Awe

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  “Will you affirm that to be false, which with a strong voice Truth tells me in my inner ear, concerning the Eternity of the Creator, that His substance is no ways changed by time, nor His will separate from His substance? Wherefore He willeth not one thing now, another anon, but once, and at once, and always, He willeth all things that He willeth; not again and again, nor now this, now that; nor willeth afterwards, what before He willed not, nor willeth not, what before He willed; because such a will is and no mutable thing is eternal: but our God is eternal. Again, what He tells me in my inner ear, the expectation of things to come becomes sight, when they are come, and this same sight becomes memory, when they be past. Now all thought which thus varies is mutable; and is eternal: but our God is eternal.” These things I infer, and put together, and find that my God, the eternal God, hath not upon any new will made any creature, nor doth His knowledge admit of any thing transitory. “What will ye say then, O ye gainsayers? Are these things false?” “No,” they say; “What then? Is it false, that every nature already formed, or matter capable of form, is not, but from Him Who is supremely good, because He is supremely?” “Neither do we deny this,” say they. “What then? do you deny this, that there is a certain sublime creature, with so chaste a love cleaving unto the true and truly eternal God, that although not coeternal with Him, yet is it not detached from Him, nor dissolved into the variety and vicissitude of times, but reposeth in the most true contemplation of Him only?” Because Thou, O God, unto him that loveth Thee so much as Thou commandest, dost show Thyself, and sufficest him; and therefore doth he not decline from Thee, nor toward himself. This is the house of God, not of earthly mould, nor of celestial bulk corporeal but spiritual, and partaker of Thy eternity, because without defection for ever. For Thou hast made it fast for ever and ever, Thou hast given it a law which it shall not pass. Nor yet is it coeternal with Thee, O God, because not without beginning; for it was made.

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  (My poor mother had enough to worry about; the last thing I wanted was to add another thousand pounds to her burden and have her see her college-bound child in jail.) And with a summer job and college looming, I had not had time to assess my feelings or consider those of my classmates or neighbors. The wonderful thing about writers like Baldwin is the way we read them and come across passages that are so arresting we become breathless and have to raise our eyes from the page to keep from being spirited away. During those few days in April, I had been out and about enough in my city to sense something new and different about all the shouting and window-breaking and looting people, something ancient and deep. This is Baldwin explaining to me in words written twelve years after the Harlem riots and thirteen years before the Washington riots: “[S]omething heavy in their stance seemed to indicate that they had all, incredibly, seen a common vision, and on each face there seemed to be the same strange, bitter shadow.” Time after time, he keeps doing this so that it becomes not enough for the reader to just raise the eyes to find breath again. In “Equal in Paris,” there is the sad tale of Baldwin being jailed for days during Christmastime in 1949 after being given a used hotel sheet he did not know had been stolen. Yes. Days. Used sheet. One does not understand the full meaning of “Kafkaesque” until this tale has been absorbed. Baldwin does not say it outright, but what becomes clear with his journey through a perversely blind justice system is that France, for “all the wretched,” had not moved very far from what the people were enduring before the French Revolution. It is all so utterly absurd (and this absurdity is another layer of oppression) that it truly becomes humorous. And with that as well is Baldwin’s realization that the people who run such a system are first cousins of those who run things in “my native land.” He cannot escape them, even in a place called Paris, and he is better for knowing this. “In some deep, black, stony, and liberating way, my life, in my own eyes, began during that first year in Paris….” And so he continues on, page after page, offering light and understanding and a ruthless insistence not so much that he is correct with his vision of matters, but that to ignore his side of things is to see only a partial picture that will not lead to lasting solutions. I can see this best now that I have reread Notes for this essay and now that life has done things to me.

