If Worship Is Not About Me, Why Do I Do It?

Here's a hot take: Worship is not about how I experience the holy. Worship is what I do to demonstrate that my holy experience is not the goal, that there is something more important than my personal experience, and that I submit to that greater power.

Sure, I have worshiped in all kinds of places. My little church with the lovely wood paneling and the stained glass windows. In a conference center with thousands of people. The crypt at Canterbury Cathedral. Around a campfire. At the edge of the Crooked River at Smith Rock. Next to a hospital bedside. Over the phone. On Zoom. In a bar.

Sometimes I am caught up in the moment. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's Cathedral fairly shimmers with spiritual energy. Sometimes the choir is magnificent, and sometimes the baby is throwing up in the pew. Sometimes my mind wanders. Yes, I have written my grocery list during a sermon. Yes, I have perseverated on a past injustice during the Prayer of Consecration. While I was saying it.

All of these are worship.

But honestly I think the most worshipful thing I have done is pull myself away from the Sunday paper, get out of my pajamas and into "Sunday clothes," drive somewhere I'd rather not be, and present my mind and body, such as they are, to whatever is going to happen that day at church. Precisely because I don't want to do it.

Worship is about how there is God and not God, and I am not God. I am not the center around which all things are judged. Whatever the experience is like, worship trains my mind into that perspective. And yes, I do get something out of it.

What I get is sanity.