Beauty from Silence
by Brian Kirby
Reverend Doctor Brian Kirby holds a doctor of ministry degree in arts and theology from the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Kirby also holds a master of divinity degree from the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond, Virginia. His undergraduate degrees in music and French are from Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina. He is the pastor of Rome International Church in Rome, Italy, and is a frequent visitor to Taizé where he has been able to work directly with several of the Brothers of Taizé to better understand their community and its theology.
The Community of Taizé
Reverend Doctor Brian Kirby holds a doctor of ministry degree in arts and theology from the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Kirby also holds a master of divinity degree from the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond, Virginia. His undergraduate degrees in music and French are from Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina. He is the pastor of Rome International Church in Rome, Italy, and is a frequent visitor to Taizé where he has been able to work directly with several of the Brothers of Taizé to better understand their community and its theology.
The Community of Taizé
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For the Brothers of Taizé, silence is not only a part of their daily routine; it is a core foundation for their monastic community’s creative expression of faith. Drawing from silence, both individual and communal, this ecumenical brotherhood creates artistic expressions that are shared around the world. These creative works take many forms, such as pottery, poetry, and music. The aesthetics of Taizé are lived experiences that are shared not only among the Brothers of Taizé, but by the more than 100,000 visitors to their modest village in Burgundy, France. These visitors come to experience God through silence and beauty as they share in the community of the Brothers. This article will explore the impact of silence on their aesthetics and specifically how Brother Roger was able to establish a community where both the Brothers and those who visit them find inspiration in a shared silence that subsequently serves as the wellspring of their creativity.
Silence has an important role in the experience of faith. “Teaching about Christ begins in silence,” Deitrich Bonhoeffer told his students in 1933 in a class on Christology.1 Bonhoeffer argued that the Protestant church was suffering from a lack of monastic life. In his work, The Cost of Discipleship, he reflected on Luther’s rejection of monastic life. In contrast to Luther, Bonhoeffer called for a new kind of monasticism, where prayer and meditation, |
fasting and communal life were restored to the Protestant church. He called for a return to a seemingly lost discipline of intense prayer. In the communal life that he created at Finkelwalde, students were challenged to spend part of their day in silence, listening for God.2 Bonhoeffer believed that this silence was an integral part of the well-balanced Christian life and that the rest of life takes meaning once it is grounded in this discipline.
Don Saliers, in his book Music and Theology, stated that “Learning to listen is essential to a theologically formed spirituality—that is, to a disciplined way of perceiving and living in the world as a divinely created order.”3 But this hearing is not simply limited to the spoken word. Saliers showed interest in a synaesthetic matrix where we have a heightened perception of God because we have multiple senses at work. We each have another kind of sense—a religious or contemplative “sense.” Cultivation of this sense, through which the divine is best perceived, is the aim of spiritual disciplines. One such discipline is silence.4 This sense becomes alive in us when we seek God with all our senses as we worship, pray, live, and create. Saliers also wrote of prayer as a double journey, toward the mystery of God who invites us into a relationship, but also into the deep places of our own selves.5 It is from this deep interior space, anchored and developed in silence, that we are able to draw strength to express and reveal God in our creative processes.
Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, in his book The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetic, called for a developed theological aesthetic which allows for us to meet God in a deeper way through our senses. Citing a text of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Garcia-Rivera showed how hearing becomes the central act in such a developed theological aesthetic. “Hearing” becomes the core act of a well-balanced theological life. While “seeing” is located in the physical world, “hearing”—especially hearing the sounds of words and music—remains evanescent.6 For Garcia-Rivera, a mystical experience “. . . prolongs another experience by deepening, purifying, clarifying, transcending, and crowning it.”7 Without the mystical, we are left without the full understanding or meaning that could exist. We can neither fully see, nor fully hear, the otherness of the divine without a fully developed sense for the mystical. This mystical or contemplative sense comes from the development of our spiritual disciplines in a deep, all-engaging way, allowing our seeing and hearing to go beyond our physical eyes and ears but to the soul of the believer who is ready to hear and see the otherness of God. The development of our listening in prayer with our whole being becomes the foundation of our faith and the wellspring out of which flows our spirituality. This listening begins with intentional times of silence where our spirit and soul connect with God.