• From 50 Shades Uncovered (2015)

  But if you consent to do certain things, then there is absolutely clear psychological evidence that you can have a more intense erotic experience if you tap into these energies. Agnes: I'm not that adventurous, but if I had a Christian Grey type that introduced me to it and did it in a loving, safe way, then possibly. As long as you are both into it, that's absolutely fine. But it does confuse people, it does upset people and I do understand why some people are just left going, "I don't get it." (horse neighs) Narrator: Prior to the rise of Anastasia Steele's inner goddess, BDSM was stigmatized and taboo. By bringing Christian Grey into our consciousness, E.L. James has made the joy of submission acceptable. There's a big difference between having rough sex and what you might call a formal dom-sub relationship where for example somebody might even go as far as to say, "I want to wear your collar." To be collared by your dom is a goal for many submissive personality types. In extreme cases they want to be owned. I would like to draft a contract with my next partner saying, "You won't leave your socks on the floor." I've had slaves under contract. I could set his daily regime of what to do, what to wear, what to eat, when he could sleep, when he couldn't. (alarm rings) Eclair: I think that that's why it horrifies a lot of people because you just think, hold on, what is, where is the line that we crossed here? How does this become acceptable? The slave takes it very seriously. I happen to know a lady general practitioner who is owned by her person. You go in there and you will have a perfect ordinary treatment and the surgery, but she goes home to be owned and obeys and wants to be nothing but his plaything. Now, you can say it's a regression, but I have to tell you she's a pretty high-powered intellectual lady and she doesn't take prisoners in any other walk of life, and you would cross her at your peril. There are meetings of BDSM people up and down the country all the time in pubs and clubs. They're called munchies. Don't know why, but I guess you munch something. And they are as tedious in one sense as meetings of the Rotary Club. But let's contextualize. You've got Saudi Arabia described as the world's largest women's prison 'cause they're not even allowed to drive a motorcar. How much more do you think they're actually allowed to drive a vibrator? Narrator: Although derided by critics for "appalling writing," it has not stopped millions of women across continents snapping up the books. The controversy surrounding the novel has elicited much feedback, both good and bad. We will order what we call a review copy. That's how we got this. We ordered this and we said there's a lot of buzz, there's some interest.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  The word refers to the object in question. God is wonderful, the universe is wonderful, grace is wonderful, humans are wonderful, love is wonderful, family is wonderful . . . the list could go on forever. To have a sense of wonder, though, refers to the subject: to the person who is in awe of something else. As humans, we need to develop our gift of wonder. I think God loves it when we stand in awe of a sunset, when we gaze at a sleeping baby and feel overwhelmed with love, when we enjoy a meal with friends, when we laugh at dumb memes online. The list of things we should enjoy and love and laugh at could also go on forever. Some of us spend more energy on cynicism than wonder, and it shows. Prayer brings us back to childlike wonderment. First, because it reminds us how big God is and how much we need Him. Second, because when we are in God’s presence, we can’t help but be filled with joy and awe. And third, because answered prayer reminds us that there is an infinite, all-powerful God who cares about the details of our lives. We will never figure God out, but that’s okay. We don’t need to. Divinity is above our pay grade anyway. Instead, let’s lean in to the mystery. Let’s find closeness there, and awe of God, and comfort in our grief, and rest from worry, and wonder and joy. Let’s explore the “dark side” of God. Faith doesn’t have to be certain to be faith. Prayer doesn’t have to make sense to connect us with heaven. God doesn’t have to be explained before we find peace in Him. There is always more to learn about God. [image "divider" file=Image00010.gif] In the last few chapters, we’ve looked at a few things we often “get wrong” about prayer. These are areas that are easily overlooked, misunderstood, or forgotten. We talked about obstacles to prayer, prayers that are wasting our time, why we need to persevere in prayer, what spiritual bypassing is (and why it’s not spiritual at all), and the mysterious, “dark” side of prayer. If your prayer life isn’t what you want it to be, it’s possible one or more of these areas could be to blame. The last thing I would want, though, is for this overview of potential negatives to scare you away from prayer. Fixating on the mistakes or the dangers of something can do more harm than good. It’s like when you Google symptoms of an illness and suddenly start to feel aches and pains that weren’t there before. (Don’t act like you haven’t done that.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  As I walked into the hall and followed Mrs. Hart into the drawing room, I almost tripped over a duffle coat, which lay spread-eagled across the floor. There were some perfectly serviceable hooks just inside the front door, but they seemed to be supporting a grime-laden conglomeration of tennis rackets, umbrellas, and walking sticks, which were wedged tightly together against the wall. There were piles of books and papers on almost every shelf, interspersed with mugs, in which, I later learned, lurked fossilized dregs of Nescafé. When we went upstairs to view the room, it became apparent that something had happened to the banister, because a thick rope was slung along the wall instead, and at the top of the stairs we both had to step over a large pile of dirty sheets and underwear, which uninhibitedly blocked our path. The loud unconventional colors and the mess did not repel me, however. After the militant tidiness of the convent and the tasteful but impersonal decor of St. Anne’s, there was something liberating about this cheerful disregard for appearances. I was, however, beginning to be concerned about what my own room was like, and relieved to see that it was a little haven of order in the surrounding chaos. “Is it all right?” Mrs. Hart asked again, even more anxiously. I realized suddenly that a great deal of effort had gone into the reclamation of this room. “Thank you, Mrs. Hart, it’s very nice.” She visibly relaxed, and again I felt a flicker of unease about her obvious anxiety to secure me as a baby-sitter. “You’ll need a bookcase, of course.” Her words almost fell over one another in her eagerness to please. “I’ve got one, actually, in my other sons’ bedroom. We could go and get it now, if you like.” I followed her back down the corridor. As we passed the pile of laundry, she gave it an absentminded kick, and a pair of underpants, thus dislodged, fluttered down the stairwell. “Here we are . . . Ghastly, isn’t it?” She sighed, and lost for words, I could only smile weakly. The large room was completely papered in sheets of newspaper, now stiff and yellow with age. The light fittings had been torn out, leaving gaping holes, and the words FUCK OFF! had been painted across the ceiling in thick, dark blue letters. “One day I’ll have to strip this.” She scrabbled in a defeated way at the newspaper. “But you see, it’s layers thick. It’ll take weeks—and bring off most of the plaster, probably. The boys insisted on doing it.” “Are they living here now?” I tried to sound calm about the prospect. “Oh no! They’re finished with university and living in communes, learning to be hippies and bricklayers.” Her face looked suddenly sad in the bleak light. “They don’t come home very often.”

