Mysticism
Gregg’s Reflection
In our Living School journey into study of the saints and mystics, they gave us this historical timeline of Christian Mysticism. This might be a good place to start. Contemplate this thread of mystical tradition back to Jesus and before.
Mysticism implies a deep, personal encounter with the holy. A direct experience of God is quite different from knowing about God. Dave Daubert, a Lutheran pastor friend, uses three questions printed each week in the bulletin to help his people notice God in the mundane of daily life. Each week, as worship begins, they project answers people wrote the week before and placed in the offering. He asks:
Where have you seen God at work in the world this week? How had God led you to bless someone this week? How has God led someone to bless you this week?
Another spiritual practice of recollection I learned from Richard Rohr. It’s called the Daily Examen of Consciousness: Reflect on moments in the last day when you were aware of God’s presence, and moments when you were distracted. It is a Jesuit Practice.
God is all around us if we have Eyes to See. Spending time in nature is another practice for experiencing God: Forest Bathing. All Contemplative Practices are a path to experiencing God. If you are new to the world of contemplation, take a look at these practices, and come along as we see what Scripture, the saints and mystics, ancient and modern, have to say. Blessings
Journaling Prompts
Howard Thurman tells us: Mysticism is the response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within his own spirit. How have you experienced the a personal encounter God in your life? It is gentle as a whisper, rising up from within. Does that sound familiar? What places or spaces lead you into a rendezvous with God? How have you habituated those practices?
Scripture
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
John 3:3 Jesus, speaking of living into a new consciousness
I and the Father are one.
John 10:30. The mystical journey is a path towards union with God
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me.
John 17:23
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
1 John 4:2
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we have understand what God has freely given us. This we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit; explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
1 Corinthians 2:12-16
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
1 Peter 1:3
Ancient Writings
Humanity was given three sets of eyes. The first eye was the eye of the flesh (thought or sight), the second was the eye of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third eye was the eye of true understanding (contemplation).
Richard of St. Victor, Classics of Western Spirituality
The mystical life consists in understanding, then contemplation which finally leads to astonishment where the mystic silences the mind to receive ecstasy.
Richard of St. Victor, Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 168
Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams,
Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare.
Alfred Tennyson, The Two Voices. In a letter, Tennyson reports this: I have never had any revelations through aesthetics, but a kind of waking trance I have frequently had. Individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this is not a confused state, but the clearest, the surest, utterly beyond words.
When I walk the fields, I am oppressed now and then with an innate feeling that everything I see has meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being surrounded with truths I cannot grasp amounts to indescribable awe sometimes.
Charles Kingsley, William James, Varieties of Religious Experiences, p. 385
The prophet is the mystic in action.
William Hocking
It is an overwhelming experience to fall into the hands of the living God, to be invaded to the depths of one’s being by His presence, to be, without warning, wholly uprooted from all earth born securities and assurances, and to be blown by a tempest of unbelievable power, which leaves one’s old proud self utterly, utterly defenseless. Then is the soul swept into a Loving Center of ineffable sweetness, where calm and unspeakable peace and ravishing joy steal over me.
Thomas R. Kelley, A Testament of Devotion, p. 30
Modern Writings
Mysticism is the response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within his own spirit.
Howard Thurman, Mysticism and the Experience of Love, p. 6
All religion derives from a mystical experience, transcending thought, and seeks to express this experience, to give it form, language, ritual, and social organization.
Bede Griffiths, Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 260
Whatever you do, don’t call yourself a mystic. Calling yourself a mystic would be like calling yourself a saint, or a shaman. If you really want to be such a thing, it’s far more important to live it than to just talk about it. If you are really a mystic, other people will see it. Let them call you a mystic; you don’t need to claim that name for yourself. A real saint doesn’t need PR. You simply live a saintly life.
Ken Leech
Mysticism involves not just intense forms of contact with God, but also a transformed life. It is meant to spill over into a new mode of living. The supreme form Christian contemplation is a fusion of contemplation and action on a higher level, where one could be active while in contemplation.
Bernard McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, p. 520.
Mysticism is a consciousness of the presence of God that by definition exceeds description and results in a transformation of the subject who receives it.
Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism, p. 26
Mysticism brings about new ways of knowing and loving based on states of awareness in which God is present in our inner acts as the direct and transforming center of our lives.
Harvey Egan, Soundings in Mystical Tradition, p. 345, Christian Mystics, p. 148
The path of the mystics is not about isolation, but integration. It's seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, the miracle in every mundane moment. Lean into the transformative power of everyday experiences of God.
James Finley
Everyone is a mystic, We may or may not realize it; we may not even like it. But whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery.
Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart, p. 3
Far from being withdrawn from the world or indifferent to the suffering that goes on in it, the mystic is uniquely motivated and qualified to respond to social and economic injustices. Genuine mystics don’t renounce the world for the sake of a private spiritual illumination.
Rather, they use the enlightenment they’ve achieved to do something about the world’s ills. The genuine mystic understands that his or her connection with the divine is likewise a connection to all other humans and, indeed, to all of creation a relationship that “borrows the eyes of God.”
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 7/16/20
It seems to me that a regular practice of contemplation makes it almost inevitable that our politics are going to change. The way we spend our time is going to be called into question. Our snug socioeconomic perspective will slowly be taken away from us.
Whatever our calling on behalf of the world, it must proceed from a foundational “yes” to God, to life, to Reality. Our necessary “no” to injustice and all forms of un-love will actually become even clearer and more urgent in the silence. Now our work has a chance of being God’s pure healing instead of our impure anger and agenda.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 7/17/20
Mysticism begins when we start to make room for a completely new experience of God as immanent, present here and now, with us and within all of us.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 8/7/20
Third-eye seeing is the way the Mystics see. They do not reject the first eye; the senses matter to them, but they know there is more. Nor do they reject the second eye; but they know not to confuse knowledge with depth or mere correct information with the transformation of consciousness itself. The mystical gaze builds upon the first two eyes-and yet goes further. It happens when our heart space, our mind space, and our body awareness are all open and nonresistant. I like to call it presence.
Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 28
The ability to stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is foundational for spiritual seeing. Such calm, egoless seeing is invariably characteristic of people at the highest levels of doing and loving in all cultures and religions.
Richard Rohr, Naked Now, p. 32-33
If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God with which most people are dealing before they have authentic God Experience.
Trinity reveals that God is the Divine Flow under, around, and through things. Jesus tells us that God is like a loving parent who runs toward us while we are ‘still a long way off’ (Luke 15:20), then clasps and kisses us. Until this is experienced, most of Christianity does not work.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 65
Mystical experiences lead to a kind of foundational optimism you would usually call hope. Hope is not logical but a participation in the very life of God (just like faith and love which were called the theological virtues).
Faith, hope, and love are always somehow a gift of participation in something larger than yourself. As you go deeper into the journey I promise you you will always be more naturally hopeful and you will usually sense a deep safety and security.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 77
Mysticism begins when the transcendent image of God recedes and there’s a deepening sense of God as immanent, present, here, now, safe, and even within me. St Catherine of Genoa said, “My deepest me is God.”
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 109
It is not enough to have wonderful theories about God. Authentic mystical encounters radically change us and our way of living. We are made for contemplation. It is the secret longing of your being. It is in the wilderness of your heart that you discover a reality beyond every religious form. We each have the capacity to touch and be touched by the source-to know the source through certitude too deep for words.
Beverly Lanzetta, The Monk Within, p. 49-50
The One can only be seen through a flash of mystical vision.
Paul Davis, The Mind of God, p. 519
Abba Moses, one of the great Desert fathers, would counsel his monks: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” And that’s sound spiritual advice for everyone, not just monks. Our “cell” is another word for our primary set of responsibilities, for our duties of state, for due diligence and fidelity inside of our vocations, relationships, marriages, families, churches, and communities.
To “leave one’s cell” is to neglect our responsibilities or to be unfaithful. To let “our cell teach us everything” is to have faith that if we remain faithful inside of our moral values and our proper commitments then virtue and fidelity will themselves teach us what we need to know to come to maturity and sanctity.
Ronald Rolheiser, The Secrets of a Monk’s Cell
God is the light by which all human wisdom is apprehended and understood. And yet, God remains mystically hidden beyond the limits of human wisdom.
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 147
Mystical consciousness emerges only out of deep silence, where human meanings fall away and we are immersed beyond thought, language and concept in the pure love of God.
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 150
An experience of God is not the goal of mysticism: if anything, it’s just the entry point. What, then, is the goal of mysticism? Probably the best one-word definition would be the Greek word theosis or its Latin equivalent deification the goal of the mystical life is union with God, which means living a God-infused life.
It’s not so much about what we feel or experience, as how we conduct our lives: in a manner shaped by love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, and all the fruit of the Spirit, including joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and so forth. What matters the most is not “being a mystic” but rather living a mystical life.
Carl McColman, Don’t Call Yourself a Mystic
The Christian mystical life consists of three stages: purification, illumination, and union. The quest for divine union begins with self-knowledge and humility, as we notice all the ways we fail to embody the heavenly love we seek. Purification is a period of radically letting go of all that is not love--to create space for that which is truly love.
The humility of purification leads to the compassion of illumination: for as we persevere on the path to God, we discover that by grace God’s love really does flow through us, and reveals its presence by our capacity to truly love our neighbor, even our enemies.
Finally comes union: the insight that God is not ‘elsewhere,’ that we are not separate from God, that we are ‘partakers of the Divine Nature’ (2 Peter 1:4), that we are one with Christ who is one with God. (John 10:30)
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p, 197-198
When we read the mystics, we read the wisdom of men and women who have encountered the splendor, the joy, the shimmering radiance, and the profound awe of the presence of God. Embracing this wisdom, we make ourselves available for a similar encounter.
Our relationship with God may be very simple and humble and down to earth. But it’s still a relationship, and if we let it, it can transfigure our lives, igniting in our hearts a living flame of love that both responds to, and is nourished by, the Divine Love that moves the sun and other stars.
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 225
Mystical Thinking, the Power of Metaphor
In the desert, men and women were counseled, “Go to your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” The cell was a sacred space, a place in which a woman could be with herself and the divine Presence and listen. The cell was a place of divine encounter and of ongoing, daily experience of being immersed in God’s presence.
The wisdom of the desert tempers our instinct to avoid boredom and discomfort: Amma Syncletica‘s bird metaphor speaks directly to one of the dilemmas of the spiritual life that of coming to terms with the plain old ordinariness of spiritual practice and the life of prayer, of the whole of life becoming prayer. We are enticed by a variety of means to leave our “eggs” and simply move continually from one interest to another. The result is that we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to bring forth new life.
The “eggs” die because they are not tended. We miss the deeper life of the Spirit because we are constantly moving from one interest to another rather than focusing on one thing. Our ancient mothers knew that when boredom threatened, it could very well be the outward and visible sign of God’s secret, hidden, inner work within the human heart and soul.
Consequently, they emphasized staying in the cell, in the little room of daily living, and letting that cell be their teacher. Staying in the cell, or “sitting on the eggs,” means noticing our appetite for overstimulation. The cell teaches us to slow down, to notice what is right in front of us. The wisdom the desert mothers offer us is that by staying with ourselves, with our inner ups and downs, with our hurts and our fears, we will bring forth the new life that God is creating within us.
Mary Earle, The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness p. 21-23