Towards a More Meaningful Worship

[Devobah]

Hello all. 
I’ll be straight with you: my worship could use a bit of work; both in temple and regular sacrament meeting worship. I feel stagnant, and I often just scroll through my phone like a heathen a lot of the time. Besides doing something about that, I’ll pose the question here:

What have you done to make your worship (in the temple or sacrament meeting) more meaningful to you?

To our Catholic, Orthodox, and other Mainstream Christian friends, I would love how you make your worship more meaningful as well. 
 

Please feel free to post scriptures, devotionals, personal thoughts, or meaningful messages below. 
 

I appreciate you all! God bless you. 

[Pyreaux]

Like more crowd participation opportunities? What should a person with a short attention span do when things get dull? You can't engage by shouting amen or clap. I'd would say meditate, but meditation beyond thinking or remembering is not a taught skill in the church. Meditation does activate the God Center of the brain, like prolong prayer does, except you push thoughts out instead of concentrating hard.

Edited Tuesday at 08:30 AM by Pyreaux

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Like more crowd participation opportunities? What should a person with a short attention span do when things get dull? You can't engage by shouting amen or clap. I'd would say meditate, but meditation beyond thinking or remembering is not a taught skill in the church. Meditation does activate the God Center of the brain, like prolong prayer does, except you push thoughts out instead of concentrating hard.

Start learning mindfulness. There are a lot of apps and youtube channels that can help you get started.  I like the app called Smiling Mind.  It is free, but you can donate to it if you want.  Mindfulness helps you be present. But it's not just being mindful with sounds, sights, things you touch etc., but also with your thoughts.

[teddyaware]

10 hours ago, Devobah said:

Hello all. 
I’ll be straight with you: my worship could use a bit of work; both in temple and regular sacrament meeting worship. I feel stagnant, and I often just scroll through my phone like a heathen a lot of the time. Besides doing something about that, I’ll pose the question here:

What have you done to make your worship (in the temple or sacrament meeting) more meaningful to you?

To our Catholic, Orthodox, and other Mainstream Christian friends, I would love how you make your worship more meaningful as well. 
 

Please feel free to post scriptures, devotionals, personal thoughts, or meaningful messages below. 
 

I appreciate you all! God bless you. 

Whenever I read and ponder the scriptures they have a powerful spiritual impact on my heart, mind and spirit due to the fact that I’m keenly aware of the fact that I’m proactively affixing a firm grip on the iron rod of the living and powerful word of God. If you’re not having similarly enlightening and empowering spiritual experience while reading the scriptures, it’s unlikely you’re going to have deeply meaningful worship experiences while in the temple or in sacrament meeting. One way to turn such spiritual lethargy around is to resolve to regularly study and ponder the scriptures and to pray mightily unto the Father that the Spirit of the Lord will be palpably present whenever you do.

In addition, the time may have also come to seriously consider the need for earnest repentance in order to effectuate the process designed by our all-wise God to help his children to emerge out of their spiritual ruts. The fact that you’re admittedly feeling spiritually listless may indicate that although you’re able to honestly pass a temple recommend interview it may not mean that the time hasn’t come for you to take the initiative to do what needs to be done in order to grow more dynamically in the grace and knowledge of God. No matter how it may outwardly appear we’re doing in keeping our covenants, there’s always a tremendous amount of room for improvement as we engage with the Lord in the process of sanctification, that glorious pathway that will ultimately culminate with our enthronement as kings and queens in heaven, and thus become joint heirs with Christ in all things the he himself possesses.

Edited Tuesday at 03:49 PM by teddyaware

[3DOP]

18 hours ago, Devobah said:

Hello all. 
I’ll be straight with you: my worship could use a bit of work; both in temple and regular sacrament meeting worship. I feel stagnant, and I often just scroll through my phone like a heathen a lot of the time. Besides doing something about that, I’ll pose the question here:

What have you done to make your worship (in the temple or sacrament meeting) more meaningful to you?

To our Catholic, Orthodox, and other Mainstream Christian friends, I would love how you make your worship more meaningful as well. 
 

Please feel free to post scriptures, devotionals, personal thoughts, or meaningful messages below. 
 

I appreciate you all! God bless you. 

To be discouraged about our distractions in prayer and worship tells  God that we are desiring to have a more satisfying interior life. But still we have to be patient. According to my faith tradition, we cannot summon up a spirit of prayer by our own powers.

A reason why God sometimes withholds this gift, especially from those who have had a taste of it, is that when we worship in a meaningful and reverent way, it sometimes leads to a different kind of distraction. We are consoled and enjoy a true spirit of prayer to a fault.

