The Cosmic Mass
Cosmic Mass Theology
The Cosmic Mass: A
New Home for an Ancient Ritual
The Cosmic Mass has been up and running for eight years in
Oakland, California. The idea came from young Anglicans in Sheffield,
England who
were connecting their positive experiences of rave dancing with the
western
liturgy. In the United States the first American Masses were held
in Jerry
Brown's auditorium attached to his community house near the waterfront
at
Jack London Square in Oakland. For the past five years its
home has been
at Historic Sweet's Ballroom at the Bart Station on 19th and
Broadway.
That ballroom was built in the 20's and sponsored many great bands
over the years.
The TCM has also traveled to other cities including Los Angeles, Seattle,
Boulder, Colorado, Houston, New York, Louisville and the Omega Center in
upstate New York. Television crews from Rio de Janeiro, Germany, Canada and "48 Hours" have filmed the Mass and shown it on TV (except for "48 hours" which has not shown it but did film it).
The philosophy behind the TCM is simply this: Worship needs to be enlivened by paying attention in these post-modern times to the emerging post-modern language so that communities can pray together in a deep and effective fashion.
The TCM has also traveled to other cities including Los Angeles, Seattle,
Boulder, Colorado, Houston, New York, Louisville and the Omega Center in
upstate New York. Television crews from Rio de Janeiro, Germany, Canada and "48 Hours" have filmed the Mass and shown it on TV (except for "48 hours" which has not shown it but did film it).
The philosophy behind the TCM is simply this: Worship needs to be enlivened by paying attention in these post-modern times to the emerging post-modern language so that communities can pray together in a deep and effective fashion.
True prayer takes place in
the heart and not just in the head.
One language of postmodern times is the celebrative mode of rave
dancing that includes techno music, multi-media, rap and above all,
dance. Dance is an ancient way to pray (post-modern times, unlike the modern period,
does not denigrate premodern peoples but incorporates their wisdom)-in many African languages the word for "dance" is the same as the
word for "breath"which is the same as the word for "spirit." (As it is
in Hebrew.)
Dance/Breath/Spirit-that is the clue to why the TCM replaces pews with a dance floor and replaces reading with taking in the spirit while dancing and receiving lessons from images of video and slides. A brief "teaching" is usually included. The text orientation of modern worship (the modern age having begun with the invention of the printing press) gives way in the TCM to context.
Dance/Breath/Spirit-that is the clue to why the TCM replaces pews with a dance floor and replaces reading with taking in the spirit while dancing and receiving lessons from images of video and slides. A brief "teaching" is usually included. The text orientation of modern worship (the modern age having begun with the invention of the printing press) gives way in the TCM to context.
By altering the form of worship through
taking in the elements of rave celebrations three things happen: First, new life flows through the
ancient liturgical formulas and second, ravers are relieved of the drug aspect
of raves and learn they can get high on worship itself. Third, the
priesthood is not projected so exclusively onto a single minister but everyone participates in midwifing the grace of the event (no vicarious
prayer!). Because everyone dances, everyone is offering their priestly sacrifice.
A drug therapist for youth brought fifteen of her clients to a Cosmic Mass. On the way back in the van they said to her: "This is the first time in our lives we have gotten high without drugs." Getting high is everyone's right. Transcendence is everyone's need. Our souls want to travel and drink in big experiences. Worship ought to do this for us. It's difficult to affect with our noses in books be they prayer books or music books, holy or unholy books. But getting high on beauty and on dancing (and sweating) hard is ancient wisdom.
Is this truly a Mass? Of course it is. If you deconstruct the Mass, taking it apart and looking for its constituent parts, you will find that the Mass follows the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality: The Via Positiva or celebration of existence (Thomas Aquinas says this is the first dimension to Worship: To say Thank You for Creation); the Via Negativa or sorrow for sins; the Via Creativa, the blessing of wine and bread as the food of the Cosmic Christ; and the Sending Off which is the Via Transformativa. Our first 18 minute dance is during the Via Positiva, the last at the Via Transformativa wherein we receive the energy to be the spiritual warriors we need to be to transform society after we leave worship. In between there is a deep experience of shared grief (via negativa) often including wailing and lamentation and the sharing of communion (via creativa).
People who have attended the Mass over the years have said things like: "I go to raves regularly but this is what I have been looking for in raves: deep prayer, a real experience of community, spiritual depth." Or, "the most powerful part for me was the via negativa. I grieve alone in my bedroom but no one has ever invited me to grieve in a group before." Or, "this is a way I can pray with my children. Finally!" Or "I have not been to communion in twenty years but this was too beautiful not to participate and I feel so healed."
Themes for the Mass, which attracts not only many kinds of Christians but also Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Taoists, Jews, pagans and goddess people, are chosen consciously. They have included the following: The Green Man; Imagination, Dreams and Visions; the Return of the Divine Feminine (where we danced in the context of 400 images of the goddess from all the world's traditions including of course the Black Madonna and Mary from the West), the Celebration of the Sacred Masculine, Gaia (usually on Mother's Day), The African Diaspora, the Wisdom of Rumi and the Sufi Tradition, Kabbalah and the Jewish Mystical Tradition, Feast of Lights (in December), Celtic Spirituality, Flowers, Plants and Trees, the Holiness of Animals, Our Lady of Guadalupe, The Sacredness of Our Bodies and more. The themes are of
universal attraction just as dancing is and worship is. Dancing of course takes us into our lower charkas where we literally connect with the earth and so this kind of worship truly serves an ecological era.
One of the most satisfying aspects of the TCM is the coming together of young and old who work together to plan the celebration (we do one per month). Such a celebration takes up to twenty-five persons with varying talents ranging from DJ's and VJ's to rappers and electricians, carpenters and altar builders (in addition to a central altar there are usually at
least four other altars in the four corners to depict the theme of the Mass), live musicians, theologians, ritual leaders, security, graphic artists and more. A more or less "permanent" team of seven persons helps plan each Mass and contact the unique "talent" for each mass. All this work builds community and "liturgy," the "work of the people" truly happens in
the process.
Reinventing Worship has never been so much fun or so much work or so needed.
We hope the day will come when we will create a "ritual corps" wherein we will take people, many in their twenties, and request a year or two of service, train them in the theology and practice of the TCM, and send them on buses to cities all over America to ignite the fires of worship and community building.