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Prayer facilitates this felt presence of God. It opens your mind and spirit to receive from God. I’m not saying you’ll have some dramatic experience every time you pray, but you’ll often feel or sense something. You should expect it, look for it, and welcome it. Don’t make experience the goal of prayer, but don’t reduce prayer to a mental exercise either. Prayer is both an act of faith and an experience. It is both words and emotions. It is both talking and listening. It is mind and spirit and will and body together, experiencing God in a tangible way. God can show up whenever and however He wants. He loves to interact with us. He wants to be found by us. As He told Israel, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). He’s here with us all the time, after all, and He loves us deeply—doesn’t it make sense that He would want to reveal himself to us? Speak to us? Comfort us? Lead us? Moses conversed with God in front of a burning bush and again on a mountaintop. (Exodus 3–4; 33) Israel experienced God’s presence in a pillar of fire and cloud. (Exodus 13:21–22) Deborah received marching orders from God and delivered Israel. (Judges 4– 5) Solomon consecrated the temple and God’s glory filled it. (2 Chronicles 5–7) Elijah heard God’s voice as a whisper while he was hiding in a cave. (1 Kings 19:12–13) Daniel was accompanied by an angel, who shut the mouth of lions. (Daniel 6:22) Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were joined by God in the fiery furnace. (Daniel 3) Mary was visited by an angel announcing the birth of Jesus. (Luke 1:26–38)

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The bleached linen complemented the dull gold of my hair and the fading renter’s tan at my cheek and wrists. The flash of amber at my throat set off my blue eyes and my darkened lashes. The trousers had a vertical crease, and made my legs seem longer and more slender than ever; and they bulged at the buttons, where I had rolled one of the scented doe-skin gloves. I was, I saw, almost unsettlingly attractive. Framed by the wooden surround of the mirror, my left leg slightly bent, one hand hanging loosely at my thigh and the other with its fag arrested half-way on its journey to my faintly carmined lips, I looked not like myself at all, but like some living picture, a blond lord or angel whom a jealous artist had captured and transfixed behind the glass. I felt quite awed.There came a movement at the door. I turned, and found Diana there: she had been watching me as I gazed at myself - I had been too taken with my own good looks to notice her. In her hand she held a spray of flowers, and now she came to attach them to my coat. She said, ‘It should be narcissi, I did not think of it’: the flowers were violets. I bent my head to them as she worked at my lapel, and breathed their perfume; a single bloom, come loose from the stem, fluttered to the carpet and was crushed beneath her heel.When she had finished at my breast she took my cigarette to smoke, and stepped back to survey her handiwork - just as Walter had done, so long ago, at Mrs Dendy’s. It seemed my fate to be dressed and fashioned and admired by others. I didn’t mind it. I only thought back to the blue serge suit of those innocent days, and gave a laugh.The laugh brought a hardness to my eyes, that made them sparkle. Diana saw, and nodded complacently.‘We shall be a sensation,’ she said. ‘They will adore you, I know it.’‘Who?’ I asked then. ‘Who have you dressed me for?’‘I’m taking you out, to meet my friends. I’m taking you,’ she put a hand to my cheek, ‘to my club.’

