2 June 2010
An Urban Liturgy
Night falls slowly on the river,
where the water is more luminous than the sky,
and the gladsome sun catches windows one by one
to signal its farewell, and kindle lamps within.
And the sun shines singly from each chink
in the scaffolded skeletons of half-made buildings.
And the crane with its swinging load
is an angel with a censer, making evening sacrifices:
here where the sun goes to its rest,
where the edge of night meets the edge of day.
And the burning clouds are the smoke of incense,
a prayer offered not with words
but with silence rising into a greater silence,
and the angel’s uplifted hands are an offering:
to the morning star,
to the clouds and thick darkness,
to the unapproachable light;
to the wild sea,
to the steam and the stormclouds,
to the river, the giver of life.
I was afraid I would hate living in the city. I need quiet. I need nature. I need hills to cradle me and trees outside my window. And skyscrapers are simply no substitute for mountains.
But there is still beauty to be found here in Boston. Lately, a couple of times a week, I’ve been walking down in the evening to the Charles River and watching the sunset. If I’m sufficiently alone, I’ll sing the Phos Hilaron, an ancient Christian evening hymn. And a little after sunset, the monastery bell used to ring and summon me to Compline (but they’re closed for renovations, now).
It’s an odd juxtaposition: the trees and the skyscrapers, the placid river and the roar of traffic. But there’s also a certain peacefulness there at the end of the day, and the sunsets are often spectacular (it’s the pollution that does it). There’s something valuable in simply being still and experiencing beauty, in whatever form I find it in, and to learn to hear echoes of the invisible, triune God in the visible world around me.