As our soul learns to hear God in the intentional silences which we seek, we are transformed by this silence. This transformation allows us to reach a deeper connection with God, a connection which goes beyond words and therefore must be expressed in a theology that is not simply content with words. Dionysius the Areopagite addressed the Trinity by saying, “Lead us beyond unknowing and light . . . where the mysteries of God’s Word lie simple, absolute, and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence. . . . Amid the wholly unsensed and unseen they completely fill our sightless minds with treasures beyond all beauty.”8 For the soul to grow beyond the verbal expressions of the mind, it must be bathed in the silence of God, wherein God speaks beyond words to reveal beauty to us. Out of this beauty, we grow toward a theology which is expressed in the arts, in all their varied forms.
Seeking both physical and spiritual space to experience the silence of God, Roger Louis Shutz-Marsauche, later known as Brother Roger, left his homeland of Switzerland in 1940 to move to the tiny village of Taizé, in Burgundy, France. Living alone there in an old farm house, he began to develop a simple life around silence and service. As others joined the community, their lives immediately centered on great simplicity. Brother Roger became the first Prior of the Brothers.9 Immediately, there were some foundational ideas that he wanted to instill in the community.
When Brother Roger authored “The Rule of Taizé,” he set out to give guiding principles for the common life of the Brothers. One of his first contacts with Americans came through a contact with American Quakers. Their example and use of silence touched him and had a lasting impact upon him.10 He encouraged his Brothers to maintain interior silence so that they could dwell in Christ. He believed that interior silence made possible their conversation with Jesus Christ. These moments were to be communal as well as individual. Within the three daily prayers of the Community, he believed that the balance of their lives would be conditioned by their attention to the worship and to silence. He held that these moments renewed the spirit of the Brothers. From this intentional silence, the life of the community began to flow from the very beginning.11
Over time, the Community of Taizé began to draw young people from all over the world. It was not the original aim of Brother Roger, but somehow young people began to come in increasing numbers to Taizé to spend a few days or even a few months among them. The worship and silence seemed to draw them. As Brother Jean-Marie of Taizé once said “The church is the center of Taizé . . . [I]t’s at the center of our life and it’s the most important thing we share in the meetings here.”12 Three times each day, the Brothers of Taizé and all who are visiting them are welcomed into the Church of the Reconciliation. These gatherings are called simply “morning prayer,” “midday prayer,” and “evening prayer.” Once the Brothers and visitors are gathered inside the church, the time is filled with simple songs, scripture readings, and silence. It is the silence which is the climax of the liturgy. One might ask how a time of gathering, with crowds numbering more than 4,000 people some weeks, might reach its high point in eight to ten minutes of total silence. It is because this time of silence is prepared and intentional. It is at the heart of this community.
Brother John of Taizé, in his publication A Thirst For Silence, states that, for young people, the time of silence experienced during prayer gives a sense of inner freedom. During the silence, they are not compelled to follow any external directions but are left free to let new ideas and unexpected longings stir. Young people often remark that it is a time to find inner silence and focus on that which is truly important.13 Brother John maintains that “these young people are discovering in the experience of silence a dimension of gratuitousness, of just being.”14 This allows them to begin the journey of realizing that their being must precede their doing—that the true quality of human activity is rooted in an inner life based on who they truly are before God.15
The French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément became a friend of Brother Roger and of the Community of Brothers at Taizé in the 1990s. He described Taizé as a place where the power of prayer is experienced and lived out in a unique and simple way. He believed that to extract true and sincere prayer, the believer must first put away all verbosity and experience silence. He saw that young people happily gathered to learn to pray by practicing in silence at Taizé.16
Clément described this as “a silence that is inhabited.”17 This is not a worldly, negative silence that is viewed as something to fill with noise, but it is rather a silence which is intentional and seeks to be inhabited by something of God. This “inhabited silence” is at the core of the Taizé community. This silence then becomes the wellspring of the life of the Brothers of Taizé.
Clément identified three themes at Taizé: reconciliation among Christians, evangelization of young people, and promotion of creativity within Christianity.18 All three of these elements are grounded in the deep and meaningful silence of the community of Taizé. It is this silence which serves as the foundation for their aesthetic theology because it is this silence which allows the Brothers to explore their understanding of God through the arts.
