Until You Give it Away
I believe that mysticism is a lot like love. Consider these similarities:
- It’s a free gift from God that we can neither earn nor deserve, yet God is eager to give it to us just the same.
- In this gift, all God is giving us is, well, God.
- In receiving the gift, it’s the best feeling in the world — but it’s more than just a feeling; indeed, it is a mistake to try to reduce this gift to a mere feeling.
- Expanding on the above: this gift heightens our consciousness (both in temporary and long-lasting ways), energizes our ability to make positive, good, healing choices in our lives, inspires us to clean up our own mess, and nurtures all of our relationships: not only with God, but with self, others, and indeed all of creation.
- One of the ways we know we’ve received the gift is how it creates real, observable changes in our lives.
- For Christians, the power of the Sacred Scripture and the Sacraments are uniquely effective in conveying the gift to us.
- There is an essentially communal dimension to this gift. In other words, we never fully receive the gift until we give it away.
