thread: 2007-01-10 : Some questions about worship
On 2007-01-11, Valamir wrote:
Interesting discussion.
For myself, the words "Worship" and "Prayer" don't hold much meaning to me or have much impact on my faith. Its not so much that I reject those words in particular but rather I've pretty much rejected Liturgy in its entirety and both "Worship" and "Prayer" have become so entangled with "Liturgy" that like "Realism" in RPGs I just don't find them very useful concepts.
The language I prefer is "Acknowledgment", "Appreciation", and "Conversation".
I have lots of conversations with God. Most of them resemble the "arguing with nobody in the shower" comments from another thread. I do that alot and consider it very beneficial. I don't always think about it being God I'm talking with as I'm doing it...but on reflection I know that's who it is...because I often wind up with answers or solutions that I can't conceive that I would have thought of on my own.
When I am conciously making an effort to specify God, it tends to be very casual; something like "Ok, ok, I get it...I shouldn't be trying to take advantage of this guy, you've made your point...cut me some slack here ok?" or "Holy crap that dude nearly killed me. Thanks for looking out for me bro, cuz other wise I'd be d-e-d dead, right now". Is that prayer...probably...but I see no particular need to have a word for "talking with God".
We've all seen the pros and cons of talking in Jargon in RPG theory discussions. For me "Worship" and "Prayer" are just religious jargon that I see no point to when there are already perfectly good ways to just say it in plain speach.
In my experience, these kind of communications have gotten results more often than I could accept as being just the shear random luck of the universe. So I really can't accept the idea of their not being some form of higher conciousness looking out for me an helping me in my daily life. Whether that's God: Creator of Heaven and Earth, or the spirits of my ancestors is, for me, an interesting puzzle to ponder, but ultimately not that important.
So in response to your specific actions around the dinner table—to me, I recognize it as acknowledgement and appreciation. Is it "worship" or "prayer" I don't particularly see the point in worry about that, since the very notion of the question "is it" or "isn't it" implies that there's some objective definition that matters.
Now, as to it being an actual song, sung at certain times or certain occasions...I suspect a great portion of the world's liturgical worship practices started the same way...as just a nice localized practice that went on to become a tradition and then an entrenched dogma. Essentially you've just devised a semi-formal Baker family Liturgy.
Being fairly pro-God / anti-liturgy myself its not a practice I would participate in, but since I doubt you're going to burn your neighbors at the stake for not singining it with you it seems rather charming.
