Menu Close

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: The Presence of God

The Presence of God (5)

George 0 Comments

The doctrine of the Fall is about the loss of the Presence of God.
(Marshall Davis)

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis3:22-24

The previous post focused on “God is present everywhere all the time” and its essentiality to our faith. Today is an examination of conflicting realities, of the loss of the literal presence of God as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and God’s punishment. i.e.”he drove the man out” and the truth that God is present everywhere, all the time.
Banishment from the Garden of Eden is basis for a “two storey universe” perspective. 1“We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
FR Stephen Freeman The story of God’s relationship with the people of Israel is mostly a “two storey” drama. So the dilemma is: is God present everywhere all the time or not?
At this point my answer is yes and no!
Yes, God is present everywhere, all the time! But, No we not perceive his presence everywhere, all the time. The issue is not God’s proximity but our ability to perceive his presence. We are like Job:
When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him. 2Job 9:11
With the fall, beyond proximity to God, humanity lost communion (nous) with God. nous is the God-given faculty of the soul whose purpose is the perception of God and divine things. Noetic perception was lost. 3“Noetic perception” is a phrase that describes the ability of the human heart to perceive that which is Divine. As such, it is our capacity for communion with God and the whole of creation. … Without such a perception, we do not see the truth of things. By the same token, without such a perception, we cannot know the truth of our own selves.
Fr Stephen Freeman
Deficiency of “noetic perception” is an underlying condition that makes Christians most vulnerable to secularism. Devoid of “noetic perception” and unable to perceive that which is divine, belief is shallow, lacking in meaning and purpose; as Freeman observed, we are unable to even know the truth about ourselves. Desiring God on our own terms, we consign him to “up there” until He is needed.

Practicing the presence of God happens in a One Storey Universe.4A One-Storey Universe is the world in which the noetic faculty is restored to its proper place and role. We do not perceive the true nature of creation, for example, in order to control it. Rather, we perceive it in order to have communion with God through creation. And creation itself is only rightly seen when perceived in this manner. Things cease to be things-in-themselves: everything exists as a manifestation of the goodwill and providence of God.
Richard Beck Prerequisite to living in a One Storey Universe is restoration of  nous, the God-given faculty of the soul whose purpose is the perception of God and divine things. 

Here is my quandary:

  • I am convinced God is present everywhere, all the time.
  • Much of my life is reflective of living in a Two Storey Universe.
  • I am deficient in noetic perception.
  • Spiritual formation and discipleship are dependent on the presence of God.
  • GOD is: utterly beyond me, beyond the sweep of my imagination, beyond the comprehension of my mind His judgments are unsearchable and ways past finding out.

Maybe I need “The mind of Christ”? 5“..but we have the mind of Christ.” 1 For 2:16

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

  • 1
    “We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
    FR Stephen Freeman
  • 2
    Job 9:11
  • 3
    “Noetic perception” is a phrase that describes the ability of the human heart to perceive that which is Divine. As such, it is our capacity for communion with God and the whole of creation. … Without such a perception, we do not see the truth of things. By the same token, without such a perception, we cannot know the truth of our own selves.
    Fr Stephen Freeman
  • 4
    A One-Storey Universe is the world in which the noetic faculty is restored to its proper place and role. We do not perceive the true nature of creation, for example, in order to control it. Rather, we perceive it in order to have communion with God through creation. And creation itself is only rightly seen when perceived in this manner. Things cease to be things-in-themselves: everything exists as a manifestation of the goodwill and providence of God.
    Richard Beck
  • 5
    “..but we have the mind of Christ.” 1 For 2:16

The Presence of God (4)

George 0 Comments

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139

One of the most fundamental principles of the Christian vision of reality is that God is present everywhere, filling all things. This underlies the essential Christian task of becoming consciously aware of that Presence and bringing that awareness into every aspect of our life.

Fr Stephen Freeman

God is everywhere and in everything, and we cannot be without Him. It’s simply impossible.

Thomas Merton

“The presence of God changes you.”

unidentified

…the Christian mystical tradition teaches us, life with God is more about knowing than believing. The mystics didn’t believe in God; they encountered God.

Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (pp. 11-12).

Reflecting on the comments above, reminded me of the consternation I felt engaging in study of practicing the presence of God.
Grasping that God is present everywhere all the time is unpalatable to a child of the Enlightenment like me. Raised on reductionism 1a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. and rationality2 “uncertain but sensible” arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience … ; God present everywhere all the time is, at best, incomprehensible; at worst, nonsense.
Richard Beck describes that condition: “… operating as if God doesn’t exist. We don’t expect to bump into God around the watercooler or doing the dishes. We might believe in God, but we don’t expect to encounter God.
We think we’re living in a two-story universe. In this two-story universe, the cosmos is a house with two floors. As Freeman describes it, “We live here on earth, the first floor, where things are simply things and everything operates according to normal, natural laws, while God lives in heaven, upstairs, and is largely removed from the story in which we live. To effect anything here, God must interrupt the laws of nature and perform a miracle.” For us to see or hear from God, God has to come downstairs to visit us. But most of the time, it’s just us alone on the first floor. God is absent, upstairs and minding his own business.
When we live our lives in the two-story world, we practice what Freeman calls “Christian atheism.” Since God is “upstairs,” God is “not here.” God isn’t close; God is elsewhere, far away and distant. And not just physically distant, mentally distant as well. God is at the back our minds, an afterthought, if we think of God at all.” 3 Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)

