Integral Christian Devotional Practices: Gazing Part 2

David, king, poet, and prophet, revealed his deepest longings when he wrote: “One thing have I asked of God, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the presence of God all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of God” (Psalm 27:4).

Previously I said that the heart of spiritual devotion to God comes alive by gazing into the visionary or symbolic eyes of personal forms of God’s divine friendship. These can include God’s motherly-fatherly presence, the Living Jesus, Mary, other spiritual companions, physically present friends, and the beauty of creation itself whose cosmic eyes do indeed gaze back at us. We continue here to explore that theme.

Gazing upon the beauty of God in its many forms—deep, attentive looking—can be integrated into our lives as a spiritual practice.

Integral Christian Devotional Practices: Part 1 – Gazing

While cultural creatives often have mixed feelings about worship, many of them still long for something they can truly open up their hearts to. Many feel wonder at the vast, cosmic Mystery but perhaps have a desire (sometimes unconscious) to still connect personally to it in some way, to devote themselves to something—someone—beyond just than themselves.

The heart of devotion comes alive by gazing into visionary or symbolic eyes of God. This is the personal, 2nd person presence of the divine as expressed in the tangible other. While experiencing God as 1st person spirit is a vital part of our journey, devotion is awakened through “seeing” such personal forms of the Divine Mystery as God’s motherly-fatherly presence, the presence of the Living Jesus, the spiritual and physical beings around us, and the beautiful presence of creation itself whose cosmic eyes do indeed gaze back at us.

Why Christian Worship Doesn’t Work for Many Cultural Creatives—and What Might - Part Two

The challenge today for culturally creative followers of Jesus is to wrestle the heart of Christianity from the powerful grip of institutional religion. We need to take Christianity back from the theology and practices of institutional religion including what is commonly referred to as “worship.” 

Many postmodern or integral “post” Christians no longer identify or connect with a religious group or church. Many also have mixed feelings about using the word “Christian.” For some it can carry too much baggage. However, they may not yet have given up on Jesus or a core reality of deep spirituality experienced in their native tongue of Christianity. But often the traditional churches no longer tap into that reality for them.

What do they do with what today we traditionally refer to as “worship”? Where do they go to experience this? They may have even given up on the whole idea, since the very word “’worship” may also carry cultural baggage and bad memories. For many, it may even be too difficult to think in those terms. Underneath the baggage, worship is a deep human longing for something transcendent, something worth devoting ourselves to. Everyone has this need in some way or another.

WHAT IS A CULTURAL CREATIVE?

In The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson, the authors introduce the term "Cultural Creatives" to describe a large segment in Western society who since about 1985 have developed beyond the standard paradigm of progressives versus conservatives. In 2001, Ray and Anderson claimed to have found 50 million adult Americans (slightly over one quarter of the adult population) who could be identified as belonging to this group. They estimated an additional 80–90 million “cultural creatives” exist in Europe. Those numbers have almost certainly increased since then. 

The Awakening by Kimberly Kirk

Here are some of the characteristics Ray and Sherry Anderson found in cultural creatives: