For persons of faith growing older, there may appear a witness within of what might be termed immortality. It shows up in strong implications of Scripture. One of these is: Pray without ceasing. There is a sense of presence in the attitude of prayer that can, if chosen, take over one’s psychology – sometimes subliminally. As noted on another Page, there are prayer brotherhoods in which the brothers are committed to prayer for the major part of their days. From all I have seen and heard, they are quite genial and gracious persons. In an interview by the program 60 Minutes on CBS, the priest talking to the reporter was clear that his attitude was prayerful, even when talking on some other subject. One can choose a life context to be at prayer. It is a common prevalence for persons related to selective preoccupation. It has humility with influence in it.
This sublime context for prayer is identified in several ways, the most striking being the shift in life attitude, spirit and emotions, creating important mental bearing. Humility is vital in that the spiritual experience is muted in the context of the massive society, a society that may attach good or ill to any claim or theory. It is a society that is largely taken with the concerns of natural life and tensions related to it. For the truly devout, there is no effort to assert any superior perception or specialness with God. Each person’s spiritual experience is his or her own, not to be evaluated by any other – except to Christ. That humble spirit is represented in Christ, whose life during his earthly sojourn was lived humbly, not only in the light of his deity, but in the superiority of his earthly thought context for mankind. He declared it largely in assertions and parables rather than defended in ordered reasoning. Christ’s plan for earth management that includes all persons is impeccable, even if society misses the spiritual concepts of Jesus relative to attitude. A prayerful spirit in the humble believer is blessed with something of the same context as that found in Jesus.
There is more. In that transport, as one finds it in the writings of the Apostle Paul about his own experiences. We sense the apostle’s reluctance to refer to any private orientation that bears a closer than common awareness of the presence of God in daily life. The promise of Scripture is for all who declare their faith in him, but the differences in awareness mean some persons, perhaps most, may not sense intense fellowship. This devotional spirit must be sought and cultivated. It requires a right attitude in private experience, not to be paraded. Not hidden, it is also not public in that it is a matter for the person and Christ. It is not a gnostic experience of superior spiritual accomplishment. It is entirely alone with Christ. The option may be seen in the inferences of Christ, to the Apostle John. This might be extended, in understanding the analogy to the experience of the Apostle John, found especially in the place of exile in the mountain where John was given The Revelation. According to tradition, all the other apostles were executed. Even that death for God’s children was made personally spiritual – to die for cause as Jesus did. It is said that Peter asked for crucifixion head downward as he felt unworthy to die in the same position as Jesus. Private stories may be documented during ensuing centuries. Death is mastered in Christian faith.
There is more. An awareness of the presence of Christ reduces loneliness or emptiness in the loss of loved ones, or friends, through misunderstanding, or death, or loss of senses, even the weaknesses of aging. A contextual person in this mode may feel that if he looked around, Christ might well be there. Perhaps this explains reports of persons dying who say they see heaven. One is at home with Abraham at the end; with Jacob, going into Egypt when drought had taken his land of promise; or Stephen, who was stoned as the first Christian martyr. He saw Christ, standing, not seated, to receive him. They persisted in faith. So the story goes. Each of us can find our own personal fellowship. In such devotional context a person believes more fully from close experience. That all this may be explained as some psychological or fantasy perception means little to the person who feels the experience. We can’t prove that God is out of an experience, or in it, no matter what the context. The Christian measures his or her experience by biblical information. If there is private experience that seems odd to the natural order, the evaluation is to be made in the light of biblical exposition, not from conclusions of earthbound minds. Many experiences are claimed by persons, even by Christians, that are tolerated but not approved by all. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020