I will meditate on Your precepts,
and regard Your ways.
I will delight in Your decrees.
I will never forget Your word. – Psalm 119:15-16 (TLV)
We have entered Hollywood blockbuster movie season. The latest Star Wars movie came out this past weekend; this coming weekend the new Masters of the Universe film opens. There are plenty of other over-the-top blockbusters planned. Actually going to a theater to see a movie is a less common activity these days, but there is still something about going for the big screen spectacle. It is immersive. Your mind shuts down from anything else and gets absorbed into the movie. Such movies are not always great – in fact they are frequently mediocre at best – but the visuals provide at least some assurance of a good way to shut out the worries of life for a few hours.
The idea of being completely absorbed into something is not new. Many types of media traditionally offer this experience. Reading a book, attending an opera, or talking a walk in the woods are all traditionally ways to become immersed in a reality beyond our own. It does our minds good to get away from its own fixations, let the stress go, and see that the world is bigger than us. These days we have become used to faster paced and more interactive types of immersive experiences and so have moved away from these slower forms. The spectacle is fun, but it also loses the power of the ponderous. The slower types of immersive experience offer more than adrenaline; they offer space to wonder and think.
Christian spiritual practices are at heart immersive experiences. To read the bible is to enter into the world of the bible to have our minds expanded about the ways that God works in the world. To participate in worship is to be part of the movement and flow of a liturgy that enacts God’s breaking into our lives. To pray is to be absorbed into listening for God’s presence among us. Too often people miss this immersive aspect of these practices. Prayer too easily becomes asking God for something and expecting an immediate answer. Worship becomes a routine to watch and maybe hear something practical from. The bible becomes an incomprehensible collection of prescription of what we are supposed to do. All of those approaches fall short of the spiritual nature of the practice because we are still keeping ourselves separate from them rather than allowing ourselves to be absorbed into God’s presence.
Enjoy some movies this summer. Shut off your mind and worries and enter the film. Then use that same method to read the bible, pray, and worship. Lose yourself into God and experience the immersive experience of the divine.