How often in times of worship (the singing variety) have you heard the words “Let’s wait for God’s presence”? Chances are you have uttered them yourself. (I am sure I have at least mouthed a variant of this). Is God not present before we sing? Does our singing usher Him down from Heaven? In this image is an implicit sense that we are separate from God, and our singing is a bridge that makes it possible for God to come across to us. I am the queen of disclaimers, and have to add one here - I love worship through music and singing, and do (at least some of the time) feel a strong sense of God’s presence within me during times of worship. But is God more present when we worship? Maggi Dawn raises this question over at her blog as part of a discussion of the Trinity. How she resolves this resonates within me. She speaks of a ’social Trinity’ - not disimilar to the perspective presented by Baxter Kruger in ‘The Great Dance‘. Communion, worship, adoration, creativity is all happening within the Trinity, and we are invited to be a part of it. God does the inviting, not us! As Maggi writes, we do not need to create “a good enough party to wake God up and make him think he might join us”. Rather, we are welcomed in to
“the party where God is, and always was, and always will be, engaged in mutual adoration and praise, and where you can be drawn right into the centre of God until you can hardly spot the join.”
Now that is something I would love to experience.
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January 16, 2007 at 1:32 pm
will
It is apparent that you are thinking deeply, Christina, as usual, and you’ve tapped into a phenomenon that I too have noticed.
There is a surreal quality about people singing together. The unity that that action creates is a deep experience for any and all humanity, and the church taps into that quite well. As a matter of fact, one can claim easily that it is divine, and I cannot disprove that. It is so amazing, that feeling.
I agree with you one hundred percent that creativity is divine. Should God exist (remember, I’m agnostic), it cannot be anything but divine. Creativity separates humanity from divinity.
Thanks for the great post! Keep writing!
January 16, 2007 at 2:32 pm
will
Correction: Creativity separates humanity from the rest of creation. I don’t know what I was thinking before, unless it was Freudian,
January 16, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Christina
Yes, that does make more sense! Some creatures are creative though - eg spiders create webs, birds collect pretty things for nests etc. But perhaps creativitiy for the sheer sake of it, for the sake of beauty, or to communicate something deep of the soul - that is not the realm of animals.
January 17, 2007 at 10:54 pm
will
well, animals have a more base instinct, a more basic structure. The animals create for purpose — true utilitarians. Humans create for no reason at all except to express. That is the difference between us and the animals.
January 18, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Ashish C.
A bit off the topic, we have a Jatra [or Fest] over here for the God Parshuram. It is said that when the Palkhi is taken for the round the Lord Hanuman is always present in some form or the other.
I feel that God is always present. He is everywhere. Our singing doesn’t bring him down from heaven but it reinforces our belief in him, making us much more stronger. He is the creator and we his children.
January 18, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Christina
Thanks for your comment Ashish - you have aroused my curiosity about Parshuram, Palkhi and Hanuman???
January 18, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Ashish C.
Parshuram is a warrior god who defeated every kingdom on earth once, and gave everyone their kingdoms back. He had no place for himself so he fired an arrow into the west towards the Arabian Sea and the Sea went back and the Konkan region emerged. His main temple is at Lote Parshuram. Palkhi is a procession taken out of the chariot of lord Parshuram. Tis said that the doors of his mother’s temple [nearby] automatically close when it comes near the gates.
Hanuman is the legendary sevak [follower] of Lord Ram. Perhaps you have heard of the Ramayana? [I suggest Wikipediaing for all fo this. You will get your answers since I've explained it badly - my english being weak.
]
January 19, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Christina
Thanks for this explanation Ashish. I will look it up on the wiki, but sometimes it is nice to read something from a person as part of a conversation rather than an infosite… BTW, your English is great - I would not have known it was not your primary language.
January 23, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Ashish C.
a person as part of a conversation rather than an infosite
Yeah, but sometimes it can be misleading information.
BTW, your English is great - I would not have known it was not your primary language.
Thanks. I still don’t understand some words. But I like to ask so thats how its developed. Just FYI my native language is Marathi. [I think there's a marathi edition of wikipedia as well.] AND its even weaker than my english!
[Writing can be a pain mind you]
January 25, 2007 at 12:15 pm
pjw
Coming back to your question and thoughts about experiencing worship and God. My expereince is that God is both present and absent, near and far everywhere and sustaining everything withorder and allowing chaos, hiddena nd revealed. With worship there are times when God seems present in a way that at other times God is not. Psychological? Maybe but what of group experiences where people independantly say the same things about a common shared expereince. If there were away that we could ‘capture’ this we would be worth a fortune and many people seem to believe they have and can. Part of this is the reality that we live in striving to connect and feeling disconnected. I have been wondering if people have a common experince during times like this. For example are you always at more peace, more loving, more gracious, happier? Is there a constant experience or are they varied one time you felt more peaceful and at others happier? The reason I ask is because my experince has been pretty constant for years. When i have that sesne of worship and connection with God it is always a deep overflowing joyful experince, difficult to explain and that is true even when life is shit. I cannot manufacture this experience or produce it on demand. It comes.
January 27, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Christina
Thanks for bringing it back on track Peter! I can relate to your experience of worship / connection with God and the impossibility of manufacturing it. What is interesting to me in that, is that in a corporate worship context the range of responses can be huge - from the experience of joy you describe to total boredom. Is the difference of reported experience to do with the focus of the person? I assume God’s presence regardless. What is it that makes one person more receptive (for want of a better word) than another?
May 19, 2007 at 2:45 pm
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