John Michael Talbot listens for one note

Musician says ministry must be rooted in prayer, in silence

- WCR photo by Glen Argan John Michael Talbot says life, as well as music, is formed by playing one note

By GLEN ARGAN
WCR Editor
Sherwood Park

"In order to play many notes, you need to play one note. And in order to play one note, you need to play many notes well.

"It's not only true of music, it's true of life."

John Michael Talbot plays one note on his guitar and lets that note pass into silence. Then he plays it again. Again, he sits still until that note disappears.

"Today we live in a world that is very noisy. Music is very noisy.

"Now, that music that is in my heart, I can't hear it anymore."

Talbot, perhaps the leading Catholic recording artist of our day, last year released his 50th album. But he says he is not busy, . . . he does very little, spending most of his time in reclusion. He is, in effect, trying to hear one note.

"I hope my music is not prayer, but a musical icon that leads people into prayer. . . .

"In order to make Christian music properly, we need to hear everything in that one note."

Talbot spoke and played a few songs May 13 for more than 160 people at a morning workshop at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church here. He is currently on tour in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Through prayer and meditation, he says, "you can begin to find that peace and harmony within and you can go through life bringing that peace and harmony to everyone you meet."

The wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures says, "The key to wisdom is silence."

Through prayer, "you learn to be a man or a woman of few words.

"We want to speak, but we also want to know where silence is."

"There is a correlation between the one note and the one word. And the one word is Jesus.

"Jesus is proclaiming all the time even if he is silent. He is ministering all the time."

Sung into being

Many traditions say God created the cosmos with music, "that he sung creation into being."

But harmony is lacking. While only Christianity has a doctrine of original sin, all religions say, "We know something is out of whack."

If the original harmony remained, we would not need religion to get us back on track, Talbot says. "Religion" means to bind, to bring back together.

Prayer and meditation help to restore harmony. Through prayer, we begin to see all that is good in life as well as the things that need to be fixed or to be let go.

"A certain kind of Christianity" so over-emphasizes sin that it loses sight that humans are created in the image and likeness of God.

Talbot quoted Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ as saying, "If you are holy inside, all you can see outside is holiness. And if you are unholy inside, all you can see outside is unholiness."

The Eastern fathers, he said, knew that "You become what you think."

Leap into mystery

As well, all good religions lead us into mystery. "They all make the jump beyond logic and objectivity into pure mystery.

"One way to get to the deeper truth is through paradox, through mystery."

Paradox, he said, is an apparent contradiction that leads to a deeper truth. For example:

• We do the greatest ministry through silence and stillness.
• "You learn the deepest knowledge when you 'unknow' what you think you know."
• If you want to learn who you are, lose your very self.

"You find that paradox through private prayer."

Talbot taught the group to meditate using the Jesus Prayer - "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" - stressing the importance of proper posture and correct breathing.

Breathe in during the first half of the prayer; breathe out during the second.

It is in the letting-go of the second half of the prayer that we find our identity. It is there - in letting-go, in paradox, in silence - that ministry becomes possible.

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