From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Aug 07 2005 - 20:58:00 BST
Kevin, Sam and all MOQers:
Hi Kevin. Welcome to Sam's nightmare. ;-)
Kevin Perez quoted Fr. Keating on Centering Prayer:
"The first thing is to heal the most destructive aspects of our present
relationships and addictive behaviors. As a result, we enjoy a certain
freedom in practicing virtue and doing good to others. A personal
relationship with Christ forms. We may experience enthusiasm for Scripture.
Our devotional life, the sacraments, the liturgy, spiritual reading,
ministry, all begin to flourish. This period is often called "the
springtime of the spiritual journey" I suppose born-again Christians have a
similar experieince. The mistake would be to think that the journey is
over. It has not even begun. This is just the first stage. But this stage
is so delightful that people are reluctanct to let go of it."
Kevin commented on it too:
It's been my experience that born again Chrisitans and Roman Catholics alike
often stop at this stage. But there's a higher hurdle for born again
Christians. Their tradition, it seems to me, has not developed a way of
incorporating dynamic quality. The born again Christian is, for all
practical purposes, locked into a static quality system. The born again
Christian may see Centering Praying as mass hypnosis. Check out "The Danger
of Centering Prayer"
dmb says:
Right. Not only do most Christians stop and this stage, most Christians are
taught to believe that "doing good" and the "devotional life" are pretty
much the whole point. I think that overcoming addiction and healing personal
relationships is far more accurately described as social patterns overcoming
biological ones and is not really a spiritual thing. There is a certain
confusion about the difference between spiritual practice and 12-step
programs in the Christian emphasis on original sin, if you know what I mean.
And the idea of getting stuck in the delightful springtime is not a bad way
to express one of Pirsig's central complaints: that static doctrines and
rituals tend to obscure the DQ they were originally intended to preserve.
There is an esoteric core to all the world's great religions where these
problems are overtaken by a more mystical interpretation of the static
forms, and Christianity is certainly one of them, but I think its safe to
say that for the vast majority, including the leaders, the whole emphasis is
upon sin and redemption, upon the bio/social level of morality. This is fine
if the object is to stop being a drunk or a wife-beater, but it has very
little to do with enlightenment.
Thanks,
dmb
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