When would that happen? It can happen if we begin to measure the value of our prayers according to how it makes us feel. Sometimes God is less honored when we desire the consolations of God more than the God of consolations.

Many Catholic saints talk about this and become aware that we can be found honoring Him and pleasing to God when we persevere in dryness and distractions to do our best that moment, that day. When we find ourselves thinking about dinner while we are supposed to be praying, we tell our God how it pains us that we are so seemingly unable to speak and listen to Him. And we keep trying. It might be that this kind of prayer expresses our love and adoration even more than when we are feeling it.

I don't know if this way of looking at one's prayer life would fit all Christian traditions. I have to say that if Catholicism is true, as I believe, that God loves whoever is moved to call His name. But the dynamics might be different with those who don't believe in Christ's love for us in the Holy Eucharist and in other advantages that are unique to Catholic faithful that aids our ability to worship.

Devobah, thanks for your inquiry. I felt obliged to share an insight from Catholic teaching on the spiritual life, but with some doubt about its utility in a non-Catholic setting. Whatever your faith tradition might be, I ask for your prayers and I offer up mine that you and everyone here might find the good God of consolations. None of us can be completely satisfied in life by anything else.

3DOP 

Edited Tuesday at 11:53 PM by 3DOP

[The Nehor]

When I find myself bored at Church I used to push through it thinking it was good experience for me. Then I started to ponder about why the ability to endure boredom will be a useful skill and start to worry about this whole heaven thing.

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

When I find myself bored at Church I used to push through it thinking it was good experience for me. Then I started to ponder about why the ability to endure boredom will be a useful skill and start to worry about this whole heaven thing.

Agreed. Sacrifice for sacrifice’s sake makes no sense. 

[let’s roll]

Embrace the struggle to become, petition for Divine assistance in that struggle, bask in the joy and light that accompanies progress, and have confidence that His grace will abide with those who maintain resolve when progress comes slowly.  

Invite others to the struggle, encourage and buoy them in their efforts.

Have a grateful heart.  It’s ironic that for many Americans, the abiding memory of the World Cup will be having had the world visit our country and tell us how wonderful it is and how happy and kind we are.   It is, and most times, we are.  We have much for which to be grateful.  Gratitude to Deity and each other, in word and deed, is not only admirable, it is warranted and it lifts the soul of both the giver and recipient.

[manol]

16 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

I'd would say meditate, but meditation beyond thinking or remembering is not a taught skill in the church. Meditation does activate the God Center of the brain, like prolong prayer does, except you push thoughts out instead of concentrating hard.

I like the idea of using time that would otherwise be wasted on boredom for being aware of and present to/with/in the Divine.  Unfortunately as Pyreaux said, and @Rain also noted, this isn't (to the best of my knowledge) something taught in the LDS Church.  Back when I was active in the Church, any mention of "meditation" as a practice was viewed with a mixture of consternation and disapproval.

 

2 hours ago, let’s roll said:

Have a grateful heart.

Imo going deep into the feeling of gratitude (just the feeling itself; no thought-intensive "name them one-by-one" necessary unless it helps you get there) is relaxing and rejuvenating and maybe even gently transformational.  You might put it in your bag of tricks.  Just don't call it "meditation", at least not out loud, and you should be fine! 

[let’s roll]

15 hours ago, manol said:

Back when I was active in the Church, any mention of "meditation" as a practice was viewed with a mixture of consternation and disapproval

Interesting.  I used to encourage my early morning seminary students to engage in daily meditation.  I did the same to those in Gospel Doctrine in six different Wards during a span of 40 years and never had pushback.  I’ve always considered it synonymous with pondering, the term more often used in the Church at all levels.  
 

I am a lawyer and have been told that some are reticent to question attorneys so that may explain the lack of pushback.  That said, I am always willing to discuss divergent points of view.  I just have never had any verbalized opposition to the concept of meditation.  My belief is that meditation was a vital part of Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness.
 

[Rain]

3 hours ago, let’s roll said:

Interesting.  I used to encourage my early morning seminary students to engage in daily meditation.  I did the same to those in Gospel Doctrine in six different Wards during a span of 40 years and never had pushback.  I’ve always considered it synonymous with pondering, the term more often used in the Church at all levels.  
 

I am a lawyer and have been told that some are reticent to question attorneys so that may explain the lack of pushback.  That said, I am always willing to discuss divergent points of view.  I just have never had any verbalized opposition to the concept of meditation.  My belief is that meditation was a vital part of Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness.
 

It may just be where you lived?  I've heard a few members speak against it because of their idea, paraphrased, "if you empty your mind Satan can get in" and other things like that.  I also heard negativity towards yoga for many years till long after it was becoming widely available as an exercise practice and not just religious.

Edited 21 hours ago by Rain

[Calm]

Back in the 50s (or so I heard), 60s and at least early 70s, mediation was presented by many outside the Church as a spiritual practice associated with Eastern religions, gurus and such.  However, it morphed into a nondenominational practice that was about mental discipline.  Doctors and psychologists were the ones more often seen teaching it rather than nonChristian religious leaders from what I saw.  Same thing with yoga (which my mom was doing in the 60s with Lilias).

Transcendental Mediation was what I heard the most about, but there were popular retreats (that pushed meditation as part of the retreat experience) in Northern California where the majority of my youth was spent.  Mom picked up a couple of books on meditation and I tried it, but couldn’t make it work, though I loved yoga.  (I have figured out that type of meditation doesn’t work with my RLS as not moving triggers it, yoga has enough movement in it I could do it until my RLS got severe).
 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transcendental_Meditation

In the Church there was a lot of negativity with this new age type of meditation and yoga got dragged into it as well as another gateway to disbelief and paganism.  Back then I remember it getting tied into hippies, drugs, and pop culture (Beatles and other celebrities studied under gurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_in_India ).

I have seen quite a few members who got into the new age stuff with energy healing leave the Church (never heard of it with meditation or yoga though), but that tends to be when they see these practices as deeper, meatier doctrine that leads to greater spiritual knowledge…which, imo is something that can happen with fundamentalist beliefs as much as the spiritualist type of beliefs, if not more, in our faith it seems to me.  

My memory says (but if it’s accurate who knows) I was hearing positive things about meditation as a mental discipline in my psych classes at BYU, which would be late 70s, early 80s.  I can’t remember when it was being brought up as church as part of prayer and personal study.  A search on the Church’s website shows pretty consistent use of meditation and meditate with increases around 2000, so my guess is it was more a cultural thing.  Didn’t deep dive to see when it was a main focus of discussion instead of part of a list of personal practices tied with prayer, etc.  What exactly was meant by meditation matters, of course.

The one thing I did note was an announcement about the Priesthood Revelation talked about Pres Kimball’s meditation and prayer.  I doubt they meant the formal practice though as opposed to pondering, etc.
 

Now both meditation and yoga are very mainstream basic health practices.

Edited 18 hours ago by Calm

[3DOP]

In the 50's, around two decades before he would be Pope John Paul II, a young Polish priest, soon to be a bishop, was writing a book which has been translated into English as Love and Responsibility. In that book the future pope is opposing utilitarianism as a primary problem in marital relationships, especially with regard to the sexual urge. By utilitarianism, Karol Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) is speaking about a system of ethics he attributes to John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. According to the Polish priest, these philosophers asserted that whatever gives the maximum pleasure and the least pain to the greatest number of people should determine human action. 

I can not debate Mill or Bentham fans about any misconceptions Wojtyla might have had about nuances in their versions of utilitarianism. My purpose for this thread is to state that the future pope was developing an ethic of behavior which can, but does not always rule in conjugal relations between married people. This is the book which eventually developed in to John Paul II's famous (in Catholic circles anyway) Theology of the Body. 

As I was reading Love and Responsibility this afternoon, I was struck with the similarity of the union of man and wife, and with union between God and man. Selfishness and pursuit of pleasure as an end, are, says the author, incompatible with the love that married couples should have. I would propose that in a similar way, pursuit of pleasure can get in the way of a deeper and more worshipful prayer life with God. I want to quote a short passage and see what you think of my theory. The quote below is being applied to married people who are to be united in one flesh (and spirit). I am applying the ethic to our intimacy with God with whom we are also to be united intimately.  

"It is easy to go on from the experience of pleasure not merely to the quest for pleasure, but to the quest for pleasure for its own sake, to accepting it as a superlative value and the proper basis for a norm of behaviour. This is the very essence of the distortions which occur in the love between man and woman."

---Love and Responsibility, by Karol Wojtyla, Krakow, Poland, (1960), first English translation (1981), reprinted in 1993, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, p. 43

Just as married people can sometimes behave as though their spouse is a person to be used for one's selfish pleasure, such distortions of love can enter in to any personal relationship. Utilitarianism in any relationship can potentially thwart the unity that should exist with those we love intimately, and this would include God, whom we must seek because of our love and good will toward Him. Before anything else in a more meaningful worship of Him who we are to love with all of our soul and strength, it is absolutely necessary that we seek Him alone, and not for any other incidental pleasurable result that we hope might follow.

