A reader of this blog sent me the following question today.
Hi Carl, I see from conservative Christian circles that WCCM and Centering prayer is labelled new age and dangerous. Are these practices Christian really? Or are we trying to incorporate eastern meditation into Christianity ?
First, the short answer. Contemplative practices like Centering Prayer and Christian meditation are rooted in the Christian tradition, roots that go back to the Desert Mothers and Fathers and the medieval mystics. These are Christian practices. As for “incorporating eastern meditation into Christianity,” I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with doing that, and it’s true that both Centering Prayer and Christian meditation have been influenced by eastern spiritual practices like transcendental meditation or mantra meditation. But the core practices themselves are Christian, with a long history in the church.
I’ve written about this before. In 2006, I wrote a blog post called Answers to Contemplation’s Objectors. So this unfortunate phenomenon of Christians attacking their own community members because we engage in contemplative practice is nothing new.
In fact, this is a centuries old problem. Consider what Teresa of Ávila, one of the great mystics of the Christian tradition and a Catholic saint and doctor of the church, had to contend with in her day. This quote comes from the introduction to The Way of Perfection in the Collected Works of St. Teresa of Ávila, Volume 2:
Conservative theologians feared that in the practice of mental prayer lay the seeds of Protestantism, which was as dreaded as the plague by both the civil and the ecclesiastical rulers of Spain in the golden age. The Dominican friar Melchior Cano, a theologian at the Council of Trent and consultant to Philip II and to the Inquisition, attacked his fellow Dominican, Archbishop Carranza, and Luis de Granada for promoting the practice of mental prayer among the common people. Fernando Valdés, the Inquisitor General, complained that Luis de Granada was trying to write things about contemplation for mere carpenter’s wives. It was Valdés who published in 1559 an Index of forbidden books which included almost all those dealing with prayer. The ordinary people were to be busy maintaining their households. For such people, Mass and vocal prayer were sufficient. Another theologian in this camp, Domingo Soto, confessed that he did not understand how those who were on their knees before the tabernacle for two hours could be thinking of God since God is invisible. And Mancio de Corpus Christi, another theologian at Trent, criticized Carranza for speaking of prayer as though it were a sharing between friends.
Nowadays people say “You can’t do Centering Prayer because it’s too New Age!” or “You can’t do Christian meditation because it’s too Eastern!” Five hundred years ago, they were saying “You can’t do Mental Prayer because it’s too Protestant!” And don’t forget, there are plenty of Protestants running around nowadays who say “You can’t do contemplative prayer because it’s too Catholic!”
Do you see the similarity? It seems that the opponents of silent, interior forms of prayer (what Teresa called “mental prayer” and we typically call “meditation” or “contemplation”) always based their objection on fear of the outsider. You can’t practice this prayer because it will lead to [fill in the blank]. Two observations here. First of all, this is a faulty argument, since historically it is clear that silent forms of prayer are deeply rooted within historical Christianity, going back to the Desert Mothers and Fathers and the medieval mystics. But it’s worth taking time to understand what’s really driving the opposition to silent prayer: it is a fear-based theology that sees God as angry, punishing, and quick to reject anything that doesn’t measure up to some arbitrary standard. It’s based on a kind of tribalistic thinking where “our tribe” is good or acceptable to God, while everyone else is lost or doomed to hell. If you see the world this way, no wonder you will become hysterical at the thought of doing any spiritual practice from “outside” your constricted safety zone.
Friends, this is bad theology. It’s based on a toxic image of God and flies in the face of the New Testament message that God is Love.
I don’t like to get mired in conservative-versus-liberal debates, but it is interesting that both today and in Teresa’s day, the objection to contemplative forms of praying is described as “conservative.” Try to see this not politically, but theologically. Conservative theology tends to stress God as a patriarchal, authoritarian figure, and human beings must be obedient — or else. I think for a certain personality type, perhaps the image of an authoritarian deity seems comforting. But it’s not good theology, particularly in the light of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus, and the writers of the New Testament, proclaimed a God who is generous, compassionate, merciful, and forgiving. A God who includes rather than excludes, a God who wants to reach everyone with the divine message of love and forgiveness. The God Jesus proclaimed is not a God who hates outsiders, but rather a God who seeks to draw everyone into a circle of love. Such a God would never get upset because a prayer practice is too “Protestant” or “Catholic” or “New Age” or “Eastern.” Rather, the God of Love would always ask, “Does this practice help you to become more loving? More forgiving? More compassionate and merciful?” Those are the questions we should be asking about any kind of prayer or spiritual practice.
