Something New

So I have started trying something new to help me to relax and calm down a bit. The past three mornings while I've been getting ready I've been listening to songs and prayers from the Taize Community. I was looking through the music on my iPod and I had forgotten that those chants and songs were there. I learned about Taize last year after attending several Taize based worship services here at the office so it is a relatively new type of prayer to me.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Taize:
"Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God. It allows everyone to take part in a time of prayer together and to remain together in attentive waiting on God, without having to fix the length of time too exactly." (www.taize.fr)

This meditative aspect is what resonates with me. Singing the same words over and over again helps to clear my mind and refreshes me. Often times the words are in a different language and typically songs are sung in a canon.

So yeah, I think this is the start of something good for me. There is a lot going on in my life these days so it's nice to have something that helps to relax and soothe me at the beginning of the day. We'll see how it goes!