The active presence of Agape in life

In my previous posting I commented on St. Paul’s profound point that we should use agape to do everything that we do in life (1 Cor. 16:14). (And of course, that verse makes a lot more sense when we leave ‘agape’ untranslated, to carry the meaning of powerful faith, instead of weakening his point by using the common English word ‘love.’)

I’ve been trying to follow the meaning of that verse by extending my ‘agape prayer’ beyond my early morning prayer practice. I try letting my experience of the spiritual power of agape extend out in various ways so that I center the activities of my daily life around experiencing agape flowing through me. But... I’m finding it hard to remember to do that in many times during mundane activities. Usually, to see the meaning, I have to wait til the end of the day then reflect back over the times when I was able to experience momentary centering. As I do that looking back, I try finding a pattern to my day that can show me how to be more effective in centering my life with agape.

In that way I’ve been using the pattern-building process, stretched out over a few years, to realize how agape power has opened up my life from the very depths of my being and helped me over the years with my growth in faith. So my commitment is to focus on agape-flow in daily prayer exercises and then find ways throughout the day to let agape flow through me. During all this time it has been increasingly important to my faith development to continue to experience agape as a flowing spiritual power that opens me to ACCESS spiritual Presence all around me, within me, and extending infinitely.

As I look back over the last few years, I try to see how I’ve been slowly transformed by living my daily life in the reality of such spiritual flow. Even though I still have times when I let myself get overly tired and frustrated, I still find I've been increasing the depth of concern, caring, and compassion in my relationships. And I’ve always included in relationships: non-human creatures, and the rest of Creation. Then I try to experience this happening as others are drawn into this flow because of my participation in it and openness to it’s permeating all my living.

I’m confident that this process is available to everyone who is willing to prayerfully open up to find how God is pouring agape into our hearts. I’ve continued to read comments from more and more people, and it’s becoming apparent that a wide-spread change in perspective is happening as the experiencing of agape is spreading and the awareness is increasing. Of course, very few people recognize that it is agape.

As people describe their spiritual breakthroughs, they write about the exhilaration that brings a sense of freeing up of perspective on living. That change of perspective also allows people to see our period of history in a new light. More and more people are describing a greater awareness as people break free from the deadly, destructive perspectives that have held people back for too many centuries.

That’s why I describe what I’ve experienced as agape bringing “sacred freedom.” Not only does agape open people to new faith awareness, but also agape opens up relationships to new possibilities.

So I feel a similar hope to St. Paul’s when he expressed his hope in terms of the spiritual power of agape pouring into the heart of a faithful person (Rom. 5:5 -- if we leave ‘agape’ as its original Greek word). And so as more and more people are opened up spiritually to receive agape, each can experience agape’s power of patience and kindness.  So that brings us back to 1 Cor. 13 and the wise rejoicing in the truth. In that chapter (when we leave ‘agape’ untranslated) we find the basis of true, charitable, profound compassion (as a religious principle; instead of the common English word ‘love’). And so we can let the Greek word ‘agape’ help us see the implication of 1 Cor. 13:1-3 -- if we don’t live by that spiritual power God gives us, then there is the despair of futility as all the words of the world are nothing more than clanging gongs or clashing cymbals (or symbols?), and all the knowledge of philosophy and the prophecies of religion are nothing, and all charitable acts amount to nothing. Those are harsh words indeed from a man who was forced to witness the pathetic results of trying to build a religion without the spiritual basis of accepting the gift of agape from God. But of course, he also witnessed the profound hope from people being opened up to sense God’s Presence in Life.

Centering on Agape

Every morning I’ve been doing a practice near the beginning of my morning prayers when I pray to become ‘centered’ on agape. This practice began as I used Romans 5:5 to start. I pray: May “God’s agape pour into the center of my being thru the Holy Spirit.” That prayer helps me let God’s agape open me to access God’s Presence.

What such a prayer practice means to me is
[1st] accepting agape-flow into 'the center of my being' (in ancient Greek, ‘the heart’);
[2nd] meditating on the way agape opens me to the Presence of the Holy Spirit over me, under me, around me, and thru me -- as I open to both the intimacy and the vastness of Presence.

I’ve found this to be very helpful for my spiritual development. Thru that practice I’ve slowly been able to ‘sense’ Presence permeating my being and in the next moment I ‘sense’ a deep, vast silence. As I wait upon that ‘deep, vast silence’ I gain a sense of divine Presence throughout that ‘silence’ -- in that way it’s not silence in the normal meaning of that word -- in the same way this practice has led me to realize that agape is not love in the normal meaning of that word. Then as God's agape opens me to the vastness of silent Presence, I 'sense' the spiritual connection that agape gives me with God.

Now, of course that is just the beginning of the wonder that agape brings to me. Thru that practice I have found deeper insight into Paul's conclusion that agape brings patience and kindness [1 Cor. 13: 4]. Of course, I call it “just the beginning” because I have become more sensitive to how very far I am from fully accepting agape’s patience and kindness into the everyday actions of my daily life.