So, yes, Centering Prayer and Christian meditation are thoroughly Christian practices. But if they were influenced, shaped, or mimic eastern practices: so what? The question still remains: does this help you to more fully respond to the God who is Love? If the answer is yes, then by all means, keep praying. And if not, then find some other practice that does help you to grow in love, but please, don’t attack the practices that work for others.
I personally think that Jesus and Buddha would make for great buddies. This image comes from the popular manga series Saint Young Men, which explores that very idea. Check it out!
A special note for Catholics: It is true that the Vatican has issued documents cautioning Catholics about uncritically blending Catholic piety with New Age Spirituality and/or Eastern Meditation. While these documents deserve our consideration, they are not binding as dogmas of the church. Meanwhile, if you read those statements carefully, you will see that they are a warning against theological or doctrinal confusion. They recommend that Christians need to understand the difference between Christian theology and other wisdom traditions. With this I am in agreement. I support interfaith dialogue and interspirituality, recognizing that such exploration only really works when we take the time to understand both the similarities and the differences between religious or spiritual traditions. Nevertheless, the two practices that my reader mentioned, Centering Prayer and Christian meditation, are both rooted in Christianity and therefore are acceptable for Catholics and all Christians, whether or not you are interested in interspirituality or interfaith dialogue.
Reading the writings of the great mystics — of figures like St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, or even modern writers like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin or Bernadette Roberts — is not always easy. Many mystics use dense or figurative or poetic language in their attempts to express the inexpressible. Others rely on highly technical philosophical or theological language to make their points. Many of the mystics lived centuries ago, meaning that they had radically different world views and wrote in languages other than English (so some of their brilliance is no doubt lost in translation). It can be frustrating for readers who genuinely want to learn from the wisdom of the mystics, but who find their writing to be almost opaque, and such frustration can make it too tempting to just give up on the mystics, rather than to persevere and glean the wisdom that is encoded in their words.
Although naturally it can be helpful to fortify your appreciation of mystical writings by becoming grounded in theology, philosophy, church history, and Biblical criticism, most of us who are not full-time scholars simply do not have the time or resources to master all of these fields. Are we to give us, deciding that the mystics just aren’t for us?
I don’t think so. I believe even if you only can discern a tiny percentage of the insight and knowledge that is embedded in mystical writings, it’s still worth the effort. Of course, reading commentaries, forming or joining book groups where you can enjoy the writings of the mystics with friends and colleagues, and reading slowly to give yourself time to digest and truly comprehend the challenging material you are covering — these are all helpful ways to make the most of your mystical writing.
Another way to maximize your enjoyment of mystical wisdom is to remember that different kinds of people read in different ways. With this in mind, I’ve identified seven different “ways” to read a mystical book. These ways of reading are based on the circumstances surrounding the kind(s) of persons who might be reading such books. Obviously, mystical writings can be read by students, people who want to learn from them. But they can also be read by theologians or philosophers — learned individuals who bring a wealth of knowledge to their reading. For that matter, we can imagine monks and nuns reading the mystics: people who may not have a lot of book learning, but who are engaged in committed and sustaining disciplines of prayer. Likewise, we can also imagine what it might be like to read the mystics as a spiritual director (someone skilled in the art of mentoring and accompanying others who seek to grow in prayer) would read them. Or, we might approach the writings of the mystics as a poet, someone committed to eloquence and the artistic expression of language. Finally, we can think of two other categories of potential readers: a “magician” (someone who approaches spirituality with a commitment to personal growth and transformation) and mystics themselves — those radically committed to orienting their lives toward the presence of the divine.