I want to minimize Beck’s description as hyperbole; but continuing to grapple with the presence of God and engaging in self-examination, reveals my daily life too often abides in a two-story universe. I’m not prepared to be labeled a Christian Atheist, but upon further consideration, perhaps I am closer to a Disenchanted Christian. 4..disenchanted Christians attack miracle stories with a battery of questions. Every miracle story is fiercely interrogated as a “more rational” explanation is sought. Perhaps that chance encounter or the money in the mail wasn’t God but a mere coincidence. Perhaps the doctors, rather than God, healed that person. We’ve all asked these sorts of questions and expressed these doubts when faced with stories we find too incredible or too neat and tidy to believe. Some of us, especially those of us who have been thoroughly disenchanted by the modern, scientific world, just can’t stop raising these questions.
Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (p. 191).

Until now, my spiritual journey has been determined mostly by reasoning and thinking.
Embracing a reality that God is present everywhere all the time — God’s presence, constant communion with Him—must define the journey.
What that means will be the subject of future posts.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY


  • 1
    a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents.
  • 2
    “uncertain but sensible” arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience …
  • 3
    Beck, Richard, Hunting Magic Eels (pg104)
  • 4
    ..disenchanted Christians attack miracle stories with a battery of questions. Every miracle story is fiercely interrogated as a “more rational” explanation is sought. Perhaps that chance encounter or the money in the mail wasn’t God but a mere coincidence. Perhaps the doctors, rather than God, healed that person. We’ve all asked these sorts of questions and expressed these doubts when faced with stories we find too incredible or too neat and tidy to believe. Some of us, especially those of us who have been thoroughly disenchanted by the modern, scientific world, just can’t stop raising these questions.
    Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (p. 191).

The Presence of God (3)

George 0 Comments

The practice of the Presence of God is the most holy, the most all-encompassing, and the most necessary practice of the spiritual life. It trains the soul to find its joy in His Divine Companionship. Bro Lawrence

Having read the book some years earlier, plus considerable experience teaching and leading, I volunteered to lead a men’s group in a study of The practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. I developed a syllabus for the study complete with goals, expectations and topics for discussion. Diving into reading and study my confidence was immediately shaken.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. 
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 
Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. 
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 

Psalm 139

There is no sweeter and delightful life than that of continual communion with God. Only those who experience this and practice it can comprehend it. Yet I do not advise you to undertake this practice from that motive. We should not seek pleasure in this exercise. Instead let us do it out of love and because God desires it.

Bro Lawrence

The spiritual life begins when one wakes up to the presence of God and experiences this reality for oneself. The omnipresence of God is more than a theological doctrine; it is experiential reality. The spiritual life begins in earnest when one wakes up.
This type of awakening is the heart of Christianity. It moves us from the realm of beliefs and ideas, emotions and rituals, into the Presence of God.

Marshall Davis

Mystery is not something you can’t know. Mystery is endless knowability. Living inside such endless knowability is finally a comfort, a foundation of ultimate support, security, unrestricted love, and eternal care. For all of us, it takes much of our life to get there; it is what we surely mean by “growing” in faith. 

Richard Rohr

Grappling with —”knowledge too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” — misconceptions about practicing the presence of God were unmasked.

First, assuming practicing presence of God to be an educational issue. Unfortunately, for a long time, I assumed diligent study and improved techniques would produce spiritual growth. Most of my efforts at spiritual formation have been overly, even excessively, education-based. In recent years that assumption was challenged and refuted but its resilience was apparent in preparing for the study. Ironically, serious inquiry into the practice of the presence of God revealed a another way of knowing; not discarding education/study but ‘ …an awakening of the heart. moving us from the realm of beliefs and ideas, emotions and rituals, into the Presence of God.”1 Marshall Davis — a game changer.
“He surrendered himself to an attitude of faithful devotion and insight rather than reasoning and thinking“. 2 Bro Lawrence

A second misconception — the Practice of the Presence of God is self improvement.
American Christianity is a therapeutic culture, we approach faith as therapy. The trouble with this therapeutic milieu is that it is ego-centric and reduces the cross of Christ [the presence of God] to a feel-good, psychotherapeutic intervention (Jesus Loves Me!, 1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given, and the Jesus’s footprints in the sand parable).3 Richard Beckhttp://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2008/08/therapeutic-culture-of-american.html
That misconception was implicit in the goal of our study: Become better disciples of Jesus. Certainly, being in the presence of God produces better disciples, but “The change or transformation that God desires is not found in our improvement. Rather, it is our union with Him and our transformation into His image and likeness. Christ has not come to improve us, but to remake us from the inside out.  4Fr Stephen Freeman The presence of God produces humility and repentance, prerequisites to God’s transforming work.

Encountering the practice of the presence of God has proven to be a significant spiritual milestone. I am still seeking to understand the depth and breath of its mystery. Hopefully, you will join me in pursuit of the presence of God.
More to come.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY