It just struck me that the whole point of prayer is to become present to God. To be present to someone is to have one’s attention focussed on them. Once our attention is focussed elsewhere then they are no longer present to us.
I still wonder at our anthropomorphic way of understanding and speaking about God – though I shouldn’t really – it is what comes naturally. But it still surprises me when it comes from people who are professionally religious, like monks and nuns. “This is where God wants you to be… It’s God’s will… etc.” I feel more and more uncomfortable with this idea of God, someone who has specific plans and wishes for each person. Thinking in this way is a roundabout way of justifying whatever it is that we want to do, or whatever it is that happens to us. God no more has specific plans for us than a parent has for his grown up children – other than a general desire that they should be happy and fulfilled in whatever they choose to do. The idea that God wants to determine us in all the little details of living does not fit easily with our perception of ourselves as free and self-determining. If we are made in the image and likeness of God and if God loves us as we are, then God’s relationship to us is not that of a parent to a young child. Maybe this is a clue as to why people persist in thinking of God in this way – a nostalgia for the innocent and uncomplicated relationships of childhood.