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  CHAPTER XVI THE HOLY SPIRIT, REVELATION, INSPIRATION, PROPHECY THE doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the most re- ligious ofall Christian doctrines. It is not primarily a product of reflection, but ofthe great religious emotions and experiences. Perhaps for that very reason it has been relatively a neglected section of doctrinal theology. Itdeals with the most intimate and mystic experiences of the soul, and does not seem to belong to the field es- pecially cultivated by the social gospel. But in fact the social nature of religion is clearly de- monstrated in thework of the HolySpirit. The prophets ofthe Old Testament were not lonely torches setaflame by the spirit of God; they were more like a string of electric lights along a road-side, which, though far apart, are all connected and caused by the same current. They transmitted not only their ideas but their spiritual recep- tivity and inspiration to one another. The great men of whom we think as solitary miracles of religiouspower were surrounded and upborne in their day by religious groups which have now melted back into oblivion. Their prophetic consciousness was awakened and challenged by historic events affecting the social group to which they belonged. " The burden of the Lord " was notfor them- selves but for their community. They knew that their 188 THE HOLY SPIRIT, REVELATION 189 revelation wasto bea message. Their religious experi- ences were momentsof intense social consciousness. The Christian Church began its history as a commun- ity of inspiration. The new thing inthe story of Pente- costisnot only thenumber of those who received the tongue of fire but thefactthat the Holy Spirit had be- comethe common property of a group. What had seemed to some extent the privilege ofaristocratic souls was now democratized.The spirit was poured on all flesh; the young saw visions, the olddreamed dreams; even onthe slave class the spirit was poured. The char- ismatic life ofthe primitive Church was highlyimpor- tantfor its coherenceand loyalty in the crucial days of its beginning. It was a chief feeder ofits strong affections, its power of testimony, and its sacrificial spirit. Re- ligion has been definedas " the lifeof God in thesoulof man." In Christianity it becamealso thelifeofGod in the fellowship of man.The mystic experience was socialized. The doctrineof the inspiration ofthe Bible, as weall know, has passed through profound changes inrecent years. The change has all been away from religious in- dividualismandtoward a social comprehension of the religious facts. The process of inspiration was formerly conceivedas a transaction between God andtheindividual. The higher the doctrine of inspiration, themore solitary was the in- spired individual. Itwouldhavedefeatedthe purpose of the doctrine toadmit the presence ofoutside influences. Even the intellect and personality ofthe recipient were

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  The classical passage on regeneration (John iii) con- nects it with the Kingdom of God. Only an inward new birth will enable us to “see the Kingdom of God’’ and to “enter the Kingdom of God.” The larger vision and the larger contact both require a new development of our spirit. In our unregenerate condition the conscious- ness of God is weak, occasional, and suppressed. The more Jesus Christ becomes dominant in us, the more does the light and life of God shine steadily in us, and create a religious personality which we did not have. Life is lived under a new synthesis. It is strange and interesting that regeneration is thus connected with the Kingdom of God in John iii. The term has otherwise completely dropped out of the termin- ology of the fourth gospel. If we have here a verbatim memory of a saying of Jesus, the survival would indi- cate how closely the idea of personal regeneration was originally bound up with the Kingdom hope. When John the Baptist first called men to conversion and a change of mind, all his motives and appeals were taken from the outlook toward the Kingdom. Evidently the entire meaning of “ conversion ” and “ regeneration ” was subtly changed when the conception of the Kingdom dis- appeared from Christian thought. The change in our- selves was now no longer connected with a great divine change in humanity, for which we must prepare and get fit. If we are converted, what are we converted to? If we are regenerated, does the scope of so divine a trans- formation end in our “ going to heaven ” ? The nexus between our religious experience and humanity seems PERSONAL SALVATION lOI gone when the Kingdom of God is not present in the idea of regeneration. Through the experience and influence of Paul the word " faith ” has gained a central place in the terminology of salvation. Its meaning fluctuates according to the domi- nant conception of religion. With Paul it was a compre- hensive mystical symbol covering his whole inner experi- ence of salvation and emancipation, which flooded his soul with joy and power. On the other hand wherever doctrine becomes rigid and is the pre-eminent thing in religion, “ faith ” means submission of the mind to the affirmations of dogma and theology, and, in particular, acceptance of the plan of salvation and trust in the vi- carious atonement of Christ. Where the idea of the Church dominates religion, “ faith ” means mainly sub- mission to the teaching and guidance of the Church. In popular religion it may shrivel up to something so small as putting a finger on a Scripture text and “claiming the promise.”

