In a desultory hour this afternoon I went looking for my old friend, Abraham Joshua Heschel. I'd been working on the Christology tapestry, which is very close work and I needed a rest from peering and precision, staring and stitches, colours and choices. The Heschel anthology, I Asked For Wonder is a one-stop dispensary of spiritual wisdom and food for thought.
Worship is a way of seeing the world
in the light of God.
We do not step out of the world when we pray;
we merely see the world in a different setting.
The self is not the hub,
but the spoke of the revolving wheel.
In prayer we shift the centre of living
from self-consciousness to self surrender.
God is the centre toward which all forces tend.
He is the source, and we are the flowing of His force,
the ebb and flow of His tides.
Prayer takes the mind out of the narrowness of self-interest,
and enables us to see the world in the mirror of the holy.
…….
See what I mean – spiritual wisdom and food for thought. A re-orientation of priorities; a reconfiguration of thought; a necessary change of perspective; a letting go in order to be free; an expansion of the heart by photosynthesis in the light of Divine Presence.
Few writers I know combine the enjoyment of God with such reverence, or see so sharply and persistently the reality of God underlying the ordinary. To use Tillich's phrase, which Heschel would have accepted with some qualification, prayer is to live in constant attentiveness to the One who is the Ground of our being, and whose love and mercy are cause for wonder, thankfulness and worship.
The photo was taken at St Cyrus. In an odd juxtaposition of Blake and Heschel, it nicely illustrates the Heschel's way of viewing the world.
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
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