Nevermind. It's good, much better than I've been and I guess improvement is the key.
I'm doing this new praying thing at the moment and it is kicking my spiritual butt into shape. It's so GOOD. I'm really interested in meditation so it's a form of meditative prayer, where I'm empty my mind and find the god within. Just kidding. I have been praying a series of short prayers over and over. And it's amazing, i have to say a whole bunch so i try to keep a move on, you know, so I get to sleep before midnight, but I just keep slowing down because very time it's fantastic!
One of them is the Our Father, the Lords Prayer and I realised as I was saying it, Jesus said this! This actual prayer! Not in english, obviously, but still! Amazing, it totally blew me away.
I've read this book lately called Eat Pray Love about this woman who went on a spiritual quest for a year, it's very funny, she is great (reminds me of you Helen, if you happen to be reading). But one of the things she said was that one of the names for the Spirit was Beloved. I freaking love that. The Holy Spirit is such a urgh name.
Read the Shack. It's, well, read it and then talk to me (as my Mother wisely said).
To bed.
22 comments:
lol
You had me with the meditation joke.
Anyway, you sound like a dirty emergent churcher, what with your liturgical cherry-picking and juxtaposition of traditional with innovation.
Speaking of which, I plan to buy the new Rob Bell today, 'Jesus wants to save christians'. Should be good.
And now, off I go into the world in search of my daily fat and sugar! Awaaaaay!
what's so funny about that meditation "joke"? it's a serious quest for many!
I'll serious quest your face!
Well I'm disappointed. You should know better Sharyn. You should know that Andrew is always right and that you shouldn't disagree with him. You better watch yourself. Any day now you'll find he's deleted you on Facebook and then you'll regret it!
ha! it is to laugh
it's true, you will regret it
this is a nice god within story
Ok I skim read it cos I'm at work but I think I got the point...the only way to truely find God is to take drugs (that's convenient for you Andrew)? And if I do it I'll probably find out that there actually is no God, just me?
Whoa Jo, you seem quite angry eh.
Maybe I am Alice. Maybe you should ask your wee husband why.
Or MAYBE you could have this conversation on a different blog.
Hi Andrew, fascinating link you gave. I'm genuinely interested in hearing your take on it.
I found it a bit confusing, myself, and I must admit that I haven't ever come across an article like that before!
iain, I don't give that anecdote in the link too much weight, I just thought it was an interesting perspective on the "god within" concept.
in that particular instance it was psychedelicly driven, but those who use such "methods" to "find god" agree it's just a shortcut and not a necessary measure (to finding god within etc), but I think the link does make an interesting point that those who do tend to find god - as an individual - within themselves, are probably just finding themselves
my spiritual path has taken a different turn as of this year, as of the results of a lot of questions about christianity have led me to the place where I can no longer believe it, and have been doing a lot of searching myself, and despite what I said before, I think there is a lot that can be gained by meditation; not that I manage to do a whole lot, I'm pretty poorly self disciplined.
right now - for me - god isn't a being, an individual, but more of a force; and I'm still very unsure of a lot of things
but through this I have a new respect for life, for nature, and in some ways it's like my eyes have been opened for the first time.
meditation is a great way to open your eyes beyond your own subjective ideas about how the world is, and hopefully view things for what they really are, without your brain getting in the way, if that makes sense. something I need to do more often!
RE: deleted comments. Behave both of you, I wont tolerate that sort of behavior. Future comments of that nature will be deleted!
And Andrew, I can't imagine why you'd want to stop your brain getting in the way, or how that could be in any way a good or useful or sensible option. Even temporarily.
From my perspective, you can't escape your subjective position, that is impossible, you can only acknowlege it and work within those constraints. Objectivity is a myth.
I'd say that true objectivitely isn't so much a myth as it is something us humans can't really achieve. But there is a sort of sliding scale. Something can be more objective than something else.
It's interesting that you say that you "can't imagine why you'd want to stop your brain getting in the way".
Our brains have been "tainted" ever since our birth, with opinions from other people, family, opinions we couldn't choose whether to be exposed to or not; biases of all kinds; "white privilege" etc; how can you not see it useful to try to spend time observing the world without that framework in the way?
You said yourself that you only really saw how rich you were when you came to see your own wealth from a more objective position; what about your attitudes to many other things?
I think we were using the same language but meaning two different things. This is what my thesis was about.
Of course it's good to be critical about our particular frames of reference, but that requires us using our brains not trying to bypass them.
I deleted my comment because I realised I don't know a lot about what I was trying to talk about and probably don't give it the respect it deserves.
I know what you mean sharyn, and I agree, but I was talking about something quite different.
here is a link to something that kind of describes the kinds of things I am talking about. I don't mean to say I agree totally with the link, but maybe it gives you an idea..
;)
I feel bad for filling up your blog, but this line is from that link and kind of explains what I mean by removing your brain from the situation
"awareness isn't consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it"
Unfortunately, although I respect your interest in this, it's not interesting to me and my mind glazes over because there are too many words.
I am interested in meditation, but not that kind of meditation. I am, at this stage in my life, more interested in embracing my mind and my values and my particular world views and trying to work out how to live authentically. I'm not interested in transcendence or pure consciousness - I'm not in that place.
Unfortunately, although I respect your interest in this, it's not interesting to me and my mind glazes over because there are too many words.
I am interested in meditation, but not that kind of meditation. I am, at this stage in my life, more interested in embracing my mind and my values and my particular world views and trying to work out how to live authentically. I'm not interested in transcendence or pure consciousness - I'm not in that place.
yeah fair enough. and while I'm interested in it, I still don't ever seem to find the time to spend time trying to achieve it..
and what you desire from your meditation is very humble and I applaud it, I also wish I could do more of that.
unless you're really sick of this conversation, I'd be interesting to know what you mean by "embracing my mind and my values and my particular world views". What do you mean by embracing them? not trying to criticise at all, just don't quite understand
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