Maybe it`s the way your love swells beneath my skin
or maybe it`s because my senses are full again
maybe it`s because I can`t quite mark the source
or maybe I`m afraid to let it run its course...
Just as I am, you rush in without a warning
I didn`t think that you would want to come to this place
and make it feel like a Sunday morning.
- Sandra McCracken
I have a serious question for you, and I have no idea if the premise of my question is offensive or not. I am asking because I want to know more, which necessarily implies I am ignorant of a different perspective from my own. So, if you read this and canNOT believe I would be so small-minded, understand that your comment will help expand my understanding. In other words, please be nice.
Of all the things I could mention today, I am most grateful for my relationship with God. And lately I have been thinking about worship. When I worship, I am overwhelmed with awe and gratitude. It usually happens when I least expect it - in the stillness of early morning, in a conversation with a friend, during a communion ceremony, when I'm in the woods or on the water. It has nothing to do with music or Sunday morning services for me (ironic, considering Brian's ability to lead corporate worship is quite literally my bread and butter), and it cannot be conjured. I can decide to honor God with my actions, but the feeling I'm describing - I can't make that happen. Sometimes, it just does, and when it does, my daily life stumbles into the presence of God.
My response at times is prayer. But more often I just sit in it, enjoy it while it lasts. Most of the time, words seem frivolous and cheap. There is nothing to be said.
Here is my question: is the experience I'm describing - to be suddenly filled with awe and gratitude, to be convinced of a hope for the future, to be filled with faith - is this a universal experience? Do I call it worshipping God, when someone with a different faith would call it something else? Or those who do not believe in any sort of Higher Good, would they call this emotion happiness? I want to know. Do we all feel the same thing and have different names for it? Or is worship uniquely religious?
13 comments:
I have had the experience that you describe often in my life, as long as I keep myself open to it. I've never called it worship, although I'm sure anyone could. I see worship as something that begins with me, in praise of God. These experiences are moments that happen upon ME, often, when I'm least expecting them. I simply perceive them as proof of God's presence in my life. A gift that God bestows upon me...it begins with Him. I see worship as something that begins with me. And also? These moments are the best kind of happy that I ever experience. There is nothing small-minded about your post. It's a wonderful thing to sit about and contemplate.
Definitely not small minded. Really, I think you're asking one of the biggest questions in all of theology and philosophy.
I think anyone that is open to the concept of beauty can have these kinds of brushes of the mystical, and I don't think you have to call it worship, though you can call it that. I tend to think of it as a kind of brief revelation of something transcendent, and it can be worship or it could be just something simpler.
My question, like yours, really is about the universal aspect of it. Perhaps I'm just getting very theologically liberal here, but I wonder if this is a kind of commonality among religions, a point of universal truth.
Deep stuff. Happy Thanksgiving.
Angela, I think of worship and being in the presence of God as synonomous. Like you said, I consciously do other things that honor God, things that start with me, but this experience is not a conscious choice. You're right about being open to it. And about that experience being the best kind of happy.
Lane, I hear other references to "religious ecstacy" and wonder if that's a different way to say what I'm describing here. I really don't know either. Of course because of my faith I want to say it is a unique experience, but I'm curious what people of other faiths and beliefs would say.
I'm curious what you mean by universal. I personally think people of other religions can have a similar experience, but I'm not sure about the wholly unreligious.
I definitely have met a few people here in Boston that I am fairly certain have never experienced worship the way that I have or even an experience remotely similar. Sometimes there is a serious communication barrier on the subject actually. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but "Jesus Camp" might be the only reference point for some of them.
Anyway, it is a unique experience. I have a couple of friends here who want absolutely nothing to do with any thing even remotely religious. I have plenty of times when I get consumed with other things in life, but I really can't imagine life without completely it.
I could have written this, almost word for word (Brian's worship leading isn't my bread and butter, hee hee). As for being universal, I would say it is. And, I do think the feeling always comes from God. I think that, when a non-believer has such an experience, they will not call it worship. But, it is still their soul's reaction of awe and wonder to a God who is worthy of it.
First, I have to say that I love that Sandra song. when I went through my "no music" period - this is the song that drew me back. I listen to it easily 3 or 4 times a day!
Second, I am not really sure of the answer to your question - because I too have fairly limited experience. I only know what I have experienced. Like Mary though, I very rarely find that my non-religious friends have the same type of experiences - worship-wise - that I have. Doesn't mean that it doesn't ever happen though. I have heard it called other things - Appreciating Creation, Synergy with all beings, Enlightenment - and it always interesting to meet people that have those type of experiences that are comparable to mine, to gain a different understanding. I hope more people chime in on this one. :)
I don't think of God as being present sometimes and not others. God is always there. We just choose when to tune in. :)
Hi.
I am secular Jewish, which means I embrace the cultural parts without much interest in the religious side. I do not believe in God.
However, I have been to this place you describe. I did not realize this is what believers feel when they feel God. I feel it in the presence of nature and stillness. It has to do with a moment when the air and its many-layered, multi-textured intensity borrows deep into my soul. It is a moment of transcendence, much like Emerson (a believer) has described.
To me it does not really matter if this is God or nature or human nature. I try to honor it and live a life worthy of it.
Does this make sense?
(Oh, and I notice your comments are back!!)
Emily, I think living a life worthy of it is a goal Christians have, too.
Hmm, what an interesting question. I'm new to your blog, at least to commenting. Not sure how I got here, but here I am.
Anyway, I'm not a religious person, and I think those moments of pure awe and gratefulness can be hard to find for people like me. Maybe it's because I don't necessarily feel "grateful" to some force in the universe outside myself or outside my control? I'm not sure. I don't think my life is less for not feeling it.
I can say that when I have been at my lowest, the sound of my children walking in the door after school has been salvation. So I guess we're not total heathens.
That is the sense I get... I just hope that all people, whatever they believe, try to live lives worthy of it.
Great question, as is clear from your comments. And I think you must know where I stand on this, but just in case, I will tell you that worship is simply an experience of the sacred and thus can take many forms. To reduce it to a church setting is simply to limit the contexts in which it appears, but I don't see why anyone would want to do that. I do wonder about the universal part, though. Even if it were, what would we gain from knowing that the experience is universal? If it is, then we will experience it anyway, but it is the experience that will come first, not the universal concept. If it isn't universal, then we still have the experience first while it gets conceptualized as a shared but not universal experience. Either way, universality has no real meaning that I can see. In fact it almost might be more meaningful for an experience NOT to be universal. Enter existentialism where existence precedes essence. But I digress . . . Sorry.
I actually do think it is meaningful to wonder whether it is universal. If it is only experienced by those who believe or worship a certain way, that is saying that either a) God only pays attention to those who worship or b)people who believe or worship are imagining it -- creating this sense of the divine out of their own need to believe in it.
Either one of those answers, I imagine, does not jive with the God you believe in. Knowing that I get that same feeling, despite my lack of belief, shows that whatever it is, it is not a) a gift from a petty God who denies grace to all those who do not believe in him or b) a figment of imagination brought on by belief in God.
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