Pater Noster: Behind the closed door

Prayer helps us to understand one of our deepest longings: Connection.

This universal human desire to connect, to experience intimacy, as David Benner says, is not only what we most deeply long for, but what we most fear might be waiting for us behind the closed door – to be genuinely known.

To be exposed.

And to love and be loved in return.

Connection is al about knowing, the most powerful human experience. Jesus described this connection as really close, by calling God “Abba” or Daddy. Most religion scholars in the days of Jesus would have seen this statement as blasphemous.

Religious cover-ups will always be exposed in the presence of intimacy.

Intimacy is a mix of security and vulnerability. The term Daddy so beautifully describes these attributes! Security when we can know and trust and vulnerability the desire to be real and open one self to another.

We easily confuse intimacy with:

• Familiarity – To be familiar we make the deadly assumption that we have already figured it, or them, out and therefore, need not to learn and struggle any more.
• Knowledge about God – The believe that the right techniques, and knowledge leads to meaningful prayer.A false sense of knowing leads to seduction and can easily be confused with intimacy.
• Infatuation - What I confused with love was the sense of being lost in another person, where my feelings were their feelings and my desires were their desires. I had no differentiated sense of self. Enmeshment or fusion is one of the most dangerous counterfeits of intimacy. Enmeshment involves the process of getting lost in another as an unconscious way of avoiding ourselves.
• Sex - It is presented in culture as synonymous. The wide-scale deprivation of intimacy we actually experience, our cultural talent for commercialization, has separated out sex from intimacy.

The point of prayer is not any particular experience, but rather turning one’s life over into God’s hands. 

Turning our life to God in love.

Growing up in the Christian tradition, it is almost taken for granted, expected even, that we should love God. But why should I? And if I sincerely, for whatever reason, have to say…I don’t?

Look at the first line of the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Even here, right in the beginning of the prayer, it is expected of us to experience God as “Father”, implying that warm mutual love and trust we expect to be present between a child and his/her father. 

But as it is with sex, which is many a time used in scripture as a metaphor for knowing, and thus intimacy – usually we are not genuinely intimate with people we don’t trust, love.

How do we come to want to move to the space behind the closed door with this God then?

C.S Lewis says, “We need to be reminded more than instructed”.

How?

By becoming even more human. By becoming aware and responding to our, very universal, longing to connect. To beauty. To the divine.

Thomas Merton reminds us, “The root of love for God is not the will to love but the faith to believe that one is deeply loved by God. Experiencing the love, now that is true Spiritual work.”

 "You do not command a stone which is lying in the sun to be warm. It will be warm all by itself."

- Martin Luther

    “If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.”
                         - Rudolph Steiner

Intimacy will flow out of our deep human connection with the divine.

Notes

Lectio Divina

Matthew 6:5-15

The Message (MSG)

Pray with Simplicity

 ⁵"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

 ⁶"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

 ^7-13"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

   Our Father in heaven,
   Reveal who you are.
   Set the world right;
   Do what's best— as above, so below.
   Keep us alive with three square meals.
   Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
   Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
   You're in charge!
   You can do anything you want!
   You're ablaze in beauty!
      Yes. Yes. Yes.

 ^14-15"In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part.

Intimacy as:

I an my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.  Songs of Solomon 7:10

‘I would define intimacy as the ability to mutually share one’s needs, one’s wounds, or one’s weaknesses with another person. The sharing of our inner or interior world (“intimus” in Latin) is always a risk, usually a fear of rejection, and thus many of us never go there.’ 

 R Rohr

In Frans: Huislikheid, vertroulikheid.

• Ritual

Relationship doesn’t exist without ritual.  Ritual is relationship.

• To be known

 But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him. 1 Corinthians 8:3 (HCSB)

• Selfdisclosure

 Lord, my every desire is known to You; my sighing is not hidden from You.  Psalms 38:9 (HCSB)

Sal nooit intiem met God kan wees as ek nog nooit my self disclose het met God nie. Ons kies eerder besig wees bo self-disclosure.

•   Fusion and Differentiation

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the Lord."  Genesis 4:1 (NKJV)

Hooglied 2:5 sê: “Ek is siek van liefde” Of: “ek is verwond deur die liefde.”

“As daar enige iemand iewers is wat op enige stadium ‘n brandende liefde vir God se Woord gehad het sodat hy of sy dag en nag na God verlang en gesmag het, sodat hy of sy van niks anders as God kan praat nie, van niks anders as God wou hoor nie, en niks begeer, of verwag of hoop anders as God nie – as daar so iemand is, dan kan daardie mens werklik sê: “Ek is verwond deur die liefde.”

Origenes

Differentiation is the process of holding on to one’s self while connecting with others. Giving up your individuality to be together is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationship to maintain your individuality.