I recently read some writings of Augustine and one little phrase struck me. Augustine was discussing man's desire for happiness in his life - and that this can only be attained by uniting ourselves to God in love. The security of possessing Him, he wrote, will make us happy. He continued to write that this love for God, will need a medium of expression, and that need "is supplied by prayer which is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God." I don't know that I had really ever thought of prayer before as affectionate. As worship, yes. Adoration, yes. Supplication, yes. But affection? Hmmm... I pondered and pondered, and then realized that I liked this way of putting it because it allowed you to be before God as yourself. Often in Christian traditions we have learnt how to pray (in a manner of speaking, just as someone learns how to become a doctor, or how to sew). All engage the mind of the student, all are practiced by the student - and one can DO all these thing without ever engaging the heart, or arousing emotion in the student. This is, what I think, Augustine meant here: that our intellectual understanding and emotional response to God come together when we engage in prayer. By using the term affection - he delibrately points the participant to engage his whole being in his conversation with God.
Furthermore, when you have affection for someone or something, you are drawn towards the person, or thing. In relationships - we want to share ourselves, to share our lives. This is what we need to do with God! I had to question myself: how do I show affection for God? Is He the one that I want to go to with happy and sad things? Does my mind show affection to Him by reaching to Him in prayer? Or do I seek others instead?
1 comment:
...and I love how Augustine's superfluously flowery and emotional language just oozes what he writes about. When's the last time I approached God, weak-kneed and woozy at how much he means to me?
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