Oct

31

Beware of those Eastern Mystical Labyrinths!

Other people's blogs

Sigh. The folks at Lighthouse Trails Research (one of the Internet’s more visible anti-mysticism websites) are getting goofier and goofier (or, perhaps, more and more paranoid). Yesterday they posted a blog entry in which they listed over thirty terms that they describe as “the ‘inside language’ of contemplative spirituality.” They go on to issue this dire warning: that all these “point to one thing … eastern mysticism.”

The list includes such terms as:

  • Labyrinths
  • The Jesus Prayer
  • Lectio Divina
  • Taize
  • A Thin Place
  • Spiritual Direction
  • Ignatius Exercises (sic)
  • Centering prayer
  • Prayer of the Heart
  • Dark night of the soul
  • Practicing the Presence
  • Spiritual Formation

Actually, only two of the terms on the list — “Yoga” and “Mantra” — are from eastern religions. All of the rest are thoroughly Christian terms, even if some of the practices included, such as Centering Prayer, are ecumenical in scope (Centering Prayer, as a method of teaching contemplative prayer, was created as a response to the many Christian young people who were exploring eastern mysticism in the 1970s). So, not only is this post silly and paranoid, but it’s just plain inaccurate.

Indeed, most of the terminology on this post points not to eastern mysticism, but to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I think the people at Lighthouse Trails should just call a spade a spade and admit that their real agenda is to tear down the body of Christ, by pitting evangelicals against Catholics.

My favorite term on this list is “A thin place,” which comes from not from the lands of eastern mysticism, but from Ireland. It simply refers to a place where one can more easily discern the presence of God (whether it be a cathedral, a monastery, or a site of natural beauty and wonder). I’m sure the generations of devout Christian Celts who celebrated God’s presence in their lives would be most amused to discover that they were secret agents of eastern mysticism, without even realizing it!

If you’ve read this far, please join me in praying for everyone associated with Lighthouse Trails Research — that they might be healed of their erroneous belief in an angry God who hates contemplative spirituality. As annoying as I find their website, what really saddens me is when I ponder what it must be like for those who actually live under the bondage of such a legalistic theology.

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Oct

31

Mysticism and Gnosis

Mysticism / Spirituality

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there is an essential difference between mysticism and gnosis.

On the surface, both deal with the phenomenology of spiritual experience — direct encounter with the Divine Other, and/or the experience of Union with the Divine. But then there seems to be an essential ingredient that differentiates mysticism from gnosis, or vice versa.

Gnostic spirituality seems to imply that direct personal experience always trumps the received wisdom tradition (if the church tells me to serve the poor, but my own gnosis directs me not to interfere with the poor because they have their own spiritual karma to unravel, then as a gnostic I will ignore what the church says and follow my inner teachings). By contrast, conventional religion suggests that tradition always trumps experience — which is why the Catholic Church will only accept mystical teachings that are fully and completely consistent with official church teaching. Perhaps mysticism is the golden mean between these two positions. Mysticism dares to suggest that personal experience and received tradition must always inform, enlighten, critique, and shape each other. Gnosis and tradition are equally valuable, equally marvelous and miraculous arenas where the Holy Spirit can and does act. Likewise, both are subject to scrutiny — from each other. It is in this arena of mutual humility and shared vulnerability that God can do God’s mighty work of shaping us — and the community — in ever new ways.

I’m not sure if this is all that there is to understanding the difference between mysticism and gnosis. But it’s a start.

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Oct

30

Redeeming Gnosis

Mysticism

Can gnosis be redeemed?

Today I began reading Richard Smoley’s Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism. Right away he sets up a tension that I don’t buy into: a conflict between the gnostics — those who have direct mystical experience — and the religionists, those who are the custodians of doctrine and dogma and therefore tend to be suspicious of gnosis. Oh, I suppose it’s a fair assessment of a real tension between those at the center of religious power, and those whose “power” (i.e., personal experience) lurks in the margins. Certainly, the history of world spirituality is littered with mystics, visionaries, buddhas, avatars, and anointed ones who have been attacked, silenced, or otherwise rejected by the religious establishment of their day. Some, like Origen, Meister Eckhart, Jeanne Guyon, and Eriugena, never manage to overcome that smear of heresy that is attached to their name. Others, like Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Faustina Kowalska, were for a time condemned by religious authorities, but eventually came to be regarded as saints, exemplars of the spiritual life. And of course, there are the greatest figures of all, those whose radical experience of gnosis or enlightenment not only led to breaking free from old religious forms, but to establishing entirely new ways of faith: Gautama and Jesus are perhaps the most spectacular examples.

But does religion only exist to be a force from which each generation must liberate itself anew? I can’t accept that view, it demonizes religion, thereby creating yet another false duality. Religion stifles gnosis, yes; but perhaps religion also fosters it. And maybe that’s not all the religion stifles, or fosters. Maybe there really is more to all this than the quest for enlightenment.

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Oct

29

Green Cemetary in Business Week

Blog

Business Week has just published an article about Honey Creek Woodlands, the green cemetary that is opening at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. Follow this link to read it. Green cemetaries are designed to be ecologically sustainable and include not only environmentally responsible funeral practices, but also manage the land so that only indigenous plants, trees, etc. are cultivated. It’s a great concept: a way to have a low-impact funeral and to help preserve a place of natural beauty at the same time. Plus, for us contemplatives, there’s a bonus at Honey Creek Woodlands: we get to be buried on the grounds of a monastery.