I’ve created a series of questions that each of these seven “readers” might ask, as they encounters the writings of the mystics. There’s some overlap, to be sure. But I hope as you scan these different ways of reading mystical writings, and the questions that are inspired by each of these seven categories, you will be inspired to consider what matters the most to you when you read a book by one of the mystics. Are you reading just to amass information? Or are you looking for something more intimate, more heart-centered? How does reading this book impact your own prayer life? Your relationship with God? Your quest to become a better person, a contemplative person, perhaps even a holy person?
Recognizing the importance of accurate scholarship and historical criticism, nevertheless there is no one “right way” to read a mystical book. So I hope these seven approaches to mystical writing can help you in your own reading journey.
Reading mystical writings like a student
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a student, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
What can I learn from this book?
How can this book help me?
Help me to grow spiritually
Help me to understand spirituality and/or theology
Help me to be a better contemplative
How does this book challenge me?
Reading mystical writings like a theologian or philosopher
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a theologian or philosopher, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
What is this author saying about God?
How is this book unique?
What do I agree/disagree with?
What would I say differently?
How does this fit in with Christianity as a whole?
How is this relevant to today?
Reading mystical writings like a monk or nun
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a monk or nun, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
Can this book help me to pray?
Is it suitable for Lectio Divina?
What words/phrases jump out?
How can this help me to meditate?
How can it inspire the words of my prayer?
How does it invite me into silence?
Reading mystical writings like a spiritual director/companion
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a soul friend or spiritual director, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
What is this author’s image of God?
What is the author’s image of self?
How does this author relate to God?
What signs of growth does the author share?
How is God present in this book?
How is God leading this author?
Reading mystical writings like a poet
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a poet, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
How does the author use language?
How does the author play with words?
How does the author use imagery?
What layers of meaning can I discern?
What is beautiful about this book?
Reading mystical writings like a magician
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a magician, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
What is the author creating here?
How is this book surprising or unusual?
How can reading this bring about transformation?
How is this innovative or revolutionary?
What is evoked or called into being?
Reading mystical writings like a mystic or contemplative
If you read a mystical book from the perspective of a mystic or contemplative, here are some questions you might want to keep in mind.
What is this book’s relationship with silence?
How does this book cultivate wonder?
Where is God present in these words?
How does this book invite us into contemplation?
How does the author use imagination to cultivate a sense of Divine Presence?
Making sense of the seven ways
No one has to incorporate all of these different ways of reading into your own process of reading mystical writings! We all will naturally gravitate toward one or another of these approaches. Some of us are natural academics; others natural artists. Some of us have a strong contemplative bent while others tend to be more concrete in our thinking. It’s a truism of spirituality that we should “Pray as we can, not as we can’t” — bring that same perspective to the way you read spiritual classics. Read the books in ways that make sense to you. Hopefully this overview of the many possible approaches can help you to have a broad and flexible appreciation of mystical literature, no matter which approach is your most “natural.”
Nevertheless, keep in mind that the particular way you read the book will directly shapeyour experience of the book. A person with the mind of an engineer will experience The Cloud of Unknowing very differently from someone with the mind of an artist. It’s not about who’s right or wrong, but simply acknowledging that different perspectives will make for different experiences.
Therefore, if you are struggling with a book of mystical or contemplative writing, before you simply give it up, try a different approach. Try on reading it like a poet, or a spiritual director, or a nun. See if giving yourself permission to approach the book from a different perspective might open the book’s wisdom and insight to you in surprising new ways. It’s worth a try!
Some Bonus Content!
This post is adapted from a video talk I gave to my Contemplative Studies of Mystical Writingsclass. One of the participants in that course, Barbara Hammond, created a PDF based on these approach to reading spiritual writings, and she adapted and expanded this material in some interesting ways. When Barbara shared her PDF with me, I enthusiastically asked her if I could include it in this blog post, and she has given permission to share this freely. So if you’d like to take these seven-fold approach a bit deeper, I encourage you to download the following PDF: How to Approach a Spiritual Writing.
I was speaking recently with one of my Patreon supporters (Patreon is a crowdfunding program to support writers, bloggers, musicians, etc. This blog is made possible by the generous people who support it through Patreon).
