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“We were left to believe that Jesus was physically raised from the dead but no longer present in any particular place.” – Ken Wilson, Mystically Wired

In chapter 4 of his book, Wilson talks about prayer as a location.  As something we participate in by “going somewhere”.  I find metaphorical hungers being fed in this chapter, that have been grumbling for quite sometime now.  So much so, that even as I begin chapter 5, I highly recommend this book to anyone launching into new realms of prayer. (note: my entire local church family) 🙂

In his book, he is gradually re-introducing Christianity as a religion with roots in Eastern/Middle-Eastern traditions, while remaining very scripture/experience/reason centered as well.  He begins with the frustrations that I’m well familiar with, and would venture to say many others would be as well.  Wilson reminds us of what prayer truly can be, and that our frustrations with prayer generally stem from our attempts to make it something else.

Later in the book, it seems, he introduces many prayer techniques that may be new to many people.  These techniques and prayers find their sources in ancient practices that have been used by Christ-followers and God-seekers for a very long time.  I remember being introduced to many of these back in college, while reading The Sacred Way, by Tony Jones.

What I hadn’t received with Jones’ book, was the much on the theology of space/place.  The words from Wilson’s book here, as quoted above, help to fill a gap that has existed for quite sometime.  It’s something that is simultaneously quite complex and mysterious, and yet simple for us to grasp:

1. We pray in the resurrected Jesus, and in His name.  We believe He stands as the bridge between the world/creation as it is (broken and dying from sin), and the New Heavens and New Earth God desires to bring about.  (Colossians 1:18)
2. We believe Jesus has been bodily/physically resurrected, and exists somewhere/somehow as the resurrected Christ.  Scripture tells us He has gone to be with the Father (John 16:28)
3. So it follows, when we pray in Jesus, we are connecting/participating in that place where God is.  We cannot explain/rationalize this away, and probably cannot grasp just how important it may be.

Wilson reminds us that for ages, “heaven” was believed to be “up there” somewhere.  At some point, science allowed us to see/travel much further than eyes had previously seen.  We discovered there was no “up there” besides the seemingly infinite “space”.  When that happened, heaven took the form of an “idea” and became spiritually intangible.  Prayer became more and more an introspective “what happens inside of me” journey, and the focus became more and more within…even though we still believed we were connecting with a very real God.

That same realm of science is discovering there are things we cannot know/explain.  There are atomic and quantum levels of existence that we cannot know or predict, and some things seem to point toward parallel universes/dimensions.  So what exactly does prayer accomplish in regard to our relationship to a God who may be “located” more fully in another “dimension”?  What does that even mean? 🙂

I don’t know. 🙂

But it certainly increases my urge/desire to spend more time going before that God, and praying in Jesus’ name.  Not because I believe in some gnostic magical passage I’ll discover, but because I believe in the bodily resurrected Christ who has called us to pray in His name…perhaps I’ll even take my family with me. 🙂

About a year ago, after hearing us talk about wanting to camp with our daughters in the future, some friends gave us a lil’ donation toward getting a tent.  We were stoked, and went right out to buy the best tent our two monies combined could offer.  It was the Coleman “Insta-tent”.  Seriously, check that video out.  It was ridiculous and awesome all at once.  Only one problem, the one we got had a broken door zipper.  So after camping for a few days (during the hottest part of summer..seriously, we couldn’t do s’mores because the marshmallows had already melted), we returned it.  We told ourselves we’d buy another tent next summer.

So here we are in “next summer”, and it has flown by full of trips and events, until it’s almost over.  We had also spent a bit of the money from that incredible tent.  But we were determined.  Last week we ordered the Coleman “Red Canyon” tent for only $99 (free shipping) from Amazon.  One of the benefits of 1. being a youth pastor, and 2. homeschooling, is I could tell my kids, “Whenever the tent gets here, we’ll go camping in the back yard!”  So when it arrived late Wednesday afternoon while it was pouring down rain and we were about to leave for youth group – I told them we’d camp Thursday afternoon/evening.

It worked out great!  Mommy and Ruby joined us for story-time (Currently reading “Stuart Little”), and “best/worst part of the day” time.  The forecast called for weather in the mid-40’s, but nice and dry.  The rainfly would have kept in the heat some, but of course the girls wanted to see the sky/tree, so we got rid of it.  I told them the deeper they were inside their sleeping bags, the warmer they would be.  Of course, they took me seriously. 🙂

Altogether, a great time.  Looking forward to doing some more camping.  Many times our girls said to me, “Daddy, maybe next time with can go camping with (insert friend/relative name here) in the forest!!”

Yes girls, daddy is planning on it.  After all, with morning faces like this, who could say no???