I'd been off all day. A bit crabby, a bit impatient. It was a struggle to force myself out the door this morning. I felt overcharged and underwhelmed at the exhibit/institute I toured. I fed myself a burger and fries for lunch and that helped a bit.

But what really helped was a healthy dose of Evensong.

The 5:30 p.m. service at the Christchurch Transitional Cathedral was the first Evensong service I'd attended during daylight hours. Evensong is an end-of-working-day service of the Anglican Church, familiar to me as I was raised in the Episcopal Church, America's version of the Anglican. It is reminiscent of the times when churches or monasteries/ convents held two or three services a day. While travelling in England and Scotland, I'd been introduced to Evensong and attended a few fall services in the black of night, surrounded by thick stone walls and candles in chilly, dark cathedrals. Here in the southern hemisphere, about as far from Britain as you can get, I was in a temporary, "cardboard" cathedral with a translucent roof (the landmark stone cathedral is being repaired after the 2010-2011 earthquakes). The space felt light, both visually, with glimpses of daylight, and viscerally, in terms of mass.

I arrived to hear the choir rehearsing a few minutes prior to the service, and already the sound was so beautiful, tears welled up in my eyes. Evensong is a service sung by a choir, traditionally a boys choir but this evening it was a girls choir supported by a small chorus of adult males. The acoustics were breathtaking. The laminated cardboard tubes and their curved shape must blend the right amounts of resonance and absorption. To hear prayer set to music and presented in that space with the clarity and purity of the youngsters' voices was to hear the angels themselves. A Psalm was sung in a traditional sort of arrangement, as was the Lords Prayer, but other prayers were sung in somewhat modern arrangements. To me, it all opened a direct channel to the divine, to the spirit of existence. The space was radically transformed into a holy space, through song.

We in attendance had very little to do, except a few stand-up/sit-downs and amens. That was good, because I was awestruck and beyond any sort of rigorous performance. It was good to just sit and absorb every, every moment of these truly heavenly voices.

It was all over in 30 minutes. Just a touchstone at the end of the day, to connect back into spirit, but if you are lucky enough to have a church choir around to help out, it becomes even more transcendent. My heart ached from the beauty of it as I walked out the door. Evensong deserves a comeback, I think.