It seems appropriate to add that this ethic which Wojtyla lifts straight from the Gospel is incidentally, that which can give us joy and peace and unity in all of our personal relationships, which we can never find by thinking about our own good pleasure. Utilitarianism cannot lead to satisfying, unifying joy. We Persons are not, praise God, created to be satisfied while being utilitarian toward other Persons.         

 

Edited 17 hours ago by 3DOP

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, 3DOP said:

In the 50's, around two decades before he would be Pope John Paul II, a young Polish priest, soon to be a bishop, was writing a book which has been translated into English as Love and Responsibility. In that book the future pope is opposing utilitarianism as a primary problem in marital relationships, especially with regard to the sexual urge. By utilitarianism, Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) is speaking about a system of ethics he attributes to John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. According to the Polish priest, these philosophers asserted that whatever gives the maximum pleasure and the least pain to the greatest number of people should determine human action. 

I can not debate Mill or Bentham fans about any misconceptions Wojtyla might have had about nuances in their versions of utilitarianism. My purpose for this thread is to state that the future pope was developing an ethic of behavior which can, but does not always rule in conjugal relations between married people. This is the book which eventually developed in to John Paul II's famous (in Catholic circles anyway) Theology of the Body. 

As I was reading Love and Responsibility this afternoon, I was struck with the similarity of the union of man and wife, and with union between God and man. Selfishness and pursuit of pleasure as an end, are, says the author incompatible with the love that married couples should have. I would propose that in a similar way, pursuit of pleasure can get in the way of a deeper and more worshipful prayer life with God. I want to quote a short passage and see what you think of my theory. The quote below is being applied to married people who are to be united in one flesh (and spirit). I am applying the ethic to our intimacy with God with whom we are also to be united intimately.  

"It is easy to go on from the experience of pleasure not merely to the quest for pleasure, but to the quest for pleasure for its own sake, to accepting it as a superlative value and the proper basis for a norm of behaviour. This is the very essence of the distortions which occur in the love between man and woman."

---Love and Responsibility, by Karol Wojtyla, Krakow, Poland, (1960), first English translation (1981), reprinted in 1993, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, p. 43

Just as married people can sometimes behave as though their spouse is not a person to be used for one's selfish pleasure, such distortions of love can enter in to any personal relationship. Utilitarianism in any relationship can potentially thwart the unity that should exist with those we love intimately, and this would include God, whom we must seek because of our love and good will toward Him. Before anything else in a more meaningful worship of Him who we are to love with all of our soul and strength, it is absolutely necessary that we seek Him alone, and not for any other incidental pleasurable result that might follow.

It seems appropriate to add that this ethic which Wojtyla lifts straight from the Gospel is incidentally, that which can give us joy and peace and unity in all of our personal relationships, which we can never find by thinking about our own good pleasure. Utilitarianism cannot lead to satisfying, unifying joy. We Persons are not, praise God, created to be satisfied while being utilitarian toward other Persons.         

I haven’t read it but know a little about utilitarianism. I think a bit is obscured by the use of the word pleasure. This pleasure also includes what we would often call happiness. Bentham and Mills argued about whether pleasure/happiness were all equal or whether there were higher and lower versions and the higher are to be sought after.

Regarding conjugal relations I would argue that a focus on the pleasure/happiness of your partner as well as your own amplifies both so a kind of modified utilitarianism is at work there. There is a reason erotic imagery is brought in to describe ecstasy with the divine. Part of me wants to quote Paul about marital partners leaving the other ‘discouraged’ for long periods being wrong and hurtful to the bond but I don’t know how you can analogize that to God’s relationship to us. Does God feel that pleasure as well? I don’t know.

I have a harder time applying this to God. It is very hard to approach God disinterestedly. You can approach without directly seeking pleasure or happiness from the communication or interaction but the approach usually comes from a want for God or, in some cases, a fear of God or some other impulse. While an appreciative love of God is often desired the need love that is more like a child imploring a parent is usually present and that is usually seeking some kind of pleasure or happiness or the ending of a pain or some strength to deal with pain or whatever. I am not sure if approaching God out of a sense of duty is somehow better.

So….in short, interesting thoughts, no solid ideas I can come up with though.