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Oct

29

Catholic Anarchy

Other people's blogs

A reader of this blog named James D B sent me this link — catholicanarchy.org — which he describes as a “good quality synthesis of the punk-anarcho-Catholic subculture.” I just glanced at it, and it looks well worth checking out…

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Oct

28

The Year of Living Biblically

Bible / Reviews

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
By A. J. Jacobs
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007
Review by Carl McColman

Basically a one-joke book, this amusing but by turns insightful and surprisingly heartfelt memoir traces the efforts of A. J. Jacobs, a thoroughly secular and agnostic New York writer, to devote an entire year to adhering to Biblical teachings, mandates, and laws, as fully as possible. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of the Bible can quickly visualize the absurd scenarios that Jacobs finds himself in: not only does he embrace kosher dietary rules, but her turns his wardrobe inside out in an effort to adhere to Biblical norms; at one point he wanders around Central Park looking for adulterers to stone (cognizant that hurling rocks at people, even those who cheat on their spouse, is simply not the done thing anymore, the author compromises and tosses a pebble at the bemused person who admits to being unfaithful); while his efforts to adhere to the purity codes of Leviticus result in a variety of absurd situations, many involving his long-suffering wife. This book could go terribly wrong in a variety of ways, from collapsing in on its own seriousness to coming across as mean-spirited in its lampooning of religious devotion. Thankfully, Jacobs dodges those bullets, both because of his own dry and rather self-deprecating sense of humor, and thanks to how surprised he is to discover that, despite the obvious absurdity of his quest, he finds the Bible to become surprisingly meaningful in his life.

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Oct

28

The Charter of Christian Mysticism

Bible / Mysticism

Mysticism’s detractors often accuse it of being “un-biblical” or “extra-biblical.” Mysticism cannot be an authentic element of Christian spirituality, so their reasoning goes, since it is not found in the Bible.

True, the word mysticism does not occur in the Bible. But it is related to the Greek word mysterion, translated in most English versions as “mystery.” If we think of mysticism as the spirituality of the Christian mystery, we are much closer to finding its scriptural foundation.

Thinking about this, I turned to the third chapter of Ephesians, in which Paul mentions the mystery of Christ four times. In this chapter he is discussing why Christ came not just for Israel, but for the entire world: gentiles as well as Jews. As I read over the chapter, it occurred to me that this is the headwaters of mystical theology. Indeed, here is the scriptural justification for mysticism: the “charter,” if you will, of the Christian tradition of entering via contemplation into the loving and transforming presence of God.

Let’s take a look at Ephesians 3.

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Oct

27

On the Margins

Celtic Christianity / Mysticism

The other night my friend Cliff and I were talking about a series of Sunday School Classes we’re doing for his church. We’re looking at how the mystics within Christianity are the both the heirs of the prophetic tradition and the custodians of theophany.

Part of our conversation involved figuring out the best way to present the mystical tradition to adults who may have been devout churchgoers for a lifetime, but who may know little or nothing about Christian mysticism. Wouldn’t such an adult reasonably wonder why, if mysticism were so important, he or she hadn’t heard about it before?

My answer is simple: ever since the first folks went out into the desert in post-Constantine antiquity, mysticism has been a marginal element within Christianity. Sure, some mystics (Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux) get the blessing of church hierarchy, but many others (Origen, Evagrius, Eriugena, Eckhart) are dismissed as heretics. Still others, like the 14th century English mystics, live and die in obscurity, with their wisdom and experience reaching a wider audience only centuries after their death.

So overall, mysticism lives on the margins. Even those saints whose mystical wisdom is accepted by mainstream Christianity still have far less influence than more heroic figures like saints and martyrs. More people know about Mother Teresa or John Paul II — or for that matter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer — than are familiar with Thomas Merton. And the further back in time you go, the more obscure (read: marginal) the mystics become.

So as I was driving home from our meeting, this thought occurred to me: marginality is what links the mystical tradition and the Celtic tradition together. I’ve been trying to figure out their natural meeting points. Sure, some Celts were mystics (Eriugena, George MacLeod), but overall, Celtic spirituality tends to be more about the wonder of nature than about the nature of wonder. So I’ve been more or less seeing my dual interests in Celtic wisdom and Christian mysticism as parallel, but hardly integral.

But marginality is the missing link. As Christians who lived “at the end of the world” and within a culture that had reached its apex some 500 years before the coming of Christ, Celtic Christians clearly have inhabited the margins. Just like the mystics.

So now the question becomes: how do the marginalities of mysticism and Celtic Christianity compare to each other? What are their points of similarity, and what are their differences?

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Oct

26

The Spirituality of Not

Spirituality

This past Sunday I went to church with my father — to Gloria Dei, the Lutheran Church I was a member of during my adolescent years. It was the site of my Lutheran first communion and Lutheran confirmation; the community where I first learned how to “do” church, and the church I returned to after that world-shattering weekend in 1977 when I, attending a statewide youth group weekend in the Shenandoah Valley, experienced an unexpected, un-anticipated encounter with the mystery of all-pervading loving consciousness that to this day I can only explain as the loving presence of God. When I did return to my home church, I discovered that it was not a place where it felt safe to talk about such an experience.

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Oct

25

Nascargot

Blog

Since a few days ago I wrote about how mysticism is like a snail, I thought readers of this blog might find this video amusing.

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