Ah, ok. Still agreed. I would also suggest that both do explain away particular concepts of God even if they cannot explain away "God." And depending on how tightly a person holds onto their particular God-concept, addressing the concept can seem to be the same as explaining away "God." It's high trauma!
Oh what an awesome question! It was so awesome I meditated on it while eating dark chocolate.
Bless your ex-pastor's heart. I reread this entire thread earlier today, and several great comments on this issue have already been made. Moriah made one point about the magic trick of Santa Claus -- the trick re anonymous gifting, service, and community that parents perform for children, which children receive, then discard when they're 8-ish, and yet often return to as adults for
their children's sake and to teach them the larger lessons. Moriah then compared this to the acts that clergymen and women often perform in the context of their formal ritual and "worship" roles, and I've found this to be especially true of those clergy who are as clearminded as you are, Tinker. Often they understand the limits of the forms they're using, and so they use those forms as a means of helping others to experience larger meaning. The forms are like an access point, or a bridge, but they're certainly not the destination. That doesn't make them valueless.
I'm trying to pour my experience into words now. My thoughts are that worship *is* full-body, but not in the extended hands sense. It's full-body in the sense that it's about full-being. I'm wondering, if you put a time-lapse camera somewhere in my life, what you would see and how you would describe my worshipping, or if you would recognize it as worshipping at all! You would see things like pauses, reading, meditation and listening and then speaking and writing (i.e. inspiration and expiration), gratitude and appreciation, and social action, and my lifework. You would also see church, groups, forums, and relationships. And random conversations with friends and strangers, some of which might have something to do with religion but all of which have something to do with healthy humanhood...
Some might struggle with recognizing "worship" in all of the above because the concept of worship as we've been using it implies separation between worshipper and worshipped. There will inevitably be separation if the premise is "bow." The concept therefore also implies all sorts of mediating beliefs as necessary to point out the gap or try to bridge it.
When I'm replacing that separation with union, I become "one" again, I lack nothing, and I'm free to be, walk, live, love, act. We all
are, and need no commentary. Under such circumstances, you're correct, there isn't "other"; I don't feel foreign to God or to people or nature; I embrace all and am embraced by all. It's both grounding and elevating at the same time. As McCoy said back in the way-back, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it." At least, not as we know it while we insist on separation.
I'm not yet sure what else to tell you.