The music coming from the chapel

Recently I was given a gift of one of Paulo Coelho's books-"Like the Flowing River." It is a series of thoughts and reflections, short pieces written between 1998 and 2005. I have enjoyed many of Coelho's novels and was looking forward to dipping into this. I have not been disappointed.

His style is simple but poetic but, much more importantly, his insights are often profound.

One of the pieces entitled "The music coming from the chapel" describes an incident when Coelho come across a hermitage in the middle of a wood near Azereix in southern France. As he enters the usually-closed building he finds a young woman playing guitar and singing. He describes it as "an unforgettable moment in my life, the kind of awareness we often only have once the magic moment has passed." In fact for him it becomes a moment of revelation and deeply-felt worship.

When I read this particular story it reminded me of a very similar feeling which I had on one of my trips to Venice. I cannot remember whether it was in 2003 or 2004. I was with my youngest daughter, Heather, and we were indulging ourselves in a kind of photographic feast, shooting off dozens of rolls of film. One of the places I wanted to visit was the Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli (The Church of the Miracles.) It is a beautiful little marble jewel of a church, built between 1481 and 1489. Unlike St. Mark's and some of the other major tourist attractions it is never swamped by boatloads of day-trippers, partly because it is almost hidden away in a residential part of the Canareggio.

We paid the small entry fee and stepped inside this little marble wonder.

I think there were only a couple of other people inside the building at the time, apart from the person at the entrance desk. There was a hushed and reverent silence.

I was walking slowly up the steep stairs towards the high altar when suddenly this magnificent tenor voice burst out in song: I think it may have been a Monteverdi psalm. I turned round to see the source of this 'music from the chapel' and there stood the slightly bulky figure of a man with a magnificently bushy beard. When he came to the end of the psalm he simply turned and walked out of the building again. I felt exactly the same feelings as Coelho describes in his essay "a state of worship and ecstasy, and gratitude for being alive." Just a fleeting moment, yet it felt timeless. Music has often that had effect on me but in that particular place at that particular time, the effect was almost overwhelming. My own little personal 'miracle,' a sign to me of the spiritual world in the midst of this world.

A short while afterwards when Heather and I left the church we saw the man again, talking to someone else. As we walked past I was surprised to hear him speaking in English and I could not help overhearing him as he told his listener that he was the conductor of a choir from England and he was in the process of organising a tour. He was looking for venues where they might perform. I don't know who he was, or what choir he was talking about, all I know is that in that particular moment, and in that special place, his voice touched something deep inside of me. Coelho has expressed that moment perfectly: "In the simplicity of that small chapel.... in the morning light that filled everything, I understood once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things."