It's been challenging lately for me to articulate many things when it comes to God, church, religion, and ideas/feelings about all of the above. Reading this today, I thought, "yeah, I can say that."
RLP said:
"I pray out of a desire to communicate with the Creator of all that is. I have a desire to become more aware of the constant presence of God in the world. Yes, I have this crazy hope that praying might lead me in this direction. However, I'm not looking for quick fixes or even to feel good on some specific day. Even this very healthy desire can become an idol if I only pray to achieve some kind of enlightenment."
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Grace and I just took part in a conference on Ecology and Christianity. It was a grueling 4.5 days. You know, I have had three years of theology training and I still didn't pick up on this fact, something I learned at the conference:
Pantheism is worship of nature. It says that God IS nature, is matter/energy. This concept, as you might guess, irks most Christians (and me, for that matter).
PanENtheism is God IN all things. Meaning, God is everywhere, God can be seen anywhere at anytime if you are only looking. Most Christians are queasy about this one as well. Too close to New Age, they say. Why can't we just stick to the basics, they say. (I have been comfortable with this for a while.) HOWEVER, the funny thing is, panENtheism is as orthodox as can be! Yeah, we have another name for it.
It's normally called OMNIPRESENCE. DUH, I said to myself!
RLP's prayer reminded me very much of that very much of this much maligned and forgotten resource.
(I especially like panentheism when I am in the Redwoods!)
Matt
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