The powerful juxtaposition of simplicity and beauty was important to Brother Roger. He once wrote, “The spirit of poverty does not consist in looking poverty-stricken, but in arranging everything with imagination, in creation’s simple beauty.”19 The idea of “simple beauty” became a kind of mantra for Brother Roger and then, by his example, a foundational concept for the Brothers. This simple beauty became evident in their way of life and in the work they undertook as theologians and as artists.
The Community of Taizé believes that out of their silence, people are able to see God as the source of simple beauty. This beauty, which is expressed in the created world, has a powerful impact on us. This beauty is not accidental, but is the direct action of God. In the community of Taizé, God’s revelation through beauty is a foundational concept.
Brother Stephen, as a trained visual artist, sees God’s creativity in the community of Taizé, where he has lived for thirty years. In his home country, the United Kingdom, he studied art education. He explained how Brother Roger sought to encourage the creativity of the Brothers from the beginning. Brother Roger was himself a gifted writer. Many in the community still follow his example and write both prose and poetry. Brother Roger had a gift for seeing the hidden talents of the Brothers. Brother Stephen explained that during one Christmas season, in the early days of the community, children orphaned by World War II were living at Taizé because of Brother Roger’s concern for them. He asked Brother Daniel to go into the neighboring town of Cluny to buy clay and to help the children make Christmas cribs or crèches. Brother Daniel, who had no background with clay, followed Brother Roger’s creative instructions and began working with the children.20 This simple Christmas craft would forever change Brother Daniel’s life.
Brother Daniel began to develop both an interest and talent for working with clay. Today, Brother Daniel, who is in his 90s, has become a world-renowned master potter. His glazes are made of ash from straw or different kinds of wood, and in this way he uses things which might have otherwise been thrown away. Through his work and creativity, he has become a kind of alchemist who is able to create beauty from ashes. Brother Daniel’s foray into the world of pottery gave birth to the industry from which the Brothers now draw their primary financial support. It is also this artistic expression which involves the largest numbers of the Brothers today.21 As they form the clay, they see how God has shaped them and others. Out of their reflection on their own creation, they must imagine how God has crafted their Community.
Another of the Brothers, Brother Eric, studied to be an artist. He expressed concern to Brother Roger upon his entry into the Community. He asked if one could be both a Brother and a trained artist. Brother Roger said that having a trained and practicing professional artist would be a new experience at that point in the life of the Community. He said that they would live it and experience it together to see how it might work. The results were wonderful.22
Out of the powerful silence of Taizé, Brother Eric went on to design much of the stained glass windows of the church. Along the right wall, they represent the festivals of the Christian year: the Annunciation, the Magnificat, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Transfiguration. In addition to this, Brother Eric—along with an American woman—created the Tiffany-inspired stained glass of the Garden of Eden, above one of the street-side entrances. He was also responsible for the bold uses of color on the walls of the church, a mixture of lemon yellow and red creating the orange for which Taizé has become known.23
The church building itself is an expression of the artistic talents of Brother Denis, who studied to be an architect. This innovative structure, in a style influenced by French architect Le Corbusier, was a bold and daring structure for such a small provincial French village. With its large concrete supports and straight angles, this unusual structure was meant to appeal to the senses through its use of light and space, color and texture. The plans for the church were simply Brother Denis’s final project for his degree; however, Brother Roger encouraged its use for their new church.24 The Church of the Reconciliation has become an iconic representation of the Community.
Brother Stephen collaborates with the other Brothers and volunteers to provide visual arts in the community, as well as the different sites for the Taizé annual “European meetings” held in other cities each year in December. In many locations where these meeting are held, he and a team of volunteers arrive in empty spaces, such as a convention center, where their challenge is to create sacred space out of a secular space. They are called to create the sacred out of silence. They pray in silence, then seek God’s direction. Then they begin to create. It is out of their common experience in silence that their creativity flows.25
Brother Roger’s encouragement of artistic expression extended to all of the Brothers and then beyond that to all who would come into contact with the community. The examples given here of the creative genius of the Brothers serve to illustrate a core Taizé belief that all Christians are called to give creative expressions of beauty in their lives of faith. Out of their intentional silence, the Brothers produce beauty and encourage others to do the same. In these expressions, they see God and help others to experience God through their mind, heart, and senses.
