Psalm 42:1 As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.
During college, I had the extraordinary experience of singing in our university choir, prodded into submission and good music by Dr. Robert Delcamp. Under his sometimes frightening and always stimulating tutelage, I learned much about the beauty of holiness. On Sunday mornings, tired and hot in my cassock, slumped resentfully in my pew before rehearsal, I would wonder why I had joined the choir in the first place. Then, the organ would begin, Dr. Delcamp would raise his arms, and the fifty or sixty sleepy, rumpled teenagers in the choir would rise. Suddenly, as a group, we would produce music that could be so beautiful that it seemed at times to come from somewhere else—certainly not from us.
I learned about prayer through music in that choir, which helped me understand prayer through walking, writing icons, and other ways of praying that can take one to a place beyond words.
