"A Masterly Instrument"

From Evelyn Underhill's 1936 book, Worship, in the chapter titled "Liturgy a Work of Art":

A certain restraint, a sense of style, is characteristic of all good liturgical action; for it exists to express the common worship of the family, not the fervour of the individual soul. Therefore the individual who prays from within the liturgy has to sacrifice something of his own will and feeling to the corporate movement; must submit to the ritual discipline, and lose his own prayer in that of the fellowship, if he is to "understand by dancing that which is being done." But on the other hand, there are great compensations. If his religious preferences and enthusiasms are checked, and subordinated to "liturgical good manners," his reserves are respected too. The Christian liturgy, as Guardini has said, is "a masterly instrument which has made it possible for us to express our inner life in all its fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets . . . we can pour out our hearts, and still feel that nothing has been dragged to light which should remain hidden."

I'm very interested in the idea that the Liturgy is "a masterly instrument which has made it possible for us to express our inner life in all its fullness and depth, without divulging our secrets . . . we can pour out our hearts, and still feel that nothing has been dragged to light which should remain hidden." I think this is why the liturgical churches have produced such great art, and the non-liturgical sects haven't, for the most part; the shepherding of secrets and the "reserve" of emotion (and the discipline involved) make it possible to "pour out our hearts" into art.

Reminiscent of Flaubert's admonition to "Be regular and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you can be violent and original in your work."

Another interesting thread in the "emotion/religion" linkage. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to research, myself; another was de Caussade's "God instructs the heart; not by ideas but through pains and contradictions." These are such fascinating topics for research projects, I think! We've come to a place where science has become so powerful that it is forgetting the importance of simple human wisdom. Wisdom requires a "big picture" view, though; this is what is disappearing. Science is particularizing everything, even itself. There are no generalists anymore, because scientific disciplines have become too deep and too technical for one person to understand a great deal in a broad way.

The "big picture" isn't possible in science anymore, and the vast amount of information around now is making it difficult to see the large view in any area. But we need to connect with wisdom from the past, and then write our own, in continuation. This is why the Bible is important, still. And so is The Illiad and The Odyssey, and Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

Meantime, I'll try to find if there's any existing research on either of these topics and will publish it. Religion and its connection to art via emotion and psychology is one of the very most interesting topics to me in the world.