• From The Fermata (1994)

  Now I arranged many of these squares randomly in a rectangle around the microfilm page that the woman was gazing at, took my seat, lifted my book, and snapped time on for a fraction of a second and then off again: snap snap. Then I went over to her and displaced each square in a counterclockwise direction, again took my seat, again snapped time on and immediately off. I did this repeatedly, dozens and dozens of times, wanting to offer her a pulsing marquee of images on the periphery of her vision as she read her forties Harper’s Bazaars . I must say, the work was tedious in the extreme—whenever I do my Moving Psi Squares I feel new respect for the most primitive of Sesame Street animated shorts, and I’m awed by Hanna-Barbera. (Sometimes, when I have less energy, I employ just one square, a face-square or a porn-square, something that I think, judging by the way the woman looks, might interest her, flashing it for an instant every minute or so in a different position on the open page of the book she is reading.) In the present case, the woman with the cloudy yellow earrings sighed and lowered her head for a moment. I stopped time and removed all the squares and put them away, then switched time on. She yawned, throwing her head back with her hands held behind her neck; then she pressed her thumb hard between her eyebrows. She thought she had been working too hard, seeing things—and in fact she had been seeing things: she had been seeing the little sexsquares that I was strobing into her life. I sensed her glance at me for a moment. I didn’t look up: I was paging in a leisurely, preoccupied way through Maurice Baring’s account of his years in Sweden. The woman yawned again and gathered her things. I had no idea what she was thinking. She walked over to the trash can beside one of the other tables. Just before she threw out some of the Bazaar pages, I stopped time and put my Monasticon vibrator on the top of the trash, where she might spot it peeping out of a paper bag. She did see it: she lifted the bag and peered inside, looked to her right and to her left, checked the contents of the bag once more. What on earth, she was wondering, was a brand-new, mint-in-box, sealed-in-plastic vibrating dildo representing a Capuchin monk and his clit-fondling manuscript doing in the trash of the Boston Public Library? She stood there for a second or two, pondering what to do, frowning, and then the bagged vibrator went quietly into her Boston University book bag. She walked toward the exit. I blew a kiss at her back. Good luck to her.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  But then her look changed. She held the silk to her lips, and gazed at me above it. ‘All your promise has come to nothing, after all,’ she said. Then she laughed, and stepped away, and nodded to my trousers - now gaping whitely, of course, at the buttons. ‘Take them off.’ I did so at once, fumbling with my shoes and stockings in my haste. My fag showered me with ash, and I cast it into the grate. ‘And the underthings,’ she went on,‘ - but leave the jacket. That’s good.’Now I had a heap of discarded clothes at my feet. My jacket ended at my hips; beneath it, in the dim light, my legs looked very white, the triangle of hair between them very dark. The lady watched me all the while, making no move to touch me further. But when I was finished, she went to a drawer in the bureau; and when she turned back to me she held something in her hand. It was a key.‘In my bedroom,’ she said, nodding towards the second door, ‘you’ll find a trunk, which this will open.’ She handed it to me. It felt very chill upon my overheated palm, and for a moment I merely gazed stupidly at it. Then she clapped her hands: ‘Presto!’ she said again; and this time, she did not smile, and her voice was rather thick.The room next door was smaller than the parlour, but quite as rich, and just as dim and hot. On one side there was a screen, with a commode behind it; on the other stood a japanned press, its surface hard and black and glossy, like a beetle’s back. At the bottom of the bed there was, as she had promised, a trunk: a handsome, antique chest made of some desiccated, perfumed wood - rosewood, I think - with four claw feet and corners of brass, and elaborate carvings on its sides and lid which the dull glow of the fire threw into exaggerated relief. I knelt before it, placed the key in the lock; and felt the shifting, as I turned it, of some deep interior spring.A movement in the corner of the room made me turn my head. There was a cheval-glass there, big as a door, and I saw myself reflected in it: pale and wide-eyed, breathless and curious, but for all that an unlikely Pandora, with my scarlet jacket and my saucy cap, my crop and my bare bare bum. In the room next door all was hushed and still. I turned to the trunk again, and lifted its lid. Inside was a jumble of bottles and scarves, of cords and packets and yellow-bound books.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Prayer isn’t “safe.” (We’ll talk more about that in the next chapter.) Prayer is raw and real, authentic and honest, unscripted and unrestrained. So as we look at this prayer, let your mind and spirit catch the heart of prayer, not just the structure of it. The Lord’s Prayer Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Matthew 6:9–13 Each of these lines teaches us something about how to pray. That was Jesus’ purpose in giving it to us in the first place. So as we go through each line, don’t just try to understand the meaning—practice it. Ask yourself, “How can I add this concept into my own prayer?” Then do it. Some days you might pray through the entire prayer, line by line, personalizing each topic. That’s a fantastic way to learn to pray. Other days you might pick one and spend all your time there. Again, that’s great. However you use it, this simple prayer is a great way to begin learning to pray like Jesus did. “OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN” Jesus starts His prayer with a phrase that is simple and yet profound beyond anything we can fully grasp on earth: “Our Father in heaven.” This tells us a lot about God. He’s not a force. He’s a person. He’s not an impersonal being. He yearns for relationship with us.