This Is Not That

Religious people, and even non-religious people who encounter a religious situation, can become caught up in emotional religious experiences. Passion certainly has its place in religious life, just as in any other human endeavour. But there is a very real danger in associating emotional excitement with the actual presence of God. Most certainly, the love of God for us and our love for God is the kernel of contemplative prayer and the lived experience of God. But in truth, holy feelings of affection mean very little or nothing at all when it comes to infused contemplative life. They are as accidental to that which is actually going on as are tears that are shed by any other amplified human experience. Joy and compunction are equally a part of human nature, but they are deceptively lofty, and in reality mark it for what it is, namely, crude emotion. (Having said all of this there are a great number of people who by nature lack the ability to manifest any sort of genuine, integrated emotion. These are just as crippled in the spiritual life as are those who baselessly eisegete a contrived fantasy of God based on their soul-less rationalisms.) The real danger is that people wind up attaching the wrong kind of importance to the manifestations of religious emotion. Whether or not these emotions come is irrelevant. When it comes to infused contemplative experience they are only accidentals. When true love comes - quietly standing in the presence of God - all of this gets sorted out. Everything becomes clear. Pure. Clean. Quiet. Nonviolent. Forgetful of your self. Humble. Obedient. And not this other. During the second great awakenings in Europe the Pietist P.J. Spener talked about the heart being strangely warmed. But contemplative experience is not that.