Many examples of the simple beauty of the Brothers of Taizé are found in their common prayers. It is seen in their music, in the icons, in the colors of its church, and in the way those who worship are welcomed through their senses into a world of discovering God. During times of collective silence, the Brothers of Taizé appeal to the sense of sight as one that reveals God. Behind the altar of their church are simple red bricks typically used to line a chimney flue. These are stacked in a seemingly random way, with small votive candles burning in many of them. The idea was a fusion of inspiration by Brother Marc and Brother Denis. The former was inspired by the ways he had seen these kinds of lights used in India. The latter was inspired by their use in the catacombs of Rome, where they are placed in burial niches. These lights serve as a kind of on-going witness of faith.26 The use of candles and light draws people into another sensory experience inside the church—one that draws those who pray to contemplate their individual light and Jesus as the light of the world.
Icons are placed on each side of the altar. They are meant to appeal to the senses of the visitor in a way that helps them see and experience the Christian story and the glory of God. Many of these icons were painted by Brother Eric in the 1950s and 1960s. He was not a trained iconographer, but simply had a period where he began to experiment with them. The icon to the left of the altar was painted by Brother Eric, inspired by an icon of Mary by Vladimir, called the Icon of Tenderness. This icon conveys a sense of tenderness between Mary and Jesus; a tenderness between God and humanity.27 On the right side of the altar is an icon of the cross. It is very similar to and perhaps inspired by the cross of Saint Damiano, before which Saint Francis of Assisi was praying when God called him to rebuild the church. On Fridays, during the evening prayer, following a time of corporate silence, the cross is placed on the floor for people to touch while praying. This sensory act of touching the cross allows those who pray to experience their prayers and their connection with God in a physical way.28 As they pray, their pain intersects with the beauty of the icon, which allows their senses to guide them to a deeper understanding of God’s presence in their distress.
Brother Stephen described these icons as “moving festivals.”29 Great care is given not to have too many images, as too many might detract from the power of those which are there. Alejandro Garcia-Rivera says that theological aesthetics center upon our capacity to know and to love the unknowable, to name that which has no name, and to make visible that which is invisible.30 Through the use of color, light, and icons, the Brothers of Taizé aid their community in seeing what is Unseen. Their appeal to the senses during silence is not limited to sight.
When people think of Taizé, they think of the music of Taizé. Much of the music of Taizé has found its way around the world, into the worship of very many Christians. In the daily prayers at Taizé, music draws the community together in a powerful way. Brother Jean-Marie, who works with others to coordinate the liturgy and to compose some of the music, shares that, for him, “Music and life go together. They’ve always gone together. Music gives us life. It helps us tap into something that’s really vital.”31 The music at Taizé is powerful because it helps condition the soul to enter into the time of silence, allowing it to be a prepared silence. When the music stops and the silence begins, it is all the more amplified because of the preparation the music has allowed. Following the silence, the singing of the Community is further grounded by this collective listening experience.
In an interview, Brother Jean-Marie explained how the arts in Taizé serve the Community’s greater goal of the reconciliation of Christians. He first mentioned Brother Roger’s mantra of “simple beauty” as a driving force and inspiration for the Brothers. He continued by saying, “There’s a certain use of the arts . . . which can draw people together, and which can be extraordinarily helpful in putting people on the same footing.”32 He described how Serbian groups had been instrumental in introducing the Brothers to some of their music, which was well known to the Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian Orthodox. The Brothers began to introduce this music into their daily prayers. There were times when, in the context of these prayers, Serbians would find themselves next to Croatians who were singing along, as well. The music of Taizé draws people, sometimes enemies, together in a common prayer.33
Common silence is the foundation by which the senses are fine-tuned to experience God in beauty. This beauty is powerful enough within the music to move those who are strangers to become fellow travelers on the journey of faith. This beauty is bold enough to allow people to recognize their shared humanity with those they might have otherwise ignored. This beauty is strong enough to allow those from enemy nations to come together in song and praise the same God.