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  And yet the very absence I felt so acutely was paradoxically a presence in my life. When you miss somebody very intensely, they are, in a sense, with you all the time. They often fill your mind and heart more than they do when they are physically present. That was the sort of contradiction that the Greek Fathers liked, but the ancient Greeks had known this too. The masked god Dionysus is everywhere and nowhere. He is always somewhere else. Yet at the same time he is manifest on earth in a bull, a lion, or a snake. He both reveals and conceals himself in the mask that is his symbol. The wide, staring eyes of the mask fascinate and attract, but the mask is empty. At the crucial moment of Euripides’ Bacchae, the supreme epiphany of Dionysus is not an apparition but a sudden disappearance. The god vanishes abruptly—yet a great silence descends upon the earth in which his presence is felt more strongly than ever before. If we try to hold on to our partial glimpses of the divine, we cut it down to our own size and close our minds. Like it or not, our human experience of anything or anybody is always incomplete: there is usually something that eludes us, some portion of experience that evades our grasp. We used to think that science would answer all our questions and solve all the mysteries, but the more we learn, the more mysterious our world becomes. Yet we do have glimpses of transcendence, even though no two experiences of the divine are the same. All the traditions insist that the sacred is not merely something “out there” but is also immanent in our world. Again, I had not taken my texts sufficiently seriously. I had often quoted the famous story from the Upanishads in which the sage Uddalaka makes his son Svetaketu aware of the omnipresence of the divine by telling him to dissolve a lump of salt in a beaker of water. In the morning, the lump has disappeared, but though the salt is now invisible, it pervades the entire beaker and can be tasted in every sip. “My dear child,” Uddalaka concludes, “it is true that you cannot see Brahman here, but it is equally true that it is here. This first essence—the whole universe has as its Self. That is the Real. That is the Self. That you are, Svetaketu.”7 Our task is to learn to see that sacred dimension in everything around us—including our fellow men and women.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured and glorious on a mountain. (Matthew 17:1–2) Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus in a garden the morning of the resurrection. (John 20) Paul was knocked to the ground and his life changed on the way to Jerusalem. (Acts 9) John had a series of apocalyptic dreams that reveal God’s ultimate victory. (Revelation) I could go on, but you get the picture. God has a long history of visiting humanity in very creative ways. And He hasn’t stopped. Apparently, He likes being with us. CHOOSING WHAT IS BETTER In the chaos and craziness and pain and pressure of life, prayer helps us slow down. It creates a space for us to listen to God’s voice. One day, Jesus stopped by the house of two sisters named Mary and Martha. This is probably the same Mary and Martha whose brother Lazarus was later raised from the dead by Jesus. Luke tells us that Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said” (10:39). Martha, on the other hand, was “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made” (verse 40). Martha needed help in the kitchen, and she expected Mary to do her part. I can imagine Martha gesturing to Mary when Jesus wasn’t watching. Coughing and sighing loudly from the kitchen. Whispering menacingly into Mary’s ear. Dropping passive-aggressive hints every time she hurried in with another bowl of snacks about “how hot it is in the kitchen” and “how much work there is left to do.” Mary blissfully ignored her. At some point, Martha couldn’t take it anymore, and she lost it. She complained to Jesus: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (verse 40). Gently but firmly, Jesus refused.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  we laugh at dumb memes online. The list of things we should enjoy and love and laugh at could also go on forever. Some of us spend more energy on cynicism than wonder, and it shows. Prayer brings us back to childlike wonderment. First, because it reminds us how big God is and how much we need Him. Second, because when we are in God’s presence, we can’t help but be filled with joy and awe. And third, because answered prayer reminds us that there is an infinite, all-powerful God who cares about the details of our lives. We will never figure God out, but that’s okay. We don’t need to. Divinity is above our pay grade anyway. Instead, let’s lean in to the mystery. Let’s find closeness there, and awe of God, and comfort in our grief, and rest from worry, and wonder and joy. Let’s explore the “dark side” of God. Faith doesn’t have to be certain to be faith. Prayer doesn’t have to make sense to connect us with heaven. God doesn’t have to be explained before we find peace in Him. There is always more to learn about God. In the last few chapters, we’ve looked at a few things we often “get wrong” about prayer. These are areas that are easily overlooked, misunderstood, or forgotten. We talked about obstacles to prayer, prayers that are wasting our time, why we need to persevere in prayer, what spiritual bypassing is (and why it’s not spiritual at all), and the mysterious, “dark” side of prayer. If your prayer life isn’t what you want it to be, it’s possible one or more of these areas could be to blame. The last thing I would want, though, is for this overview of potential negatives to scare you away from prayer. Fixating on the mistakes or the dangers of something can do more harm than good. It’s like when you Google symptoms of an illness and suddenly start to feel aches and pains that weren’t there before. (Don’t act like you haven’t done that. We all have.) So please don’t be even a little bit intimidated by prayer. Don’t worry about how good you are at it (what does that even mean, anyway?), how many minutes a day you pray, how many verses you quote, or how many names you know for God. Just talk to Him. The best way to learn to pray is simply to do it. That’s the focus of the next chapters.