Outside Reading #4: Decentering Self

     Another interesting reading I've come across was Merold Westphal's "Prayer as a Posture for the Decentered Self."  Westphal talks about the different types of prayer and says that people are less likely want to pray prayers of praise because they have to do just with God's character and not with something that has to do with people.  Westphal wants prayer to the biggest decentering of self that he can do in that he is so immersed in God that he is not preoccupied with himself.  I have been trying to relay this mindset onto the way that I pray and live out my faith and life.  I want more and more and more to be less concerned with myself in life as well as spiritually.  I want to praise God more so that I can evade preoccupation with my own life and be thankful for the love God gives outside of just circumstances.

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