“Their practice did not involve being outside in the sun, like you’re describing, which is, after all, where you begin to feel better. There was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again when you’re depressed, and you’re low, and you need to have your blood flowing. There was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy. There was no acknowledgment that the depression is something invasive and external that could actually be cast out of you again. Instead, they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to get them to leave the country.” (Andrew Solomon, “Notes on an Exorcism,” Esquire, February 28, 2014)

This quote is from Andrew Solomon’s story about seeking tribal customs and practices to help treat and manage depression. He was treated by a shamanic woman in Senegal. It was a day long ceremony involving being naked, goat’s blood, drumming, community, and food. Not the kind of treatment I would prefer, but Andrew says that it was very effective.

The speaker in the quote above is a Rwandan that Andrew met up with some five years later. The Rwandan spoke of their ceremonies compared to their failed attempts with western treatments. Andrew shared his experience and the citation is the response from the one he had met in Rwanda. I certainly know that there are many different approaches to treatment of depression, but that’s not where I am going with this.

Here’s my spin on it. This is about worship at its best.

• It should be outside – or at least in a bright open space.
• There is engaging music, movement, and whole-self involvement to get your blood flowing.
• There is/can be a sense that everyone has taken this time off to be in community to worship and to lift each other up.
• There is an acknowledgment that some things are external to us and that what is internal is strength, peace, love, and the holy mystery of being.
• A communal meal is always a great connecting of people with people.

Wow! A paradigm for worship that is exciting and builds on what we already do. I read an article in the New York Times (Sunday, March 16) about a Jewish Rabbi in New York who promotes “performance” in worship. This is a performance of dynamic storytelling or as he likes to call it “storahtelling.” The Torah means the Law and/or the first five books of the Bible. These are some of the greatest stories and demand a powerful retelling. “Worship,” the Rabbi says, “needs to come alive with power to transform.”

Worship is to be dynamic, engaging of the whole person, highly communal (and more often than not should include a meal), musical and moving. You can help! Do have an interest in readers’ theatre, drama, meal planning/organizing, dance, or music? Other forms of visual and graphic arts that engage our senses? Don’t hold back. Share with me your wild and wacky ideas as we seek to make worship ever more engaging and transforming. [email protected]