Lubomyr Melnyk in concert. YU as ark.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian

Following the Lubomyr Melnyk lecture at PSU on Friday, having just heard from Melnyk himself that the majority of his career has been spent playing to very small audiences, it was nice to see a sizable crowd forming at the expansive Yale Union arts complex for the artist’s evening concert.

Wandering the building’s spacious and vaulted upper floor, and pacing through its various enclaves, I found myself in a unique position to both engage socially, and detach for intervals of roving solitude, an opportunity typically not afforded patrons of other lovely but less spacially endowed arts venues.

I also found time in the course of the evening to lie down on the floor, taking in the sights and soaring sounds of Melnyk’s undulating compositions from the perspective of the worn, wooden floors of this former laundry building.

Through my wandering and lying down stretched out I was able to reap the unspoken rewards of attending these types of subtle meditative events. Through thought meanderings and reflections of all kinds, the mind is given a chance to unwind, easing symptoms of the day-to-day, and giving the brain a much needed break from common strains of information deluge.

On one occasion while wandering, I was having a familiar interior monologue about the ways in which people’s sense for the spiritual seems to be evolving. I began to liken the building’s cavernous interior to that of a modernist church, a stark, concrete and wooden ark (to use a Christian metaphor). I even noticed how the large wooden beams overhead resembled a giant cross.

To be clear, these metaphors and symbols have nothing to do with my identifying with the Christian faith, or having any desire to see its numbers grow. I am not a Christian (except perhaps in the loose anthropological sense promoted by Mircea Eliade.) What I am saying is that, as part of my own peculiar mental landscape, these images and symbols have taken on an altered meaning. They speak strongly as metaphor.

To liken this concert (featuring a modern composer performing at a center for contemporary art) to a church gathering is only to draw attention to the analogous climate of solemnity and reverence. But reverence for what? This is a question often waged at the newly appearing “atheist churches” cropping up in cities throughout the U.S. and Great Britain.

Though I can’t answer the question (but for myself), what I did note at YU was that many of the desired effects one might look for in a church service (solemnity, tranquility, reverence, shared experience, a balance of anonymity and sociability, transcendence, a welcome distraction, inspiring speech) were all available without evoking any of the conventional flavors of god issuing from the world’s popular religions.

Instead, there was a tranquil atmosphere, a shared sense of knowing, a container for the private landscapes of individuals to flourish in.

Richard Rorty, an influential American philosopher who in his later life preferred to be seen as an “anti-clericalist” rather than an atheist, nonetheless envisioned a future for religion—if not for himself, at least for others who experience more of a ‘religious impulse’ than he did.

The religion of the future, according to Rorty, would emphasize the private spirituality of individuals, avoiding the tendency toward universality. Arguably all matters of ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ are highly private and individualized even in the more dogmatic realms of institutional religion. In a sense, there really is no religion but a religion of one’s own.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian

Melnyk’s last song was a lengthy one, with a memorable theme that developed slowly atop one of the composer’s signature “continuous” streams of arpeggios. He had indicated that for his final piece (as in an earlier one) he would play overtop a recording he had made of himself playing the same piano earlier that evening. He emphasized the importance of making the prerecording on the day of the event (and using the same piano) to ensure consistency, and also to establish the nowness of the gesture.

Admittedly, it was difficult for me to discern the prerecording from the live playing while lying on my back staring at the ceiling, but the distinction was far from my mind. Instead my mind was flooded with the content of my own psyche.

At a point, it seemed possible (though I’m cautious of projecting) that being amidst this thought-full crowd, a certain unspoken appreciation was being channelled. A thankfulness (foremost) for the beautiful music and for the evening's tranquil ambiance, but also for being among the beneficiaries of yet another magical visitation, this time by Melnyk, one of the most recent to pass through Portland’s revolving door of sublimity.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian