IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I run into so many many young people who feel no need to attend a house of worship. God is everywhere, they tell me. They don't need to go to a church to be with him. (At least that is one of a great many reasons they give for not attending.)
I remember my Rabbi replying to this by quoting some sage or other, "Yes, God is everywhere, and is everywhere forgotten."
Human beings have a problem with sameness. After a while,we begin to tune it out, to take it for granted. It stops affecting us. It is true that God is everywhere. But we are unable to sustain that sense of teh sacredness of his presence everywhere. Who really thinks of God when they are changing the baby's diaper or working on their car or pour over the books an hour after the office has closed? A Zen master perhaps, after years of cultivation. But certainly not the average Joe.
Sometimes Joe will have moments where the sense of the sacred will come crashing through, but he can never control that.
No, for Joe Sixpack to experience a sense of the sacred on anything like a regular basis, he has to psychologically set a portion of time or space or whatever apart for God, and designate it as sacred by means of treating it differently.
God understands this psychology. Indeed, God allowed it to evolve in us and said, It is good. And so of course God himself works with it. Oh of course, there's nothing wrong with becoming the sort of zen master than can experience the sacred in washing dishes. I'm simply saying that God in his wisdom gave instructions for the other 99%.
And so the Torah gives commands for setting apart from the profane, for making of sacred time, sacred places, sacred objects, even sacred people.
Getting back to my Rabbi's remark, "God is everyone, and is everywhere forgotten..." God's answer is, "And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." Exodus 25:8 Obviously God already dwelt among us. It doesn't mean that he wasn't already there. It means that we would EXPERIENCE him as being there in a way that we otherwise would not.
My dear friends, it makes a difference to go to a house of God, and worship him there, with a faith community. It just does. It is our psychology. It is how our brains work. You can deny it. You can say that God doesn't need you there (and you would be right). But YOU need it. It is just as important for you to have a Sanctuary to worship God as it was for the ancient Israelites. You are not so different as you let yourself believe.
I rejoiced when they said unto me: 'Let us go unto the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1
I remember my Rabbi replying to this by quoting some sage or other, "Yes, God is everywhere, and is everywhere forgotten."
Human beings have a problem with sameness. After a while,we begin to tune it out, to take it for granted. It stops affecting us. It is true that God is everywhere. But we are unable to sustain that sense of teh sacredness of his presence everywhere. Who really thinks of God when they are changing the baby's diaper or working on their car or pour over the books an hour after the office has closed? A Zen master perhaps, after years of cultivation. But certainly not the average Joe.
Sometimes Joe will have moments where the sense of the sacred will come crashing through, but he can never control that.
No, for Joe Sixpack to experience a sense of the sacred on anything like a regular basis, he has to psychologically set a portion of time or space or whatever apart for God, and designate it as sacred by means of treating it differently.
God understands this psychology. Indeed, God allowed it to evolve in us and said, It is good. And so of course God himself works with it. Oh of course, there's nothing wrong with becoming the sort of zen master than can experience the sacred in washing dishes. I'm simply saying that God in his wisdom gave instructions for the other 99%.
And so the Torah gives commands for setting apart from the profane, for making of sacred time, sacred places, sacred objects, even sacred people.
Getting back to my Rabbi's remark, "God is everyone, and is everywhere forgotten..." God's answer is, "And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." Exodus 25:8 Obviously God already dwelt among us. It doesn't mean that he wasn't already there. It means that we would EXPERIENCE him as being there in a way that we otherwise would not.
My dear friends, it makes a difference to go to a house of God, and worship him there, with a faith community. It just does. It is our psychology. It is how our brains work. You can deny it. You can say that God doesn't need you there (and you would be right). But YOU need it. It is just as important for you to have a Sanctuary to worship God as it was for the ancient Israelites. You are not so different as you let yourself believe.
I rejoiced when they said unto me: 'Let us go unto the house of the LORD. Psalm 122:1