She asked me a blunt question.
How do you do it? How do you, as someone who writes about contemplation, respond to the political moment that we find ourselves in?
Such an important and vital query, and not one easily answered!
When I first started this blog (almost 20 years ago now!) I very much tried to avoid writing about politics, not because I lacked conviction (believe me, I have strong views) but because I believed that prayer and mysticism are topics for everyone, not just people who vote like I do. I did not trust my own ability as a writer to persuade people in terms of core political values or perspectives. I largely still feel that way: I believe some of us are neurologically wired to be conservative, and others are wired to be liberal; I believe God made us that way and in a democracy we have to figure out how to get along.
But over the years that I’ve been writing, I have watched the train wreck that is American politics — aided and abetted by an increasingly partisan media and the divisive nature of social media — foster what seems to be at least the image of Americans getting more and more hostile toward our political opponents. Of course, I have to remind myself that the image of America becoming increasingly divided might not always be the reality — if we look back to the 1930s or the 1960s, we can see the same kind of civil unrest and extremism (complete with violence) that seems to be bedeviling us today. When it comes right down to it, the Weather Underground of the 1960s and the Proud Boys of today are practically mirror images of each other, both supremely convinced of the rightness of their cause, both frighteningly unafraid to employ violence, or at least the threat of violence, in the service of their political aims.
But even if we can take some small comfort in the idea that America is no more divided today than it’s always been, my patron’s question still remains. How can we meet the political conflicts of this time (or any time) with the heart of a contemplative?
Here are just a few thoughts.
Don’t demonize one another. Just a cursory glance through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook reveal a disturbing tendency across the political spectrum: for people to express contempt and even hatred toward those with whom we disagree. I understand how angry we can get when we feel so passionately about an issue — especially when current legislation, court decisions, or public opinion is opposed to “our” view. Such anger can lead to a sense that the other side is not just wrong, they’re… well, evil, demonic. For contemplatives, demonizing your opponent flies in the face of the conviction that all people bear the divine image and likeness. Demonizing others can lead to violence or abuse. Unless we want political violence like the 1969 “Days of Rage” or the January 6 insurrection to recur again and again, we all have to find a way to fight for what we believe is right, without fighting against our opponents as “bad” people.
Tell your story — and be honest about how we see things differently. I believe the only way we are going to find a way forward out of our divided political climate is for people who disagree politically to begin talking, in person — around family rooms, dinner tables, and other “real life” settings. Posting clever social media posts where we “own the liberals” or “own the conservatives” creates heat but not light. We have to meet eye to eye, and find ways to tell our stories to one another. This is not easy to do, and many of us who are contemplatives tend to be introverts and conflict-avoidant. But if people of good will do not learn how to come together, then we are abdicating the political conversation in our society to the extremists (on both sides). And we all know where the extremists will take us. But how do we talk about disagreements? We have to learn to say “I see things differently.” Telling your story needs to be about your story, not about how everyone else is so wrong. If you see the world differently than someone who votes differently, we need to find ways to talk about those different perspectives.
Listen to one another with discernment. There’s no point in telling our stories if we also cannot practice the art of listening to one another. Once again, this may be difficult, particularly when people are separated by economic status, education level, skin color, gender, sexuality, religious belief, and other values. But again, the question is: how do we as contemplatives navigate our political divides? Contemplatives practice the art of listening-as-prayer, so we need to apply that to the challenging matter of listening to those whose life experiences are very much unlike our own. Listening does not mean uncritically accepting everything anyone says, of course. We need to learn how to listen with a sense of discernment, a willingness to consider conflicting viewpoints in light of the larger questions of what is good, what is true, what is best for society as a whole.
We need to emphasize our common ground. We all know how social, political, economic, religious and other divisions seem to erect barriers between different groups of people. But if we let those divisions have the final say, then we are just condemning ourselves and our society to a never-ending cycle of mistrust and suspicion. We have to find ways to relate to one another, in spite of our deep divisions. One way to do this — and again, this needs to happen on the local level, in person — is to balance our concern over what divides us with an appreciation for what unites us. We all want a world where our children can thrive. We all want safety, freedom, and the capacity to enjoy the fruit of our labors. We all want clean air, clean water, affordable housing, accessible healthcare, and civil liberties. We have to keep reminding ourselves, and each other, that what unites us matters just as much as what divides us, and our common ground provides us a powerful incentive to work together for the common good.
