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Hey Rev!
Is there a mystical side of Christianity?
Frank
Dear Frank:
Yes.
Let’s spend a little time together wondering about a mystical approach to Christianity. (I’m deliberately using the language of a “mystical approach” rather than “mysticism”: as my friend and teacher Donald Grayston observes, the latter holds the risk of sounding like ideology, whereas what we are talking about is something closer to a practice or a perspective or way of being, something closer to an adjective than a noun.) In order to do so, let’s ask the Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr to be our guide. Rohr defines the mystical approach as that which focuses on “experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge.”
That strikes me as a helpful definition and maybe even a freeing definition; in popular usage, we often think of mystical experiences as the domain of glassy-eyed dudes wearing loincloths. But if Rohr’s definition is right, then such experiences are something that are part of all of our lives. If you have had a moment of deep wonder in nature, a moment of deep possibility while encountering art, a moment of deep peace in mindfulness or prayer or worship, a moment of deep understanding after the birth of a child or the death of a friend – the list goes on – then you know about the mystical approach firsthand.
Now, just because most of us know something about the mystical approach doesn’t make most of us into mystics. That’s because the majority of us don’t integrate what the 12-Step tradition calls our “moments of clarity,” what Abraham Maslow calls our “peak experiences,” and what we might simply call our “God sightings” into our day-to-day reality. To the contrary, most of us allow these glimpses of the numinous to become divorced from the rest of our lives. As a consequence, we end up remembering them with a kind of baffled wonder or, if they challenge us enough, we end up trivializing them and denying that they have any meaning at all.
The mystic, by contrast, is one who has figured out how to integrate her mystical experiences so thoroughly into her life that they transform her. Rohr suggests that mystics are defined primarily by their non-dual or non-binary way of being in the world. The mystic, for instance, does not need others to be wrong in order for her to be right, she does not insist on a subdivision between the sacred and the everyday. To the contrary, for the mystic the holy is everywhere and, as Kent Hoffman provocatively and wonderfully puts it, it is nothing special. And because of this experience of promiscuous holiness, the mystic is called into action to build up compassion and generosity and justice.
The Christian tradition is full of mystics, full of people who have firsthand experiences with God that change them and allow them to change the world. Consider but a handful of examples from Scripture: here is Samuel called by the Lord in the night; here is Mary invited by the angel to carry into God world; here is Saul/Paul blinded by his vision of God (when you allow the possibility that Paul is a mystic, you may just start reading his work in a whole new way). And consider the mystics who came thereafter: here are the desert fathers; here is Hildegard of Bingen; here is Thomas Merton. There are lots more examples.
The mystical approach to Christianity opens up the possibility that our tradition is not primarily about following the right rules and intellectually assenting to the right ideas (although rules and ideas have their place). Rather, the mystical approach suggests that Christian practice might have the goal of creating room for our experiences of God to transform us and, thereby, to equip us to join in the work of transforming the world.
Martin, this is beautiful. When we attempt to boil Christianity down into “do’s and do not’s” we miss so much.
You wrote, “The mystical approach to Christianity opens up the possibility that our tradition is not primarily about following the right rules and intellectually assenting to the right ideas (although rules and ideas have their place). Rather, the mystical approach suggests that Christian practice might have the goal of creating room for our experiences of God to transform us and, thereby, to equip us to join in the work of transforming the world.” Yes! What an excellent explanation!
One definition of mystery is, “the condition or quality of being secret, strange, or difficult to explain.” If God is the Supreme Being, The Creator, The Sum of All that Is, then surely it is a mystery. To think that we can get God in a box, be able to completely explain God, well, that’s arrogance. We must have the innocent, open mind of a child, the humility to admit that God is greater than all we can imagine, if we are to truly praise and revere that God.
Good words! Thanks for this!
promiscuous holiness – nice juxtaposition. There is a single Hebrew word in the Psalms that can be translated as ‘wantonness’ when applied to the human and ‘prodigality’ when applied to God. Promiscuous is full of promise here, but not irresponsibility.
Now about the NT and the contrast I have seen between peoples’ views of Paul and John. John speaks of the ‘white stone’ in Revelation with a unique name on it known only to the individual and to the Lord. He has strong individual components in his Gospel – see the recent excerpt from Bauckham’s new book referenced here. John has Jesus Christ in us and us in him, a mutuality that makes us members one of another – though not to confuse this Pauline phrase with the Johanine. And to come to Paul, we are called to “pray without ceasing” – does this negate prayer or reframe all inner conversation. Both Paul and the Psalms are clear that the inner dialogue requires a radical obedience to the voice of our Instructor (instruction by God rather than ‘law’ is the real meaning of Torah).
There is room for this experiential knowledge of the Most High. Thank-you Martin.
That’s so fascinating about that Hebrew word, Bob! (I was just looking at “Seeing the Psalter” yesterday – it is fun to hear from you today.)
Good discussion. As one who admits, or names as such mystical experiences I like what you say. My main problem with mystical experience, mine and others, is, How do I distinguish between the rush of mystical experiences and the experiences that build my ego. If I were evangelizing and the subject of my attack responded positively, is my joyous feeling mystical or is it merely my feeling good about myself. Isn’t there an element in the total experience that would indicate that something bigger than my (rather big) ego is active, say, the good of mankind, or my own growth regardless of my awareness of that growth. How do I distinguish between a mystical experience and my ego trip?
I was handed a picture full of sunset colors that, to me, revealed the pollution of New Jersey refineries. The photographer waxed on about the beauty of God’s world. I’d taken a series of pictures of backed up toilets for use in rent strike cases, each one aesthetically pretty, and , to the other’s horror, repeated his incantations over them. Did I rain on his mystical experience or his ego?
I don’t know an easy method to so distinguish, but I suspect it has something to do with the object of the experience, and my willingness to search it in order to exclude my ego from that object. In part this takes much experience. In part, it takes a lot of self knowledge and criticism, or doubt. I must pair down the experience to its godly meaning: is what I experience a revelation of and for the good of humanity? Thus the visions of Revelation may be mystical experiences. I hope so. But in the hands of some of our contemporary writers, they seem to be their ego trips. The one element I find necessary for the mystic that is rarely discussed, is discernment, an action not very present in the immediate experience, but certainly present in the mystic’s reflection on that experience. This discernment is evident in the many humble self reports of mystical experiences we have in the tradition. I value that humility.
What a great addition to this conversation, thank you Tom! I agree that there is no easy or foolproof method of distinguishing between our genuine conversations with the Divine and other things, including self-congratulation. My guess, however, is that making the distinction gets easier with practice. Rohr (and why not keep on quoting him?) suggests that we ask ourselves this question: Is what I am hearing (or reading or seeing or experiencing or whatever) as or more loving than the most loving person whom I know? If the answer is “no,” then what I am encountering is probably not from God.