Sacred Pathway #2 Sensates
Finally after exploring the naturalists pathway several weeks ago, I am posting my reflection on the next chapter of Gary Thomas' Sacred Pathways - Sensates.
Sensates are those who are most moved by sensuous worship experiences - taste, touch, smell, sound and sight. Too often Protestants reduce all Christian worship to merely intellectualism and live crippled, forgetting that we were created with multi-faceted senses.
This pathway reminds me of what very small children are like when they are exploring the world - they will often put inedible things into their mouths. The desire to experience something with all your senses is quite inborn. Biblical accounts of the glory of God are elaborate affairs. Consider the experience of Ezekiel who is so overwhelmed he sits stunned for seven days after, or the brilliance described when Jesus appears to John in Revelation.
Reading this chapter, I realise I'm not very much a sensate. I find it distracting to worship with things like elaborate architecture or incense. But it does not mean that I cannot or should not do it. For a week, I attempted to link the sense of taste to worship. (In my defence, I really like my food! And it seemed natural to do so since I habitually say grace before meals anyway.) Rather than my usual hurried grace, I took it as a call to worship. It reminded each time I ate and really gave pause to taste my food fully and thank God not only for his provision of it but also the ability to enjoy it. Practicing sensate worship also heightened my appreciation of Leviticus (which I happened to be reading concurrently with this chapter); as I read, I imagined what the sight, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes of what sacrifices at the temple were like. (Personally, I’m glad I’m not living in OT times, the temple sacrifices would have been worse than the wet markets of my childhood memories!)
Sensates are a good reminder that we are not souls without bodies - this is the heresy of Gnostism or asceticism as a means to salvation. But it can also tempt us to worship without conviction (merely emotional engagement), idolise beauty (just as naturalists can idolise creation), worshipping worship itself. But sight, sound, taste, touch and smell are always God's gifts more than they are Satan's temptations. As for me, it doesn't come naturally, but I look forward to a time at the end of days where I can fully worship God with my whole being.
This is the third part in the Sacred Pathways series I am blogging. The first two are: The Danger of Bible Reading in Daily Devotions & Quiet Times and Naturalists.