The Brothers of Taizé represent an incredibly creative and inspiring group of theologians and artists. It is their dedication to individual and corporate silence that is at the core of their aesthetic. This wellspring serves as a foundation for their lives and inspires not only these Brothers but all who visit them. Out of silence their aesthetic creations speak to the world about God.
NOTES
Taizé Community. Church of the Reconciliation. Stained glass window. The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Photo by: Godong/UIG via Getty Images)
Don Saliers, in his book Music and Theology, stated that “Learning to listen is essential to a theologically formed spirituality—that is, to a disciplined way of perceiving and living in the world as a divinely created order.”3 But this hearing is not simply limited to the spoken word. Saliers showed interest in a synaesthetic matrix where we have a heightened perception of God because we have multiple senses at work. We each have another kind of sense—a religious or contemplative “sense.” Cultivation of this sense, through which the divine is best perceived, is the aim of spiritual disciplines. One such discipline is silence.4 This sense becomes alive in us when we seek God with all our senses as we worship, pray, live, and create. Saliers also wrote of prayer as a double journey, toward the mystery of God who invites us into a relationship, but also into the deep places of our own selves.5 It is from this deep interior space, anchored and developed in silence, that we are able to draw strength to express and reveal God in our creative processes.
Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, in his book The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetic, called for a developed theological aesthetic which allows for us to meet God in a deeper way through our senses. Citing a text of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Garcia-Rivera showed how hearing becomes the central act in such a developed theological aesthetic. “Hearing” becomes the core act of a well-balanced theological life. While “seeing” is located in the physical world, “hearing”—especially hearing the sounds of words and music—remains evanescent.6 For Garcia-Rivera, a mystical experience “. . . prolongs another experience by deepening, purifying, clarifying, transcending, and crowning it.”7 Without the mystical, we are left without the full understanding or meaning that could exist. We can neither fully see, nor fully hear, the otherness of the divine without a fully developed sense for the mystical. This mystical or contemplative sense comes from the development of our spiritual disciplines in a deep, all-engaging way, allowing our seeing and hearing to go beyond our physical eyes and ears but to the soul of the believer who is ready to hear and see the otherness of God. The development of our listening in prayer with our whole being becomes the foundation of our faith and the wellspring out of which flows our spirituality. This listening begins with intentional times of silence where our spirit and soul connect with God.
As our soul learns to hear God in the intentional silences which we seek, we are transformed by this silence. This transformation allows us to reach a deeper connection with God, a connection which goes beyond words and therefore must be expressed in a theology that is not simply content with words. Dionysius the Areopagite addressed the Trinity by saying, “Lead us beyond unknowing and light . . . where the mysteries of God’s Word lie simple, absolute, and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence. . . . Amid the wholly unsensed and unseen they completely fill our sightless minds with treasures beyond all beauty.”8 For the soul to grow beyond the verbal expressions of the mind, it must be bathed in the silence of God, wherein God speaks beyond words to reveal beauty to us. Out of this beauty, we grow toward a theology which is expressed in the arts, in all their varied forms.
Seeking both physical and spiritual space to experience the silence of God, Roger Louis Shutz-Marsauche, later known as Brother Roger, left his homeland of Switzerland in 1940 to move to the tiny village of Taizé, in Burgundy, France. Living alone there in an old farm house, he began to develop a simple life around silence and service. As others joined the community, their lives immediately centered on great simplicity. Brother Roger became the first Prior of the Brothers.9 Immediately, there were some foundational ideas that he wanted to instill in the community.