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  The old view of inspiration is supposed to be more deeply religious than the new. It did involve a more reverent and passive attitude of mind. But it robbed us of part of our consciousness of God. A religious man knows that he has no merit of his own, and that all his righteousness was wrought in him by God. To suppose that he can set his own will on God and work out his own salvation is sub-christian. We ought to have the same consciousness of God’s influence on our intellectual com- prehension of Christian truth. To suppose that we can work out a living knowledge of the truth from a sacred book without the enlightening energy of the spirit of God is sub-christian and rationalistic. On the other hand, to be conscious of the divine light, to listen to the inner voice, to read the inspired words of the Bible with an answering glow of fire, is part of the consciousness of God to which we are entitled. There are many degrees of clarity and power in this living inspiration, and heavy admixtures of human error, passion, and false sentiment, but the same is true of the experiences of regeneration and sanctifica- tion. It is the business of the Church to encourage, tem- per, and purify the intellectual, as well as the emotional and volitional experiences of its members. At this point the social gospel coincides with the most energetic religious consciousness. Traditional theology has felt the need of inspired prophets and apostles chiefly in order to furnish the system of doctrine with a firm footing of inerrancy and infallibility. The doctrine of inspiration is not treated as part of the glorious results of redemption, and as the Christian salvation of the human 194 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL intellect, but as part of the prolegomena of theology. The social gospel, on the other hand, feels the need of present inspiration and of living prophetic spirits in order to lead humanity toward the Kingdom of God. Wherever the Church is set in the centre and her aim is to keep the body of doctrine intact as delivered to it, inspira- tion will be located at the beginning of the line of tradi- tion, and at most the power of infallible interpretation will be claimed for popes and church councils. Wherever the Kingdom of God is set to the front, inspiration will spontaneously spring into life at the points where the conflict is hot and active in the present. A theology adapted to the social gospel, therefore, will recognize in- spiration as an indispensable force of our religion and an essential equipment of redemption. The social order can not be saved without regenerate men; neither can it be saved without inspired men.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  was beyond inspiring, not just because of the size, but because of the influence and the move of God that was so evident. Their church is named El Lugar de Su Presencia, or The Place of His Presence. I love that. It’s a reflection of their commitment, not to religion, an organization, or a pastor, but to God himself. To His presence, His will, His love. One of the things that most stood out to me, though, was their early morning prayer meeting. I’ve been to quite a few morning prayer times in my life. Usually there are a handful of half-awake, zombie-like, faithful people in a room, some of them seeking God and the others dreaming about a hot breakfast. Or both, if we’re honest. That wasn’t the case in Bogotá, though. They told me that about three thousand people met to pray every Tuesday and Thursday at 6:00 a.m., all year round, year after year. No wonder the church was experiencing God’s presence in such a real way. No wonder it was having an impact on the city and nation around it. THE MISSING PIECE That morning by the lake, while the day grew hotter and my coffee got colder, I remembered every one of those moments. The lunchtime prayer groups. The mountains outside East LA. The 3:00 p.m. prayer sessions in Puyallup. The long nights praying for Georgia. The church in Bogotá. Then, I felt like God asked me, “What makes a great person? What makes a great church?” Things like love, faith, character, generosity, and wisdom came to mind. But as God took me back over those life-altering experiences with Him, I realized I was missing something. I was missing prayer. Prayer had been at the heart of every encounter with God and every season of ministry. It was the overlooked element that grounded my faith, guided my steps, and guarded my heart. It was the reason kids spent half their lunchtime in a gym. It was the reason our youth group exploded from twenty-four people to

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  He did. And He’s still teaching us today. SIXTEEN These are dangerous prayersIn 1950, a brilliant, creative theologian named C.S. Lewis wrote a children’s book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , which was part of a larger series of books about the fictitious land of Narnia. You might have read the book, or—like me—maybe you watched the movie. Besides being a great story in its own right, this story is an allegory for many elements of the Christian faith. At one point, the protagonists—four siblings: Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter—meet a pair of talking Narnian beavers, rather predictably called Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. The children have heard rumors of the great king Aslan (who represents Jesus in the story) returning to make wrongs right and save Narnia from the evil White Witch. The children ask Mr. Beaver about Aslan, and he gives them some startling news: Aslan isn’t human at all. In His words: “Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”1 I love that thought: Jesus is good, but He’s not “safe.” That is, He’s not tame. He isn’t a pet. He can’t be controlled or predicted or subdued. Most pictures and paintings of Jesus show Him looking serene, even detached, posing passively for the artist with sad eyes and a halo around His head. (He’s also usually white, blond, and blue-eyed, which is another fallacy.) But the real Jesus didn’t look like a Caucasian mystic on weed. Jesus was strong, active, and present. He was a blue-collar worker, comfortable hanging out with fishermen and laborers and people who were rough around the edges. He was blunt, edgy, even sarcastic at times. He made people laugh and He made them squirm. Jesus healed people, and raised the dead, and cast out demons. He brought heaven down to earth in such a real way that it scared people at times. Yes, there is security in Jesus. He is a safe place in the sense of being strong, faithful, and trustworthy.