Be patient when possible. I know that many of the hottest issues our society faces are not only divisive, but carry a sense of urgency — we can see how people can be harmed or even might die because of specific policy decisions. Naturally, we will fight more aggressively when the matter at hand is urgent. But there is also a long game in politics that we should not ignore, even in the midst of many pressing issues. We need to patiently work on how we can establish or restore civility, neighborly good will, long term policies that benefit us all, and other goals that may take years or even decades to accomplish. Patience, perseverance, resilience, and fortitude are not just abstract virtues — they are necessary qualities to keeping society healthy and productive over time. Martin Luther King Jr. was known to quote the 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Trusting that long arc — and working to support it — is just as important politically as fighting for the life-or-death issues facing us today.
Speak with courage and conviction: but also be humble. Here I’m really restating #s 2 and 3 above. It’s been said that we need to speak the truth, even if our voice shakes. Amen to that. Political progress is not made by people keeping their opinions to themselves! But contemplative spirituality with its roots in monasticism understands the importance of humility — in other words, recognizing that we don’t always know everything, or have all the answers, or have everything figured out. And “we” refers not only to us as individuals, but also to our political party or “side” as well. Humility seems to be in terribly short supply these days. Maybe contemplatives can model a generous politics of humility, by being willing to say “I wonder” and “I don’t know” when such is the case.
Keep praying. I know that “thoughts and prayers” has become a loaded phrase, thanks to the question of how best to prevent gun violence in America. I agree that our thoughts and prayers should never be something we do to avoid the important and necessary action that we need to take to address the problems we face. But I also believe it’s just as dangerous to act without prayer (or, at least, without careful contemplation). Yes, in emergencies we have to act quickly — which is why we need to be contemplative every day. Cultivating a spirit of thoughtful listening, compassionate wonder, willing silence, and heartfelt desire to enact the will of Divine compassion, mercy and justice — once again, this is something we all need to be doing, but perhaps contemplative practitioners can lead the way.
I’m afraid this post will strike some people as pollyannish, but I believe we have to hope for the best, and to proclaim that hope so that it can guide us even when we have to make difficult decisions.
So, back to my patron’s question. These are the points I keep in mind as I attempt to maintain a contemplative approach to the political challenges of our time. Please let me know if you see things differently — or if you have additional suggestions on how contemplatives can contribute to improving the political climate in today’s world.
Join me (Carl McColman) for a special online quiet day of reflection on June 25, 2022. We’ll spend time together in silence, and I’ll share with you some of the wisdom of two of my favorite 20th century theologians: Kenneth Leech and Pauli Murray.
Ken Leech (1939-2015) was a priest of the Church of England, a tireless advocate for social justice, and renowned for his work combating homelessness, racism, and privilege of all kinds. But he was also an authority on contemplative spirituality, one of the leaders of the contemporary spiritual direction movement, and a person of deep integrity and profound prayer. His writing remains one of the strongest voices on the seamless integration of contemplation and action.
Pauli Murray (1910-1985) is renowned as the first woman of color to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, but that singular accomplishment was merely the capstone of a long and distinguished career. She was an early Civil Rights activist, one of the founders of the National Organization of Women, and one of the first activists to articulate the concept of intersectionality: how different types of injustice can “intersect” to create unique problems (and unique opportunities for liberation). Although she was not a public theologian or spiritual teacher like Leech, her sermons and other faith-based writings reveal a deep interior life that can continue to inspire us today.
Our day together will consist of two ninety minute sessions. During each session, we will enter into the silence through a period of Centering Prayer, followed by an overview of the life and teachings of these two remarkable spiritual guides. We’ll finish our session by letting them speak in their words, feasting on their wisdom as inspiration for our own calling as contemplative activists (or active contemplatives) today.