When Brother Roger authored “The Rule of Taizé,” he set out to give guiding principles for the common life of the Brothers. One of his first contacts with Americans came through a contact with American Quakers. Their example and use of silence touched him and had a lasting impact upon him.10 He encouraged his Brothers to maintain interior silence so that they could dwell in Christ. He believed that interior silence made possible their conversation with Jesus Christ. These moments were to be communal as well as individual. Within the three daily prayers of the Community, he believed that the balance of their lives would be conditioned by their attention to the worship and to silence. He held that these moments renewed the spirit of the Brothers. From this intentional silence, the life of the community began to flow from the very beginning.11
Over time, the Community of Taizé began to draw young people from all over the world. It was not the original aim of Brother Roger, but somehow young people began to come in increasing numbers to Taizé to spend a few days or even a few months among them. The worship and silence seemed to draw them. As Brother Jean-Marie of Taizé once said “The church is the center of Taizé . . . [I]t’s at the center of our life and it’s the most important thing we share in the meetings here.”12 Three times each day, the Brothers of Taizé and all who are visiting them are welcomed into the Church of the Reconciliation. These gatherings are called simply “morning prayer,” “midday prayer,” and “evening prayer.” Once the Brothers and visitors are gathered inside the church, the time is filled with simple songs, scripture readings, and silence. It is the silence which is the climax of the liturgy. One might ask how a time of gathering, with crowds numbering more than 4,000 people some weeks, might reach its high point in eight to ten minutes of total silence. It is because this time of silence is prepared and intentional. It is at the heart of this community.
Brother John of Taizé, in his publication A Thirst For Silence, states that, for young people, the time of silence experienced during prayer gives a sense of inner freedom. During the silence, they are not compelled to follow any external directions but are left free to let new ideas and unexpected longings stir. Young people often remark that it is a time to find inner silence and focus on that which is truly important.13 Brother John maintains that “these young people are discovering in the experience of silence a dimension of gratuitousness, of just being.”14 This allows them to begin the journey of realizing that their being must precede their doing—that the true quality of human activity is rooted in an inner life based on who they truly are before God.15
The French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément became a friend of Brother Roger and of the Community of Brothers at Taizé in the 1990s. He described Taizé as a place where the power of prayer is experienced and lived out in a unique and simple way. He believed that to extract true and sincere prayer, the believer must first put away all verbosity and experience silence. He saw that young people happily gathered to learn to pray by practicing in silence at Taizé.16
Clément described this as “a silence that is inhabited.”17 This is not a worldly, negative silence that is viewed as something to fill with noise, but it is rather a silence which is intentional and seeks to be inhabited by something of God. This “inhabited silence” is at the core of the Taizé community. This silence then becomes the wellspring of the life of the Brothers of Taizé.
Clément identified three themes at Taizé: reconciliation among Christians, evangelization of young people, and promotion of creativity within Christianity.18 All three of these elements are grounded in the deep and meaningful silence of the community of Taizé. It is this silence which serves as the foundation for their aesthetic theology because it is this silence which allows the Brothers to explore their understanding of God through the arts.
The powerful juxtaposition of simplicity and beauty was important to Brother Roger. He once wrote, “The spirit of poverty does not consist in looking poverty-stricken, but in arranging everything with imagination, in creation’s simple beauty.”19 The idea of “simple beauty” became a kind of mantra for Brother Roger and then, by his example, a foundational concept for the Brothers. This simple beauty became evident in their way of life and in the work they undertook as theologians and as artists.
The Community of Taizé believes that out of their silence, people are able to see God as the source of simple beauty. This beauty, which is expressed in the created world, has a powerful impact on us. This beauty is not accidental, but is the direct action of God. In the community of Taizé, God’s revelation through beauty is a foundational concept.
Brother Stephen, as a trained visual artist, sees God’s creativity in the community of Taizé, where he has lived for thirty years. In his home country, the United Kingdom, he studied art education. He explained how Brother Roger sought to encourage the creativity of the Brothers from the beginning. Brother Roger was himself a gifted writer. Many in the community still follow his example and write both prose and poetry. Brother Roger had a gift for seeing the hidden talents of the Brothers. Brother Stephen explained that during one Christmas season, in the early days of the community, children orphaned by World War II were living at Taizé because of Brother Roger’s concern for them. He asked Brother Daniel to go into the neighboring town of Cluny to buy clay and to help the children make Christmas cribs or crèches. Brother Daniel, who had no background with clay, followed Brother Roger’s creative instructions and began working with the children.20 This simple Christmas craft would forever change Brother Daniel’s life.
Brother Daniel began to develop both an interest and talent for working with clay. Today, Brother Daniel, who is in his 90s, has become a world-renowned master potter. His glazes are made of ash from straw or different kinds of wood, and in this way he uses things which might have otherwise been thrown away. Through his work and creativity, he has become a kind of alchemist who is able to create beauty from ashes. Brother Daniel’s foray into the world of pottery gave birth to the industry from which the Brothers now draw their primary financial support. It is also this artistic expression which involves the largest numbers of the Brothers today.21 As they form the clay, they see how God has shaped them and others. Out of their reflection on their own creation, they must imagine how God has crafted their Community.
