Taize services offer time to contemplate, reflect

When Lois Eells first attended a Taize worship service several years ago, she wasn't impressed.

The services were held during the Christmas season at her church and the traditional chants or songs were done by the choir.

“I just didn't take to it that well,” said Eells, 86.

Last month her church, Lovely Lane United Methodist Church, 2424 42nd St. NE, in Cedar Rapids, brought the Taize worship service back, offering it as an alternative opportunity to worship on Thursday evenings.

Now Eells is a regular participant.

“I don't think the service has changed, I think it's more likely that I have,” Eells said. “This service really speaks to my inner self.”

Taize services - worship services designed to be more contemplative and reflective - are gaining momentum in Eastern Iowa among different denominations and faith groups.

Taize services are named for the small community in Burgundy, France, where a group of monks started the practice in the 1940s. Three times a day the men are called to prayer by the chiming of bells; the service includes candlelight, prayers,

readings, moments of silence and soft repetitive music.

The community is still active, and thousands of religious faithful make the pilgrimage to France for a weeklong Taize retreat.

The Rev. Kristin Hutson, chaplain at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, took a group of students and made her first retreat in March.

“In the actual Taize, in France, there is no interpretation in the service, there is no message or sermon,” said Hutson, 42.

“You sit with the scripture, you sit with the songs, you sit with the quiet time.”

“You are challenged to spend time individually with God during moments of silence, but that time is encapsulated by community singing together, hearing the word read, and you're physically close to people the entire time,” she said.

“You feel connected as a community, yet at the same time you're having this personal worship time.”

Hutson said she's experienced Taize in various ways over the past several years and has always liked the worship because of its reflective and personal nature. Visiting the community made her realize that “Taize isn't just a way of worshipping, it's a way of living.”

Members of the campus ministry at Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City and the group Soul Friends have for the last 12 years offered a Taize service at Old Brick in Iowa City on Sunday evenings.

“We were looking ... for alternative forms of worship that were not solely based on one denomination,” said John Cowan, a lay leader with Trinity Episcopal Church and campus ministry coordinator for the Taize community.

“We looked at doing Taize because it is accepted by a variety of different faiths.”

Although predominantly a Christian practice, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists  have used Taize because it follows a similar pattern to the reflection and contemplation in their faith traditions.

Cowan said that when he is expected to deliver one of the readings, he sometimes reads from the Quran or other non-Christian resources, despite his Christian affiliation.

“We don't just stick with Christian biblical text, although we do still use it,” he said.

“It lets the other faith traditions come in, and provides a better understanding of each.”

One of the benefits of Taize worship is the sense of peace that comes with each service, said Sister Ann Jackson, at Prairiewoods in Hiawatha.

“The concept is to bring reconciliation to any situation,” she said.

“That sense of peace that comes with Taize can be an individual peace or peace for an entire community. That's what makes it universal, everybody's looking for a more peaceful state of being.”