Tongues of angels...

When I entered the Saint-Étienne de Metz in France, I was profoundly struck by the more than enchanting soulful notes emanating from what seemed the center of the historic Cathedral. The absolute majesty of the historic church aside, the Gregorian chants drew me in a way I had never experienced in a lifetime of seeking. It wasn't the first I had heard - the first occurred at St. John Cantius Church in Chicago over the holidays several years prior. Even then, I was moved, stirred, drawn by notes that seemed beyond my thinking, logical mind. The Latin words carrying the notes spoke directly to my heart and soul, the tongues of angels, as all sense of time and place melted into One.

In Metz, it was as though my heart lead me to the source of these angelic sounds - and I sat among the other saints and sinners who also found themselves in the presence of the supernatural. Though I knew not the words, tears filled my eyes - with a beyond-me all encompassing joy. And I could have listened there in that eternal moment for the rest of my life. 

Since then, I have read much about chanting, about some human notes that take us into the presence of God. Our minds cannot conceive, yet our hearts and souls are jarred open by the peaks and valleys of such sounds. 

I remember a Pastor once telling of his parent who had just lost a child, sitting at a piano for many hours, slowly tapping out the notes - and barely able to sing the words to the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul."

In the quiet of my car this week, it seems as though I have experienced a similar soulful chanting with the very same words, slowly, deliberately listening to the notes as they draw me closer to the very presence of God... 

"It is well

with my soul. 

It is well, 

it is well 

with my soul."

And my heart and soul has danced as I experience the notes more slowly, more deeply, longer, more soulfully than ever before -- and the veil has parted with the understanding that comes with that one verse alone.

"It is well

with 

my 

soul.

It is well, 

it is well

with 

my 

soul..."