Sunday, March 20, 2011

the omnipresence of God and alienation

This theme has been surfacing a lot during Lent. The conviction on the omnipresence of God is a deep consolation and abiding comfort which often can only be understood as an act of faith as it were. There are times when we all have an inability to relate, connect or feel imbued with His presence even during a formal service. While discipleship is a constant goal in life it can be derailed only by my own ineptitude or fatigue. I am learning in praxis the value of vigils and fasts but am grossly lazy.

God is everywhere and fillest all things at all times TRUE but it is in relation to His nature and not mine. He is inaccessible at times because I am unable to find Him within me buried beneath shortsightedness and sin. Prayer fatigue or attention deficit disorder of the major kind. So far removed from my original state that I could confuse this detachment as part of my true nature. This is a very common condition which is why I share it in this forum. I don't find it rational to pressume that talking aloud to God in my car that I am actually connecting with God. it seems more like a talking to myself in fact to think otherwise seems anthropocentric (and delusional) as if God exists in relation to me. I see God around me but not in me always. To experience and acknowledge these thoughts of  alienation is to begin to persue a prayerful watch. I try to attach myself to Him and dedicate myself to His church but I don't feel Him in the objective sense as readily as I would like. I have come to believe that there is a distinction between a preoccupation and a relationship. Now I think I know that prayer is not by nature emotive but from whence comes the confirmation that I have indeed gone out to meet Him? This is not about doubt it is about process.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Prayer A Divine Call And The Human Response

This blog is not written or hosted by a person of note or spiritual dynamism. I am simply a pilgrim on the way to the Savior. I am one of many journeymen being transformed by prayer and for moments re-joining the heavenly hosts in their natural state and transcendent ministry. "Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim. And who sing the Thrice Holy hymn...".

Prayer is the single most powerful tool and state of being. It need not be complicated but it is not easy and yet it is simple. Pray is not tame and cannot be man handled as it were. It contains within it its very own essence and structure and is not dependant on the human 'feeling'  anything or experiencing objectively 'a difference'. In this way it is very much an act of faith.

Through prayer our sorrow is eased, our sadness lifted, our hopelessness relieved. By answering the call to prayer from God we become receptive to the absolute transformative power of the Almighty no matter how imperceptible it may appear. We cannot be in the presence of God and not be changed that is logical and to believe otherwise is irrational. Without God's intervention our own effort is futile.

Although there is no outward tangible gain from prayer the renewal and transformative reshaping of our sinful state is taking place. All prayers for the beginner are "give me" prayers. And as a collective church we are compelled to pray for one another. It is our duty to intercede and make our supplications individually for one another that we should "bear one anothers burdens".

Prayer is the Mystical relationship the perpetual calling of God of us back to Paradise to our perfected state. The most basic form of prayer is our outward response our hearing and heeding that call. According to Matthew the Poor "Prayer then has two forms: a perpetual, vague urge, and an open, intermittent response. In both its forms together, prayer is made whole as a divine-human action a call and a response".