pastoral act is not one that offers some explanation for the suffering (the said) but rather is found in the act of who who offers presence to the other in the form of words and gestures (the saying)? Here it is not an explanation that brings healing and comfort, but rather the fact that someone is interacting with us, the fact that someone loves us and stands with us…
…This is pastoral care at its most luminous.
I'd broaden this out, to argue that to describe this change, brought about by ordinary things - in this case - listening to music, is to describe religious experience itself.
