When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another. - Zora Neale Hurston

I was in England last month to learn from The Young’uns—an English folk trio who write and perform social history songs about unusual heroes.

Heroes like the bereaved dads walking across the country to raise awareness about teen suicide or the story of Ghafoor Hussain who converted a bus to bring food to asylum seekers in the Mediterranean.

Sean Cooney, the lead songwriter, had a quiet clarity to him: the sense that he was doing exactly what he should be doing with his life.

He had presence.

(I long for that kind of anchored-ness. Blessed with gifts I may be, but that deep inner stillness is not one of them! I’ve got more of a road-runner spiritual vibe…)

And it was this presence that we in the room responded to. "I promise you it isn’t a cult,” said one of the regular singing weekend-attendees, a little sheepishly.

I’ve heard that tell-tale phrase so often over the years, because it immediately reveals how vital a community is for those who participate. They’re looking for words to convey the depth of meaning—the sense that this is something sacred in their life—the presence they feel. But because of the secular identity of the gathering, they don’t have access to the spiritual form to communicate it.

Which brings me to my question: What is the relationship between form and presence?

Does the form we organize our spirituality into cultivate true presence?

What if the old forms no longer hold presence, how then do we design new ones?

Within Christianity alone, there 45,000 answers available (namely, the number of denominations within that single tradition!), so the question isn’t a new one. But it feels particularly important because of the moment of religious history that we’re in.

I think of the musical Hello, Dolly!, where we hear:

Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and out
Strut down the street and have your picture took
Dressed like a dream, your spirits seem to turn around
That Sunday shine is a certain sign that you feel as fine as you look

And the clothing we wear really does change things. Speaking with a former Episcopal Bishop a few weeks ago, he explained how the liturgical vestments he wore acted as a form onto which people could place their projections. I’m paraphrasing here, but it was as if he was saying, “Because I’m wearing the cope and mitre, it isn’t so much about me having to make anything happen, as it is about letting these forms welcome in the presence.”

Last Midsummer, dressed in my antler-folk-drag, I felt the same thing. Usually I host with lots of chit-chat and hopefully some charm—but with my face transformed with makeup and pearls and dressed in solstice finery, I didn’t need to say a single word. People saw me and got it.

On the other hand, staying focused on form when presence is absent gets real tricky, real quick. Leaders who feel nothing inside but perform holiness inevitably end up hurting themselves and/or others.

Without presence, form is dead. Without form, presence is fleeting.

We can’t demand leaders only lead when they feel presence…or perhaps we can? Quakers, for example, have no ordained clergy. Their liturgy consists primarily of a silent gathering, where the congregation sits in silence meditating on their Inner Light. If one is moved to speak, they stand and do so.

There’s so much to love there. And in our anti-authoritarian culture, there’s a safety in it for spiritually-curious folks, too. But when I’ve been to Quaker services, I always end up missing the forms I look for in collective experiences—especially singing.

Which brings me back to the Young’Uns.

Here were three men: a stand-up comedian, a deputy head of a middle school, and a broadcaster/songwriter—tending the inner light of a room of 50 people who got to experience the kind of holy presence that congregational life might have done in the past. But this now in a youth hostel with songs about forgiveness and freedom and fellowship.

Presence is within and all around us. Our job is to figure out the forms to honor it.