The cost for this retreat day is $25, but if you are an active patron of this website through Patreon, there is no charge.
The quiet day of reflection will take place on Zoom, on June 25, 2022. The first session will be from 10-11:30 AM Eastern USA time. The second session will be from 1:30-3 PM Eastern USA time. The sessions will be recorded for registrants and patrons.
The Encountering Silence co-hosts (Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman) recently spoke with Servite Sister Joyce Rupp, on the occasion of the publication of her most recent book, Return to the Root: Reflections on the Inner Life.
Joyce Rupp is well known for her work as a writer, international retreat leader, and conference speaker. She is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Praying Our Goodbyes, Open the Door, and Fragments of Your Ancient Name. Some of her books, like Fly While You Still Have Wings have won awards from the Catholic Press Association. In the words of Jesuit author James Martin, “Joyce Rupp is one of the best Christian spiritual guides writing today.”
You can learn more about Joyce Rupp by visiting her website, www.joycerupp.com — or check out some of her many books:
This is episode number 140 of Encountering Silence. Subscribe to this podcast from your favorite podcast subscription service, and check out previous episodes where we have interviewed friends like Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, Lerita Coleman Brown, Parker Palmer, Barbara Holmes, Barbara Brown Taylor, Martin Laird, and many others. Click here to visit the podcast’s website.
Recently a reader of this blog wrote the following to me:
I am just starting out on this journey and feel drawn to the mystical/contemplative side of Christianity. To this end, I am using your book “Answering the Contemplative Call” and also “Growing into God” by John Mabry as my guides. I do not have a spiritual director as yet but am trying to find one near where I live in the UK. In the meantime, I am using the 2 books mentioned above and finding them very useful. By the way, I love Julian of Norwich but find St. John of the Cross beyond me!
My difficulty is that I am confused between the God of the mystical tradition and some aspects of the God of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament). The God who “doesn’t hold anything against us and never has” seems at odds with the God who does show anger against evil and injustice in the bible. As maybe He should, given that so much suffering is caused by cruelty, greed, injustice etc. So where does this idea that there is no wrath in God and that He doesn’t hold anything against us come from? Is it just wishful thinking?
This is such a great question. Thanks for asking it! I am actually currently at work on a new book about reading the Bible in the light of the wisdom of the mystics (God willing, it will be published in 2024), so your question is very apropos!
For readers who may not be knowledgeable about Julian of Norwich, she was a medieval visionary who experienced sixteen revelations or “showings” during a serious illness she experienced as a young woman, in May 1373. These visions were theologically rich and filled with insight, particularly in terms of God’s love. Indeed, Julian’s book of theological, contemplative reflections on her showings is often published under the title Revelations of Divine Love.
Among other things, Julian remarks that her visions gave her a new perspective on an idea about God — an idea that probably was quite common in her 14th century experience of Christianity: the notion of “the wrath of God.” Julian writes,
I saw no kind of wrath in God, neither for a short time nor for long. (For truly, as I see it, if God were to be angry even a hint, we would never have life nor place nor being.) As truly as we have our being from the endless Power of God and from the endless Wisdom, and from the endless Goodness, just as truly we have our protection in the endless Power of God, in the endless Wisdom, and in the endless Goodness.
Elsewhere in her writing Julian notes, “I saw no wrath except on man’s part, and that He forgives in us. For wrath is nothing else but a rebellion from and an opposition to peace and to love, and either it comes from the failure of power or from the failure of wisdom, or from the failure of goodness (which failure is not in God but it is on our part).” These quotations are from The Complete Julian of Norwich.
Wow. It’s a compelling argument. There’s no such thing as wrath in God! And furthermore, when human beings have thought we saw wrath in God, Julian is basically saying that we are projecting our own human anger on to God, for God is perfect power, wisdom, and goodness, and anger stems from a “failure” of power, wisdom or goodness in human hearts.
