And the Angels in the Architecture Danced...

He looks around, around .....
He sees angels in the architecture,
Spinning in infinity,
He says, Amen! and Hallelujah!

Paul Simon, "You Can Call Me Al"

Yesterday, my "planned pleasant activity" was a trip into the City to walk the Labyrinth at Grace Cathedral.  Although I struggle mightily with faith these days, to the point where calling me a "seeker" would no longer be accurate, walking the labyrinth centers and heals me, if only for the forty-five minutes it takes for me to do it.

I need centering lately.  I have confusion to overcome, losses to grieve, fears to face.  I have people to forgive and people to ask forgiveness of.

When I walked into the Cathedral, I walked into a moment of wonder.  A liturgical dance troupe was moving through the sacred spaces carried along by the soaring piano strains of Copeland's "Appalachian Spring."  I stood entranced.

I have a somewhat jaundiced view of liturgical dance.  I have seen it done poorly -- painfully -- enough to distrust the concept.  But these dancers were professionals.  They managed to hit the elusive combination of art and spirituality.  They wove a clear and beautiful story through their movements.

I watched them as they finished their dance.  It was clear to me that I had stumbled upon a rehearsal -- a final rehearsal by the look of it.  The only other observers were the dancers, the pianist, and one or two other souls who had wandered in from the chill late afternoon air.

In many ways watching a rehearsal is better than watching the performance.  There is an intimacy, a groundedness that is lacking when there is an audience.  The dancers seemed to be dancing only for each other, and to the glory of God.  During the service, they were costumed in white silk, but during the rehearsals they were in street clothes.  They could have been anyone come in to dance, as David did, before the altar of the Lord.  They were not "otherwordly," they were us.

I have been in such spaces before.  In 1995, the Rocket Scientist and I went to Germany for a conference, on what I jokingly came to call the "Beer and Churches Tour."  We went to a lot of cathedrals, in various parts of Germany and the Netherlands.  Many of them were quite beautiful, and had been carefully maintained and filled with visitors who spoke in hushed tones.  Moving, if a little detached.

And then we saw Magdeburg.

Magdeburg is in what had been East Germany.  The outer walls showed the pockmarks where bullets had hit them during World War II.  It was a staggeringly beautiful building that had been allowed through all the years of Communist rule to lapse into some level of disrepair.  There was scaffolding indicating that there was renovation going on, but it still seemed to be in the future.  It was a Gothic cathedral, though, calm and strong.

When RS and I entered the cathedral, we were one of maybe four or five people in the church.  We were soon followed by a larger group - maybe thirty -- that filed in behind us.  We paid them no mind, and wandered off down the nave and the side aisles.  Back in the distance, we could hear small scufflings and other noises from the group.

Suddenly, the air swelled with song.  The group that we had been ahead of was a choral group from a university, who had chosen the cathedral to record their music because of the acoustical qualities of the space.  Even their warm ups sounded ethereal.  When they began singing hymns, it was as though the stone angels on the walls had opened their mouths. It was a moment to send chills down your spine.

It was magic.  And yesterday, as I stood and watched the dancers, I could almost hear the angels in Magdeburg singing to me again. I wanted to cry.

As Al would say, "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!"