Are you saved?

In the evangelical world, the most used word to describe the relationship with God is the word, saved, or, salvation. You will recognize this because you have probably been asked by a well-meaning Christian, "Have you been saved?" The Bible is filled with many other words to describe a person's relationship with God: enemy-friend, lost-found, broken-restored, alien/stranger-citizen, sick-healed, guilty-forgiven, doubt-faith, old life-new life, alienated-peace, dead-alive, condemned-forgiven and so on. Embrace the richness of God's desire to have a relationship with you based on your personality and need.

Thoughts on Prayer

I am reading Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. Tonight's reading was on the 11th step: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand [God], praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out. Rohr argues that only through a true spiritual revolution brought about prayer that will help us process the Big Five: love, death, suffering, God and infinity. Prayer is not talking to God; it is getting in tune with God's mind which requires trading out rational or "calculating" mind for the "contemplative"  mind. "The first mind sees everything through the lens of its own private needs and hurts angers and memories. It is too small a lens to see truthfully or wisely or deeply." The second mind is a recognition that "prayer is an exercise in divine participation - you opting in and God always there." Most of us have learned prayer as an exercise of the first mind instead of understanding that prayer is a quiet resting in the presence of God, a bit like resting on the bed or an easy chair. Here in this quiet resting we find the resources to process the Big Five: love, death, suffering, God and infinity.