The problem, as my reader points out, is that the Bible offers images of God that seem quite wrathful indeed:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly… on account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. (Colossians 3:5-6)
They will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:10)
There are many others, I just chose a few. And I made a point of choosing examples from the New Testament, to avoid the subtly anti-semitic notion that God is only depicted as wrathful in the Old Testament, before Jesus came along to clear things up. Alas, images of God-as-wrathful are found throughout the Bible — just as images of God as merciful and forgiving can be found in the Jewish scriptures as well as in the New Testament.
So what are we to make of Julian’s assertion? Was she simply wrong? Or, if we agree with her, does that mean we are rejecting the authority of the Bible? This is a tough nut to crack!
Julian of Norwich: Mystic, Visionary… and Interpreter of Scripture
The Bottomless Well of Meaning
This question is ultimately a question about how we read the Bible — and interpret it for our time. For many Christians, the Bible is seen almost like a technical manual, or a legal code: it contains very precise language, with clear-cut meaning that must be understood and applied in the one acceptable way.
But not everyone sees the Bible that way. To begin to illustrate this idea, let me recount a story I just heard the other day. Last week I participated in an interview with Brian D. McLaren, and at one point he told us about a conversation he had with a rabbi a few years back. The rabbi asked Brian why Christians are so focused on finding the one correct meaning of each and every verse in the Bible. She saw that as foreign to the way many Jews read the Bible.
“The Bible is a bottomless well of meaning,” remarked the rabbi. “Why would you want to stop its meaning with one interpretation?”
This reminded me of a conversation I had with my wife, just a few days earlier. “I think many people see the Bible as speaking with one voice,” I pointed out. “But actually, there are many voices in the Bible, offering different — and at times conflicting — ideas about God, about humanity, about theology and spirituality and ethics. The Bible is more like a lively conversation than a monologue.”
If we take the rabbi who spoke to Brian McLaren seriously, it invites us into what, for Christians, represents a radically new way to think about the Bible. It is a record of centuries of religious imagination, reflection and discernment rather than a single, definitive statement about God that cannot be questioned in any way.
Many Christians have been taught to view the Bible as the inerrant word of God. It’s a hermeneutical principle which insists that there is no error in scripture. (Hermeneutics refers to the principles by which a text is interpreted). But not all expressions of Christianity include a requirement to believe the Bible is inerrant. While pretty much all mainstream forms of Christianity see the Bible as authoritative and as an expression of the word of God, it is possible to hold those beliefs while also accepting the Bible as written by human beings (even if inspired by God) and therefore subject to human limitations and blind spots.
The problem I see with the belief that every single verse in the Bible must be inerrant is that it does not address the many problems and disparities that even a casual reading of the Bible can reveal. Even within scripture itself, there are clearly statements that most people would acknowledge are contradictory to other statements within the Biblical text. Let’s look at a few of the more obvious inconsistencies:
In Genesis 32, Jacob proclaims “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” But by the time of Moses, God is saying “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). Jesus, however, seems to opt for Jacob’s perspective, since he taught “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8)
Jesus promises us that “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), but the author Judges apparently never got the memo, for he comments that God could not even defeat chariots made of iron: “The Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.” (Judges 1:19)
Regarding God’s wrath, consider this harsh statement found in Exodus 20:5, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.” By the time of the prophet Ezekiel, a more balanced perspective emerges: “A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.” (Ezekiel 18:20)
Likewise, there are other examples of how later Biblical texts will, in essence, override an earlier principle, such as Jesus’s famous reversal of the Old Testament “eye for an eye”:
“If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life,eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exodus 21:23-25)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matthew 5:38-39)
There are many other examples of this kind of Biblical discontinuity (a tip of the hat to the American Atheists website for their List of Biblical Contradictions page!)
So can you see the face of God and live? Or not? Will God punish children for the sins of their parents — or not? I don’t see how anyone can honestly consider tensions like these without accepting that at least some of them represent errors, or at least obsolete ideas.
Christians sometimes try to resolve some of the Bible’s apparent inconsistencies by arguing that the New Testament represents a “new and improved” revision of Old Testament theology. Jesus, especially, trumps anything in the Old Testament, so his comments about turning the other cheek are seen basically as an acceptable revision of an old, but no longer valid, way of thinking about God. But even this has its problems: what do you do when you run into tensions in the New Testament; for example, Jesus and Paul have clearly different understandings of the function of the Jewish law — see Matthew 5:17-18 and Romans 6:14?