• From Wild (2012)

  “Sure,” they all said in a chorus, though Guy didn’t acknowledge it. I handed Rick the tumbler of booze and wedged myself in beside him, all four of us in a row in the plush wonderland of the fireside couch without an inch to spare, the side of Rick’s lovely body plastered against mine; the fire like our own personal sun before us, baking us dry. “You want to talk about suicide, darling, I’ll tell you about suicide,” Guy said, coming to stand before me and lean against the stone mantel. Rick drank from the tumbler and handed it to Josh on the other side of him, then Josh took a sip and handed it to Richie on the far end. “We got some dealings with suicide around here, unfortunately. Now that’s where this job gets interesting,” Guy said, his eyes growing animated, his face hidden behind the dish towel from his mustache down. The tumbler made its way slowly back to me; I took a sip and handed it back to Rick, and so on, like we were smoking a gigantic liquid joint. As we drank, Guy told us in great detail about the scene he’d come across one afternoon when a man had blown his brains out in a Port-a-Potty in the woods nearby. “I mean just absolutely brains fucking everywhere,” he said through the towel. “More than you’d imagine. Think of the most disgusting thing that you can even picture, Cheryl, and then picture that.” He stood staring only at me, as if the Three Young Bucks weren’t even in the room. “Not just brains. But blood too and pieces of his skull and flesh. Just all over. Splattered all over the walls inside this thing.” “I can’t even picture it,” I said as I shook the ice in my tumbler. The Bucks had left me with sole custody of it now that it was empty. “You want another one, hot stuff?” Guy asked. I handed it to him, and he took it into the kitchen. I turned to the men and we all looked at one another with meaningful expressions and then burst out laughing as quietly as we could while basking in the glow of the fire. “Now there’s this other time I got to tell you about,” said Guy, returning with my drink. “Only this time it was murder. Homicide. And it wasn’t brains, but blood. Gallons of blood, I mean BUCKETS of blood, Cheryl.” And so it went, all through the evening.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  meets the water, you see the horizon. It’s a stable, unchanging line that is always there, even if it’s obscured by passing storms. Sometimes when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I’ll go sit by the ocean just to reset my perspective. Julia and I have our favorite places. We know where we can avoid crowds, get good sushi, and let our kids play. It’s glorious. I wish I was there now, to be honest. I love this quote attributed to the Swedish environmentalist writer Rolf Edberg: “In still moments by the sea, life seems large—drawn and simple. It is there we can see into ourselves.” 2 I think he’s talking about perspective. Life is big. We are small. Not everything matters as much as we think it does. And knowing who we are will bring us rest. In many ways, prayer is like the ocean. It gives us perspective. It helps us place ourselves, ground ourselves, in the grand scheme of life. You can’t go to the beach or listen to the rhythm of the waves without realizing how big the world is. In the same way, you can’t pray to an infinite God without finding yourself simultaneously comforted and awestruck by His greatness. In the last chapter, we discussed the premises that underlie our prayers: how we see God and ourselves. Now I’d like to look at how we see our circumstances. That’s called perspective. WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE In the chaos and contradictions of life, prayer helps us gain a perspective that is bigger than our own. There is an ancient book of poetry in the Bible called Job, named after its protagonist. Today, the story of Job is synonymous with suffering and patience. But in reality, Job’s story is more about perspective than patience. In chapters 1 and 2, we read how Job lost everything overnight. The text is clear that he wasn’t to blame. Things outside his control conspired to take away everything he had worked for and valued.