Another of the Brothers, Brother Eric, studied to be an artist. He expressed concern to Brother Roger upon his entry into the Community. He asked if one could be both a Brother and a trained artist. Brother Roger said that having a trained and practicing professional artist would be a new experience at that point in the life of the Community. He said that they would live it and experience it together to see how it might work. The results were wonderful.22
Out of the powerful silence of Taizé, Brother Eric went on to design much of the stained glass windows of the church. Along the right wall, they represent the festivals of the Christian year: the Annunciation, the Magnificat, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Transfiguration. In addition to this, Brother Eric—along with an American woman—created the Tiffany-inspired stained glass of the Garden of Eden, above one of the street-side entrances. He was also responsible for the bold uses of color on the walls of the church, a mixture of lemon yellow and red creating the orange for which Taizé has become known.23
The church building itself is an expression of the artistic talents of Brother Denis, who studied to be an architect. This innovative structure, in a style influenced by French architect Le Corbusier, was a bold and daring structure for such a small provincial French village. With its large concrete supports and straight angles, this unusual structure was meant to appeal to the senses through its use of light and space, color and texture. The plans for the church were simply Brother Denis’s final project for his degree; however, Brother Roger encouraged its use for their new church.24 The Church of the Reconciliation has become an iconic representation of the Community.
Brother Stephen collaborates with the other Brothers and volunteers to provide visual arts in the community, as well as the different sites for the Taizé annual “European meetings” held in other cities each year in December. In many locations where these meeting are held, he and a team of volunteers arrive in empty spaces, such as a convention center, where their challenge is to create sacred space out of a secular space. They are called to create the sacred out of silence. They pray in silence, then seek God’s direction. Then they begin to create. It is out of their common experience in silence that their creativity flows.25
Brother Roger’s encouragement of artistic expression extended to all of the Brothers and then beyond that to all who would come into contact with the community. The examples given here of the creative genius of the Brothers serve to illustrate a core Taizé belief that all Christians are called to give creative expressions of beauty in their lives of faith. Out of their intentional silence, the Brothers produce beauty and encourage others to do the same. In these expressions, they see God and help others to experience God through their mind, heart, and senses.
Many examples of the simple beauty of the Brothers of Taizé are found in their common prayers. It is seen in their music, in the icons, in the colors of its church, and in the way those who worship are welcomed through their senses into a world of discovering God. During times of collective silence, the Brothers of Taizé appeal to the sense of sight as one that reveals God. Behind the altar of their church are simple red bricks typically used to line a chimney flue. These are stacked in a seemingly random way, with small votive candles burning in many of them. The idea was a fusion of inspiration by Brother Marc and Brother Denis. The former was inspired by the ways he had seen these kinds of lights used in India. The latter was inspired by their use in the catacombs of Rome, where they are placed in burial niches. These lights serve as a kind of on-going witness of faith.26 The use of candles and light draws people into another sensory experience inside the church—one that draws those who pray to contemplate their individual light and Jesus as the light of the world.
Icons are placed on each side of the altar. They are meant to appeal to the senses of the visitor in a way that helps them see and experience the Christian story and the glory of God. Many of these icons were painted by Brother Eric in the 1950s and 1960s. He was not a trained iconographer, but simply had a period where he began to experiment with them. The icon to the left of the altar was painted by Brother Eric, inspired by an icon of Mary by Vladimir, called the Icon of Tenderness. This icon conveys a sense of tenderness between Mary and Jesus; a tenderness between God and humanity.27 On the right side of the altar is an icon of the cross. It is very similar to and perhaps inspired by the cross of Saint Damiano, before which Saint Francis of Assisi was praying when God called him to rebuild the church. On Fridays, during the evening prayer, following a time of corporate silence, the cross is placed on the floor for people to touch while praying. This sensory act of touching the cross allows those who pray to experience their prayers and their connection with God in a physical way.28 As they pray, their pain intersects with the beauty of the icon, which allows their senses to guide them to a deeper understanding of God’s presence in their distress.
