"We are 'beyond intentionality' or perhaps dealing with 'an intentionality of a wholly different type'- a reverse intentionality in which I am the intended one rather than the intending one. My transcendental ego, if I have one, is no longer the condition of the possibility of my experience. Relative to that possibility, what I may encounter is rather the Impossible." "Prayer as the Posture of the Decentered Self," Merold Westphal, in the Phenomenology of Prayer, p. 19).
This quote is part of Westphal's analysis about Samuel's response to God's voice beckoning him when he was a young child living in the Temple. He argues in this essay that prayer is initiated by the Other, subject to Its intentions, pushing our own demands to the side as the Other takes precedence. God's will, not our own becomes the center as we begin to see deeper that His existence is the source of our own. I agree with Westphal's argument. Our own desires and demands too often drive our conception of the cosmos, and this egocentric universe spills in our perception of the ultimate. This selfish focus of the universe narrows our experience of the world, undermining the significance of events by constantly relating them to ourselves rather than something immensely beyond ourselves. In Colossians, Paul urges believers to "set their minds on things above" rather than what surrounds them. By repositioning the mind on the Ultimate, our universe is centered back around its true purpose.
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