Edited 14 hours ago by The Nehor

[3DOP]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I haven’t read it but know a little about utilitarianism. I think a bit is obscured by the use of the word pleasure. This pleasure also includes what we would often call happiness. Bentham and Mills argued about whether pleasure/happiness were all equal or whether there were higher and lower versions and the higher are to be sought after.

Regarding conjugal relations I would argue that a focus on the pleasure/happiness of your partner as well as your own amplifies both so a kind of modified utilitarianism is at work there. There is a reason erotic imagery is brought in to describe ecstasy with the divine. Part of me wants to quote Paul about marital partners leaving the other ‘discouraged’ for long periods being wrong and hurtful to the bond but I don’t know how you can analogize that to God’s relationship to us. Does God feel that pleasure as well? I don’t know.

I have a harder time applying this to God. It is very hard to approach God disinterestedly. You can approach without directly seeking pleasure or happiness from the communication or interaction but the approach usually comes from a want for God or, in some cases, a fear of God or some other impulse. While an appreciative love of God is often desired the need love that is more like a child imploring a parent is usually present and that is usually seeking some kind of pleasure or happiness or the ending of a pain or some strength to deal with pain or whatever. I am not sure if approaching God out of a sense of duty is somehow better.

So….in short, interesting thoughts, no solid ideas.

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration. You raise some good points. 

I won't be so hasty in defending my theory as I was in posting it after it was about an hour old. Heh. Maybe tomorrow.

Rory

[3DOP]

6 hours ago, 3DOP said:

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration. You raise some good points. 

I won't be so hasty in defending my theory as I was in posting it after it was about an hour old. Heh. Maybe tomorrow.

Rory

Hey all, I didn't expect to comment again at such an early "tomorrow". We had an electrical storm go through which woke me up. I am not wired (up for the night), but remembering to salute our beloved Lord, (albeit not first as it should be), here I am already, having also had a cheese sandwich and a shot of vodka. (Vodka is hard on the liver I am told, on an empty stomach). Like love and marriage, one can't have the one without the other?

So yeah, The N., I took note yesterday of your reasonable questioning about analogical problems with including our relations with God similarly with other persons.

I thought I was being original with my "theory" from p. 43 of the future pope's book. But after I woke this morning, I immediately went to MMDB for any developments. Then came the sandwich, the shot, going outside to the front porch to experience the storm...and remembering I hadn't properly saluted our good and loving God. I took care of that, thanked him for my physical sustenance, and found that after kicking a speedy spider that had been on top of my flip-flopped foot, I was only one among God's dear creatures to seek refuge under my porch roof from the storm. I decided to give to those creatures my refuge from the downpour. They had no malice, crawling on me instinctually, not with any freedom of will. Bugs aren't meant for persons to enjoy I suppose. But it is irrational to despise them. Besides the speedy spider, which I also unfortunately crushed, there was also some other tiny, dark, unidentifiable thing, which when similarly smashed, left a white, creamy substance on my forearm.

Anyway, I have finished my repast in relative peace indoors. I fear my nocturnal activities might have disturbed my own wife's sleep. I will endeavor to discover in a daylight hour if this has been the case, and make amends. So anyway, enough dramatic biographical data, and stream of consciousness (?), if I understand what that means. I shall try to be more scientific and less focused upon me.

I have turned back to reread, accidentally p. 42. I thought it was p. 44 in the next chapter!!! Hah. I see that a previous page, so nearby as p. 42 was the inspiration for my so "original" theory after reading p. 43. Here is the hard part of this post. In my still sober judgment, I fear I may fail to be convincing of a possible analogical parallel between "more meaningful worship", and proper ethics in conjugal relations. I don't think anyone could rationally argue against the young future pope's conclusive concern for married couples. But that it applied to everybody, every person we encounter? Even to God, not only as God, but because God is a Person?

I want to quote from the book now:

"So, while the commandment to love is not, strictly speaking, identical with the personalistic norm but only presupposes it, as it implies also a personalistic system of values..." (the lights just flashed...saving post)...we can, taking a broader view, say that the commandment to love is the personalistic norm."

---ibid. p. 41

I know that this alone does not advance my case, and also that I may lose some that just want to stop being so distracted in prayer or have been experiencing boring, unfulfilling worship. I have probably erred on one side by being too personal (!), and on the other by failing to translate the author's philosophy in an accessible way. I hope to try to correct both issues. And I also want to suggest strenuously that the problem in worship isn't method. Thanks to the rain, I will probably be unable to work in the yard tomorrow very well, and will try to expand on the future pope's thoughts in a broad, bright daylight hour. God help me. Good night.

God bless all, 3.    

       

Edited 9 hours ago by 3DOP