“Where is the God we Pray To?” by Andrew J. Schatkin
“Where is the God we Pray To?” by Andrew J. Schatkin
Ladies and gentlemen and Christians and non-Christians alike and you of all views opinions, ideas, and thought streams, I am today going to consider the subject and topic of “Where is this god who you pray to?” This is a most difficult and challenging issue and question since for many people what they cannot see, or hear, or feel is the only reality. This could be the view and approach of many people in our increasingly secularized if not material culture.
Yet the fact of the matter is we all everyday deal with invisible unseen realities. When we close our eyes to sleep, is the world around us gone? When we hear a great piece of music, when it ends is it gone with no existence? When we read a great poem or great novel, when we cease reading, is it gone? When our child who we love goes from our presence, is our love end and is it gone? When we see a great piece of art by Rembrandt, is this work gone when we do not and cease to look at it? Are we only bodies and features or something more? Is beauty gone no longer beauty. Are the only realities the physical realities? When we come to know another person, is that person only flesh to us and is our relationship only bodily and without an unseen element?
The answer here is that there are many realities other than the purely material. We sense them every day and everywhere and so the argument that we are praying to what does not exist because we cannot see or hear this being is weak and unfounded. All of us know in the end the world consists of many levels of truth and being, and so I say when we pray, we touch upon and sense one of the other realities. Unseen, it is nonetheless real as land, a form of love, if you will, and is real though not seen and felt and touched and is not less real than unseen love and the unseen beauty of beautiful music or a gothic cathedral. Prayer brings us to the level of truth I speak of here and it is somewhat foolish to believe that something you cannot see does not exist since this is how we live and come to know and love another.