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Professor Wolterstorff says that "dialogue is the mark of the engagement of persons who are in full possession of their personhood." I would suggest that this sort of engagement requires not just that we "look at" one another, as self-possessed subjects, but that we be fully present to one another. Many forms of dialogue fall short of this. Contemplative seeing, as I characterize it, involves an openness and receptivity—it allows for a "presencing "—that, I would argue, is a condition for any genuinely dialogical encounter. Rather than excluding dialogue, contemplation could be said to nourish it (while art and music provide the occasion for, and nourish, contemplation). Perhaps liturgy has—or needs to have—two axes: the dialogical and the contemplative. I am reminded, in this context, of Paul Ricoeur's reflections on what he terms manifestation and proclamation. Neither can do without the other. One heeds the call as well as the exhortation to behold (where the beholding issues in praise). It was a happy coincidence that our exchange took place on the first Sunday after Easter. While I am no biblical exegete (any more than I am a lexicographer), I have always been struck by the complex interweaving of seeing and speaking—of dialogue, spectacle, and wonder—in the post-resurrection narratives, especially in the Gospels of Luke and John (I want to thank William Porter for reminding me of this). The women see the empty tomb, and are "perplexed" (Luke 24:4; all quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version). Peter sees the linen wrappings, and is "amazed" (Luke 24:12). John "saw and believed" (John 20:8-9). In Luke's account, the women see two men "in dazzling clothes" who reminded them of what they had been told. They convey these words to the apostles, who do not believe them (24:41; "for as yet they did not understand the scripture," John 20:9). In John's account Mary sees Jesus, and yet does not see him until he speaks her name. Only then does she declare, "I have seen the Lord" (20:14-18). On the road to Emmaus two of the apostles encounter Jesus, "but their eyes were kept from recognizing him" (Luke 24:16). They tell him what has happened, and he rebukes them for not understanding what the scriptures had foretold all along (24:17-27). Jesus' own interpretation of these sayings does not yet enable them to see the truth, or recognize his divinity. It was not until he "was at the table with them...took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them" that "their eyes were opened, and they recognized him" (24:30-31). Only then did they realize that "their hearts were burning...while he was talking to them on the road," and that it was indeed the Lord who had been "opening the scriptures" to them. What these remarkable passages suggest to me is that "seeing the Lord" is not the same as setting eyes upon him. Neither are listening and understanding—knowing what is being said, and who is speaking—the same as hearing the words. In Luke's account, the apostles are told, they are spoken to directly, and yet they neither see nor hear. Their eyes must somehow be opened. Even where there is dialogue, there must still be revelation. In the prologue to John's Gospel the Word is also "the light" (John was the one who saw the divinity of Christ in the emptiness of the tomb). How this revelation comes about—what occasions it—remains a mystery. Perhaps this could serve as a formula, if not a model, for thinking about liturgy. According to Professor Wolterstorff, the aim of liturgy "is not contemplation by human persons of the divine but dialogue and sacramental engagement among persons human and divine." The latter is indispensable. But one must still see something in the encounter, and hear something in the words. This is what (I think) music "makes visible." It is something that is indeed worthy of contemplation. |
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