[Dialogue] Keeping on with the conversation, a bit of archival material . . . The short courses on Prayer from the RS-1 course.

Sat Sep 17 12:57:43 PDT 2016

Thanks for the conversation and sharing, a good thread.  Certainly the wording in the prayer song was articulating individual experience ("When I see my life ever is torn . . .").  These short courses touch upon a community dimension as well.  I like I.B, 1 and 2.
THE SEVEN INDIRECT COURSES OFRS-1:  Prayer, Theology, Study, Group,Worship, Art, Meal

PRAYER METHODOLOGY

I.    RETOOLING‑ Prayer is one aspect Of the Christian life that needs to be re‑thought.

 A.  Collapse: Prayer is a problem for churchmen in the 20th century.

      1. World view ‑ the two-story world view inwhich the metaphors for prayer were born is gone.

      2. Baalism ‑ to ask God to give you goodthings or to relate to your own subjectivity is not prayer.

 B.  Recovery:  The collapse gives the possibility for re‑discoveringthe meaning of prayer.

      1. Witness       ‑to offer a prayer is at minimum a witness to who you are.

      2. Worship       ‑to declare who you are is to disclose what God you stand before as           the meaning of your life.

II.   CONTEXT ‑   As withany activity the question of prayer is a question of designating the particularand universal context in which it occurs.

 A.  Situation.   To pray authentically is to respond in somesituation.

      1. Particular ‑ responses to the deeps oflife always occur in a particular      situation.

      2. Embracing ‑ prayer is to be totally   situation in the sense of affirming yourparticipation in it.

 B.  Community:     Depth responses to situations are always made on the basis ofsome community in history; there is no such thing as private prayer.

      1. Saints ‑ in the Christian community evenprayer off by oneself is in the presence of the Churchmen known and unknown ofthe past and future.

      2. Worship ‑ it is also always an extensionof and re-call to the corporate office of the gathered community.

III.   DYNAMICS ‑ The nature of what takes place in prayer has todo with certain essential interior characteristics.

 A.  Basic: Prayer is a methodology in selfhood without which humans would not behuman.

      1. Attentionality           ‑ it is basically a way of being present to the actualoccurrences as they are universally experienced in life.

      2. Intentionality            ‑‑ it is the exercise of the decision a human being makesas a final stance toward some given particular.

 B.  Depth ‑ Prayer has to do with man’sspirit relationships rather than his surface existence.

      1. Responsibility ‑ to pray is to berequired to take genuine responsibility for an object of concern.

      2. Promisorial ‑ it is also to pick up theparticulars that are being faced and claiming the promise of their fulfillmentas they are.

IV.  TYPES ‑ In the tradition of the Christian community thereare several basic types of prayer.

 A.  Petitionary ‑ The first requirement isto dare to assume the presumptuous posture toward life of projecting oneself asa person of faith.

      1. Church ‑ we presume to pray forourselves as the body of Christ in all times and in all places.

      2. Trust ‑ we therefore rely upon the Wordthat we are received people as we are who can always be expected to be foundstanding as accepted persons.

 B.  Intercessory ‑  boldly advance our proclamation of thedecision to take responsibility for all of life.

      1. World ‑ we pray for every structure thatholds life in being announcing that we are to be held accountable for theirjustices and injustices.

      2. Service ‑ we pray as well for every one notfound in the orders of life whether by their own deed or by the willfulexclusion by others, thereby saying we will care for their lives.

 Jim Wiegel  
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      From: John C via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
 To: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2 at gmail.com>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
 Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 11:55 AM
 Subject: [Oe List ...] Thank you, Terry!

Super. Thank you, Terry! Thank you, Sully!        John Cock
From: Terry Bergdall via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Reply-To: Terry Bergdall <bergdall2 at gmail.com>, Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 2:50 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: [Oe List ...] Spong and Prayer

The movie "Sully" opened in movie theaters around the US last week. I was interested to see it because of an "earthrise" witness that I wrote on prayer seven years ago. I was trying to illustrate the RS-1 practice of grounding religious language in life experience. Given this dialogue initiated by Susan in response to Bishop Spong, I thought I'd re-post it again here. See below:
PRAYER AND CAPTAIN SULLY, 9 April 2009
    I just returned home from a trip to New York. As is typical when flying from LaGuardia, we had a spectacular view of the city’s skyscrapers. This time my fascination was greater than usual as I found myself looking for the spot where, in January, a plane like mine crash-landed into the Hudson River. You probably heard about Captain Sully and his plane’s encounter with a flock of geese, how its engines stopped shortly after take-off, his quick review of options, and his management of a crash from which every one of the 150+ passengers survived. 
As I looked down on the same river, I was reminded of an interview I heard shortly after this occurred. Someone asked Captain Sully “Did you pray while this was happening?” “No,” he said, “but I imagine there were some in the back taking care of it for me while I did the flying.” 
I may be overly presumptuous but both the question and answer seem to be predicated on a popular image of prayer whereby one’s self is put in the fore seeking favors from a supernatural entity and, in this case, pleading for an escape from a life-threatening danger. I have no doubt that everyone on that plane was experiencing a prayerful moment, but genuine prayer is something far different from this counterfeit perception.
Prayer means acknowledging and bowing my head to the sheer awesomeness of a prevailing mystery that is totally beyond myself. It is the mystery that I first recognized in the questions of my childhood -- why I am here? why must I die? what should I do? what is the purpose of life? I encounter unmitigated mystery precisely because these questions are ultimately unanswered. Genuine prayer allows us to grapple with the silence rather than fill the void. Prayer is standing before that reality (the name that we cannot know according to the ancient Israelites, i.e., “God”) and framing everyday actions, as well as responses to extreme circumstances, in a life-affirming comprehensive context. It is never an escape. “I don’t pray to change God,” C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “I pray to change myself.”
Captain Sully’s actions make me think that he was in a very profound state of prayer as he landed that plane. He was intensely focused on acknowledging the real situation while bringing all of his experience and knowledge to bear, including extraordinary resources to remain calm in a moment of extreme crisis. Given popular perceptions, I can also appreciate his unwillingness to call it prayer.
Which raises questions for me. Most of the time, topics of an overt religious nature, like prayer, never even come up in my daily encounters. When they do, it seems that about half of the people I meet are more-or-less content with the shallowness of popular religion while the other considers it to be totally irrelevant. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification and there is a lot of grey in between but it highlights a quandary. How do I authentically engage everyone, religious and secular alike, to celebrate and act upon both the possibilities of life and its overwhelming limits? It is even more complex when different religious traditions are thrown into the mix. No matter how much I work on resolving this, there is no simple answer. 
It is in wrestling with life’s questions that we make our prayers. Though he’d probably be surprised to hear it, I’m grateful today for Captain Sully calling me to mine. Amen.

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