Pray without ceasing, is one of the easiest and one of the hardest commands of scripture for me to obey. Some people are just wired to talk to the universe and believe someone is listening, and I am one of those. I have read theories that this is an evolutionary adaptation, to ascribe agency to more things rather than fewer. In this instance Type I Errors, also called "false positives" are a safer risk than Type II.
If someone wants to believe that this is all who my god is, that's fine. I think anyone who stops puzzling about the issue at that point isn't likely to be convinced by the type of testimony I would offer. I do recall finding it odd when I came alive during the Jesus movement of the 1970's that people would talk about this verse as if it was very hard. Not until years later did I conclude that it is just that all of us are not wired the same.
God exists entirely independent of my thought however, and even if most of us are wired to talk to the universe in this way it doesn't bring him into existence. Even if he put it there, it's a clue, not a proof. I believe God intentionally doesn't do proofs, pax Aquinas. Thus the hard part is "who am I talking to?" Drawing my natural tendency to talk to Someone into talking to the Creator of the universe takes more conscious effort. I hope I have done some of that and am farther along than I was. I think so. Yet we can fool ourselves so easily on such things.
So I was given a great gift, but it carries its own temptation. That seems about normal.
I've had moments of doubt, but I have a very skeptical nature. What I find hard to believe is that there are some intelligent and curious people who do NOT believe in God. Not because of faith, but because of evidence. How can an honest person conclude that there is no God? It baffles me, yet they exist.
ReplyDeleteHere's how i see it:
ReplyDeleteLikewise the Spirit also helps our weakness: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:26)
That makes it easier, I think. If we are open to the Spirit, we can grow into an awareness that it is not 'me' alone and self-sufficient, who conducts the prayer without ceasing.
It's like the old joke about someone asking directions: 'how do i get to Carnegie Hall?' 'Practice, son, practice.' We won't need directions if we do that. We will get taken there.
Once we enter into a living relationship with the 'divine ground of being' as the esteemed Voegelin puts it, and not just a set of mental propositions or constructs, we can learn, if we practice, to align our sense of being with the divine actual Being (not our idea of it), have our very identity transformed, and hitch our wagon to an unceasing communion.
As I have come to believe, we exist in a field of dynamic tension between our given sense of being human, and our Giver, the Almighty beyond the veil of mortality. The tension drives all the efforts at reductionism and ideology in order to exert control over the Giver and establish our own deity. Instead of rubbing out our dread of uncertainty, active, biblical faith engages and embraces our uncertain truth rather than certain untruth.
Thanks for stimulating my thinking, and reminding me to touch base with my Paraclete.
read Sein und Zeit and repudiate your hereditism after reading its critics.
ReplyDeleteyou're welcome.