“Richard Rohr reminds us that ‘we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.’ This is the core of the spiritual journey–knowing to discern the presence of God, to see what really is. But nothing is more dangerous than presuming that we already see when we do not.”
(Benner, David G. The Gift of Being Yourself. Expanded ed. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015, p. 41)
“It is relatively easy to meet God in moments of joy or bliss. In these situations we correctly count ourselves blessed by God. The challenge is to believe that this is also true–and to know God’s presence–in the midst of doubt, depression, anxiety, conflict or failure. But the God who is Immanuel is equally in those moments we would never choose as in those we would always gladly choose.”
(Benner, David G. The Gift of Being Yourself. Expanded ed. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015, p. 41)
The sacrament of the present moment, as spun out by Benner, is the recurring and deepening awareness that we are in the presence of God at every moment and location of our existence. God is omnipresent. God is eternal. There is no place or time that God is not. And therefore He is always with us; we are always with Him. The good times, the bad times, times of worship, at work, in school, at play, in the city, on the mountain, in church, on retreat, in traffic, at hospital or hospice, in prison or parkland, bedroom, barn, at sea, in the air … everywhere and everywhen. God is with us; we are with God.
“When applied to the spiritual life, the metaphor of a journey is both helpful and somewhat misleading. Helpfully it reflects the fact that the essence of spirituality is a process–specifically, a process of transformation. Unhelpfully it obscures the fact that we are already what we seek and where we long to arrive–specifically, in God. Once we realize this, the nature of the journey reveals itself to be more one of awakening than accomplishment, more one of spiritual awareness than spiritual achievement.”
(Benner, David G. The Gift of Being Yourself. Expanded ed. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015, p. 3)
A journey, pilgrimage, or walk is something that takes time, evolves, progresses, processes. But then that means that we aren’t “there” yet, that we still have effort to expend, work to do. Instead, Benner says, we should be aware that we are even now in God’s hand in God’s land. You could say that in faith and in Baptism we are now exploring within the borders of God’s Kingdom. We have arrived at our goal. Now and not yet.
“Our efforts to stay afloat — that is, our efforts to earn God’s love — are always counterproductive. We must simply open our spiritual eyes and see that we are in a river of God’s love and that our staying afloat and moving along are God’s responsibility. All we have to do is surrender.”
(Benner, David G. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Expanded ed. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015, p. 62)
I’ve read that a drowning person being rescued by a lifeguard needs to relax and let the lifeguard do the work. Similarly, the sinner being saved by God needs to relax and let God do the saving. In either case, let your savior do the work. You’ll be better off for it.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, Christians who assume that God is preoccupied with sin tend themselves to adopt the same focus. … Unfortunately, while they may give intellectual assent to God’s love, they often experience very little of it.”
(Benner, David G. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality. Expanded ed. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015, p. 22)
Benner make an interesting comment about the result of where we focus of our attention. We can either zero in on the Law, or on the Gospel. This is not to say that either pole is erased. Both are still there. But if we think of God first as a law-giver, Benner says we’ll likely be legalists. If we think of God first as our gracious Savior, we’ll likely be Gospel-oriented.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 