thread: 2007-01-10 : Some questions about worship
On 2007-01-17, MikeRM wrote:
[Wrenches thread back, probably temporarily, to original topic]
Vincent, if I sang that song it would be prayer and worship and not blasphemy. If you sing it, with different intents, I suspect it's not any of the three. What it is, is an important acknowledgement of your connectedness with what is beyond yourself, something that has been tragically de-emphasized in Western culture since the Renaissance (IMO).
Personally I love liturgy, I write liturgy (in the sense of texts with a spiritual reference, intended for repeated use in ritual contexts) and I rejoice at any evidence that anyone else anywhere else is using and enjoying liturgy (in that sense).
Meguey, no question in my mind that your other example is prayer. But is this?
"May your life fit you like comfortable clothing.
May your soul open like a flower or a fern frond,
Your love flow like water ??? not like blood,
And the dance of your journey be like sunlight on the leaves."
I wrote that for my classmates in a celebrants' course I did - a diverse group including at least one atheist, a Druid, a Buddhist and two witches (that was the term they used), plus various people who didn't know exactly what they believed but knew it wasn't what they'd heard in the churches of their childhoods. They'd all had tough times, as you do.
So is it prayer? Or just good wishes? I suspect that the answer is similar to my answer above - if I say it, it's prayer, because I'm always implicitly acknowledging the presence of God (viewed as a being beyond myself). But other people's mileage would vary.
Boundary cases can be either annoying focii for argument or thought-provoking aids to better understanding (I was going to say better definition, but I'm not actually all that interested in definitions per se, only as they aid understanding). Vincent has given us some good boundary cases here and provoked some interesting discussion.
Oh, and I wish my blessing as above for all here. Whatever that means and for whatever it's worth. Perhaps it's just a statement about my own positive intent towards people in general and my preference that they be happy and fulfilled.