I guess the most common example of my lack of progress is the way I lose patience with my grandson when he gets on my nerves and frustrates me. The need to keep working on gaining patience to handle such frustrations is one of the reasons why I talk about centering my life on agape.

It is not enough to center on agape in the moment of deep prayer, accepting God’s agape pouring into the center of one’s being; but also it’s necessary to center one’s life in God’s agape. That's needed in order for agape to work in the daily relationships and the daily times of need and struggle. That’s how we find the strength, patience, kindness, and joy of God’s agape flowing into action in our living.

But it is exactly in finding such effectiveness of agape’s help that we find our closeness to God’s Presence.

Agape Prayer

I've been developing a form of prayer using the spiritual power of agape. So here is what I’ve come up with so far.

Because this is a prayer, we start and end with God. Of course, there is the realization that in the 2 Great Commandments in both the Greek Septuagint and the Greek NT, the same word is used for both devotion to God and devotion to and caring for our neighbor and our self -- that word is ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ And that is the basis for the 'agape prayer.' Matthew records Jesus as saying that the 2nd Great Commandment is like the 1st.

But what is it about the two Great Commandments that is alike? Could it be that both commandments are tied together by the verb form of agape? The 2 are alike in the way agape opens us to God and opens us to our ‘neighbor.’ So the same spiritual power is an activating, enabling force in our own life, helping us reach out to God and reach out to assist other people in need. ((Jesus said … ‘You shall [agapan] the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all our mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall [agapan] your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mt 22:36-40)))

So the Agape Prayer involves an expanding cycle of people to pray for. The first individual you pray for is yourself. So from Rom. 5:5, you begin the prayer by gratefully accepting the gift of agape into your heart and thus let agape open you to a devoted relationship with God. In that openness you focus with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind on being accepted. You pray for the deep awareness that you are accepted by God. Thus your prayer practice starts by identifying with a sensation of eternal acceptance. You recognize that such is possible because, as Paul said in Rom. 5:5, agape is given you as your access to God’s Presence. Of course you need to accept the gift. So pray Rom. 5:5 until it becomes internal reality for you.

That's why this prayer begins by praying for yourself, that you may accept God's gift to you. That means preparing your heart, your soul, your mind to be opened to both the profound intimacy of God’s Presence and also to the infinite, eternal vastness of God’s Presence. (“For God so [agapan] the world ...")
("that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16))

Praying for yourself means accepting the presence of agape pouring into you -- you pray for the power to be opened to the personal closeness of the Holy Spirit. Also, the spiritual power of agape helps us pray for a deep sense of peace. The spiritual sensation that overwhelms us as God's agape comes pouring into our heart is the feeling that has been described for centuries as "God loves you."

Next, as Paul explained in 1 Cor. 13 and Rom. 12, agape is the spiritual power both opening us to our connection with God and also empowering us to reach out to others. From the eternal Source in God, agape flows thru and from us out to other people then to the rest of Creation in compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled ways. But it helps our faith development to pray for that to happen.

That sensation of eternal acceptance helps us realize that, as Jesus so profoundly showed, the 2nd Great Commandment is like the first -- as agape becomes also the opening power to be concerned for the well-being of other people. So, once you have relaxed completely into a profound realization of agape permeating your being, bringing into your imagination a sense of what it would be like to fulfill your well-being and deep joy; then you are ready to move on to the next step in agape prayer.

STEP 2: is to pray for agape to flow into the life of a close, respected person.

Hold that close, respected person in prayer. Honestly and truly desire for the well-being of that person. Honestly desire that person to find personal well-being and deep sense of peace. Imagine that person opening to both the personal Presence and vastness of eternity. Feel the emotion of sharing in agape with that person. Practice that until you can truly, honestly feel a soft, warm, comforting sensation of compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled relationship.

STEPS 3, 4, 5: pray that agape pours into the heart of a succession of 3 people: a dearly beloved friend, then a neutral person, then someone you consider hostile (even as an enemy). Go thru the same process you went thru for the close, respected person. Practice this until you can genuinely feel the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of loving-kindness for them. Of course, when you get to the 3rd person, remember that Jesus said,

"You have heard it said, ‘You shall [agapan] your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, [agapan] your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:44-45)

STEPS 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: When the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of agape has formed in you about those people in steps 3, 4, 5, then expand out to large groups of people, communities, nations, continents, and finally all of Creation.  This can be accomplished because of the realization that the spiritual power of agape brings us a way to connect with others while connecting with God. And remember that God initiated this process ((“In this is [agape], not that we [agapan] God but that God [agapan] us and sent God’s Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so [agapan] us, we also ought to [agapan] one another. No man has ever seen God; if we [agapan] one another, God abides in us and God’s [agape] is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:9-12))).

The greater purpose of the Agape Prayer is to facilitate the flow of agape among all people.