The powerful thought vague and unsubstantiated presumption is that something has been found out
that renders a spiritual understanding of reality in the manner of Jesus simply foolish to those who are "in the know."
I promise I did with this statement what Willard intended, but I also chased it from the other side. Prove that its so. No, you prove that its not so. So there's an equal problem even among believers who find themselves at differnet levels of spiritual understanding. Even the possibility of the vague and unsubstantiated individual experiences that have deepened the understanding of some, is unknown and unsought by others.
So my question is not deep. How can those of us who have become aware that we don't got it, help other believers begin to see that there's more than we've thought there was?
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The concept of the
unity of experiences on page 75 intrigues me in the area of worship. I want to muse on the thought of "growing up and learning to hide our spirit behind our faces". Willard says that children don't yet know how to hide behind masks, but that adults lose control of their masks during moments of great emotion/feeling...
and he adds that people both treasure and fear this response.
At the risk of pressing a
hot button, I wonder if this is why so much emphasis is placed on the spirit, style, mood, and feeling in the current worship debate? Are the heated discussions because people are actually looking to take down their masks for a moment of true experience with God? Or are they the result of an inner fear of possibly revealing the true evil nature of their hidden souls?
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The following quote resonates with me, and I think there is much more to "tease" out of it. So grab your curling iron and your 80s comb, and let's get to teasin':
They may believe in believing but not be able to rely on God - like many in our current culture who love love but in practice are unable to love real people. They may believe in prayer, think it quite a good thing, but be unable to pray believing and so will rarely, if ever, pray at all.
I personally have become convinced that many people who believe in Jesus do not actually believe in God. (page 91)
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i'm interested in the eschatology of this chapter's conversation. my thoughts might be just lacking some simple citations from scripture, so don't kick me in the rumpus for throwing this out there.
okay, so God is all around us -- "we live in a God-bathed world." this seems a logical step to understanding how the kingdom of God is at hand, among us now -- and to understanding how we have the divine Resources (the Thi-unity) to be able to experience our intended spiritual reality, NOW. i more or less grasp this idea. my question then is kind of off-subject: what does this mean for the earth? is
it eternal? (i don't think so.) by being good stewards of creation, are we merely swabbing the deck of the
Lusitania? is humanity to blame for the deterioration of the earth or is it God's divine doing (or both)? in other words, how do we as spiritual beings, temporarily living in these physical tents, interact with a seemingly dying, physical world? what is our relationship to things un-spiritual? (did anyone else get matrix-ey feelings while reading this chapter, with the awakening of ourselves to our true nature and all?)
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