The Supreme Lover

James Danaher, in his book Contemplative Prayer (p.14), quotes Ortega y Gasset's comment that "falling in love, initially, is no more than this: attention abnormally fastened upon another person." (quoted from his book On Love.)

Danaher thinks attention is what we most desire from the one who loves us. "The affection children desire from their parents largely involves attention . . . Even the love that exists between friends requires that we are capable of fixing our attention upon our friend, and if [our] friend is unwilling to give us her attention, we feel may have been mistaken in considering her a friend."

Unfortunately, Danaher thinks, human beings are not very good at fixing our attention on anything for very long. "Because of this, we are a constant disappointment to those who desire our love. If we understand love in terms of attention, then . . . the vast majority of human beings make poor lovers. We are often disappointed by, and a disappointment to, those we love most."

There is hope. "God's omnipresent and omniscient nature makes him the supreme lover and the only one who can truly satisfy our desire for the kind of attention that human beings always fail to provide one another. God is one whose 'eyes will be open' and his 'ears attentive' (2 Chron. 7:15, NIV), and 'like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young' (Deut. 32:10-11, NIV), he will attend to us as the 'apple of his eye' (Zech 2:8, NIV).

Danaher observes that "[s]adly, many people never experience [God's] presence and spend lives oblivious of the attention he extends toward us. That is because we only experience his presence in prayer. We may associate prayer with words or ideas about God, but prayer is ultimately about our awareness of God being present and attentive to us. Whenever we are aware of God's presence, we are in a state of prayer; and whenever we are not aware of his presence, we are not in prayer, regardless of the words we may be mumbling. Furthermore, it is only when prayer becomes such an experience that we realize the love that our parents, spouses, and friends were so unable to supply. Prayer is the ultimate blessing God has for us, since nothing compares to the experience of his presence." Ibid, p. 15-16.

Danaher says, "Most people never really fall in love with God. They may say that they love God, but they are certainly not in love with God. God is not in all of their thoughts nor do they sense a constant need to fix their thoughts upon him, as only lovers do. For most of us, our attention is always on the distractions and not on God." Ibid., p.106.

"We get to the place of perfect love -- that place of being in love with God -- not by obedience to God's commands out of fear of hell and the promise of heaven, but by beholding the beauty of the God that Jesus reveals. Augustine called it the beatific vision, and it is only that vision of just how beautiful the Jesus revelation is that really brings us into the deep love-relationship with God that is prayer. Without the beatific vision that is the Jesus revelation, we may develop a contemplative practice of being present, but unless we fall in love, we are doing it out of our own discipline and not out of the in love relationship to which God calls us.

"Most of us are not ready for either an in love relationship with God or deep prayer, so we settle for obeying and serving God but pull up short of being in love with him. We do not like the sense of being out of control that comes with being in love, so we never really allow the beatific vision of the gospel to seduce us. We guard our hearts, and keep God at a distance, but without falling in love with God, we can never give him the kind of attention that both love and prayer require. Without falling in love with God, prayer will never be the constant returning of our attention to the God that possesses our consciousness as only a lover can." Ibid.

Listen to "You are So Beautiful" by Joe Cocker

Listen to "Stairway to Heaven", Led Zepplin

Listen to "Clair de Lune" Debussy

Listen to Amy Grant and Michael Smith, 'Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet'

Listen to "Think of Me," by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Listen the Platters sing "Only You."