Brother Stephen described these icons as “moving festivals.”29 Great care is given not to have too many images, as too many might detract from the power of those which are there. Alejandro Garcia-Rivera says that theological aesthetics center upon our capacity to know and to love the unknowable, to name that which has no name, and to make visible that which is invisible.30 Through the use of color, light, and icons, the Brothers of Taizé aid their community in seeing what is Unseen. Their appeal to the senses during silence is not limited to sight.
When people think of Taizé, they think of the music of Taizé. Much of the music of Taizé has found its way around the world, into the worship of very many Christians. In the daily prayers at Taizé, music draws the community together in a powerful way. Brother Jean-Marie, who works with others to coordinate the liturgy and to compose some of the music, shares that, for him, “Music and life go together. They’ve always gone together. Music gives us life. It helps us tap into something that’s really vital.”31 The music at Taizé is powerful because it helps condition the soul to enter into the time of silence, allowing it to be a prepared silence. When the music stops and the silence begins, it is all the more amplified because of the preparation the music has allowed. Following the silence, the singing of the Community is further grounded by this collective listening experience.
In an interview, Brother Jean-Marie explained how the arts in Taizé serve the Community’s greater goal of the reconciliation of Christians. He first mentioned Brother Roger’s mantra of “simple beauty” as a driving force and inspiration for the Brothers. He continued by saying, “There’s a certain use of the arts . . . which can draw people together, and which can be extraordinarily helpful in putting people on the same footing.”32 He described how Serbian groups had been instrumental in introducing the Brothers to some of their music, which was well known to the Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian Orthodox. The Brothers began to introduce this music into their daily prayers. There were times when, in the context of these prayers, Serbians would find themselves next to Croatians who were singing along, as well. The music of Taizé draws people, sometimes enemies, together in a common prayer.33
Common silence is the foundation by which the senses are fine-tuned to experience God in beauty. This beauty is powerful enough within the music to move those who are strangers to become fellow travelers on the journey of faith. This beauty is bold enough to allow people to recognize their shared humanity with those they might have otherwise ignored. This beauty is strong enough to allow those from enemy nations to come together in song and praise the same God.
The Brothers of Taizé represent an incredibly creative and inspiring group of theologians and artists. It is their dedication to individual and corporate silence that is at the core of their aesthetic. This wellspring serves as a foundation for their lives and inspires not only these Brothers but all who visit them. Out of silence their aesthetic creations speak to the world about God.
NOTES
- Michael Hayes, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Evangelicals.” http://bonhoeffernowandthen.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/theology-begins-in-silence, (accessed on September 8, 2013).
- Susan Rokoczy, “The Witness of Community Life: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and the Taizé Community,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 127 (Mach 2007), 45-57.
- Don E. Saliers, Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 88.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, The Community of the Beautiful (Collegeville.: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 83.
- Ibid, 86.
- Louis Dupré and James A. Wiseman, OSB (eds), Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 86.
- Brother Roger, Brother Roger of Taizé: Essential Writings, ed. Marcello Findanzio (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2006), 25-26.
- Brother Jean-Marie, interview by author (July 19, 2012), Taizé, France, digital mp3 recording, “La Morada” building at the Taizé Community.
- Brother Roger, The Rule of Taizé (Taizé: Les Presses de Taizé, 1965), 32-36.
- Brother Jean-Marie, interview by author.
- Brother John, “A Thirst for Silence: The Taizé Experience” in Silence, ed. Diego Irarrazaval, Andrés Torres-Queiruga, Mile Babic and Felix Wilfred (London: SCM Press, 2015), 82-83.
- Ibid, 83.
- Ibid.
- Olivier Clément, Taizé: A Meaning to Life (Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc., 1997), 20-21.
- Ibid, 53.
- Ibid, 30.
- Brother Roger, Essential Writings, 36.
- Brother Stephen, interview by author, July 23, 2012, Taizé, France, digital mp3 recording, later corrections by Brother Jean-Marie via email with author.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Garcia-Rivera, Community, 74.
- Brother Jean-Marie, interview by author.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
Taizé Community. Church of the Reconciliation. Stained glass window. The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Photo by: Godong/UIG via Getty Images)
