The Phenomenology of Prayer (2)

Disinteresting thoughts
October 13rd, 2017
SArah Clark

A core concept I took from Phenomenology of Prayer was disinterested delight.  Disinterested delight is admiration for the sake of admiration.  It is not admiration in order to receive something in return, that is interested delight.  Since we are naturally in the middle of the cosmos chart, the idea of disinterested delight is unnatural to us as human beings.  In class, we talked about how if a boy is trying to get a girl to like him, he might ask her on a date or give her flowers or give her compliments.  All these actions of delight are to get something in return, her love.  This is interested delight.  When we go to worship, we can’t treat God like a girl we want to date.  We should not give him offerings of praise in order to receive our wants and needs.  In order to have a true encounter with the Wholly, we just admire Him from a humble state (14).  Prayer in of itself is the “deepest decentering of the self” that “deconstructs the burning preoccupation of the self” (15).  True worship, true prayer, true connection with the Wholly, comes from disinterested delight.

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