All of these apparent contradictions, disparities, tensions, differing or opposing viewpoints are only a problem if we insist in reading the Bible as a unified document declaring only one correct way of understanding God. But if we join the rabbi quoted above, and are willing to view the Bible as an “endless well of meaning,” we can begin to consider the idea that many verses can be interpreted in multiple ways, and even the most glaring contradictions might actually be invitations for us to reflect on how our understanding of God, and truth, and spirituality grew and evolved over the centuries in which the Bible was written — and continue to evolve to this day.
So rather than getting caught up on what is absolutely the “one correct way” of reading the Bible, we can approach the Bible as a “work in progress” — as the word of God that is still being spoken. Like any good story, we can expect character development — only in the Bible, it’s not so much that God is “developing” but rather that the human understanding of God is growing and evolving. So some images of God in the Bible are, obviously enough, going to be more helpful than others — some might be more obsolete, more culturally conditioned, more shaped by outdated ideas where God is seen as terrifying, angry, patriarchal, wrathful — compared to other images (found within the Bible) that stress God as loving, merciful, kind and radically forgiving.
Enter Julian of Norwich
“I call them like I see them.”
One of the most loved of American sports is baseball, a game which is moderated by an impartial umpire, who makes on-the-fly decisions whether a runner is safe or out, whether a missed pitch is a strike or a ball, and so forth (if you don’t know baseball jargon, it just means the umpire is the one who makes final decisions about how the game is progressing, decisions that can be controversial and that affect who wins the game). A legendary story holds that an umpire, challenged by the accuracy of his decision, simply states “I call them like I see them.”
I think about that when I think about Julian of Norwich and the wrath of God. When it comes to her vision of God, I believe she called it like she saw it.
She very simply states “I saw no wrath in God” and also “I saw no wrath except on man’s part.” I think we need to hold both of these statements together to understand what Julian is saying. And I believe this: Julian is interpreting the Bible, based on her own visionary experience of God. She is challenging us to re-think what the very concept of “the wrath of God” as found in the Bible means.
There’s plenty of language in the Bible about God’s wrath. But there’s also plenty of language in the Bible stressing God’s love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness. Are we to assume that God is moody — angry some of the time, but understanding and forgiving the rest of the time? That sure sounds like projecting a human quality (the changeable nature of our emotions) unto God!
Julian offers a different interpretation. She boldly suggests that “the wrath of God” is essentially a mirror of human wrath, projected onto God. We human beings — including Biblical writers — are prone to assuming that God is basically a mirror image of ourselves. Since human beings get angry and wrathful, therefore God must too. And Biblical writers inserted this into their way of speaking about God. But Julian, based on the authority of her own experience of God, isn’t having it. She calls us to a new way of seeing God.
Julian reasonably argues “if God were to be angry even a hint, we would never have life nor place nor being.” In other words, the wrath of God would simply annihilate all existence. We are held in existence by God’s creativity, God’s love and God’s sustenance (see Julian’s “hazelnut vision” for more on this). Her point: if God really got angry, we would be completely and utterly annihilated by the terrible force of that wrath.
Therefore, God may judge us, God may hold us accountable for our sins, and God may expect us to take responsibility for our actions. But all of this emerges out of God’s love and justice, not God’s wrath.
I understand that not everyone will be comfortable with this kind of radical re-visioning of how we as Christians can read the Bible. But I am convinced that the Jewish idea of the Bible as a well of endless meaning simply makes more sense than a more brittle idea that the Bible can only have one correct meaning. No wonder there is so much division in Christianity: we’re all arguing over the correct way to read the Bible, and it’s a zero sum game if we believe there’s only one correct reading. Only one interpretation can be correct, all the others must be wrong: erroneous if not heretical.
But if we are willing to entertain the idea that the Bible is meant to guide us in our relationship with God, but not to suppress us into submission to just “one correct” way of reading it, then we are free to let the Bible be in conversation with itself, and to allow other inspiring and learned commentators (like Julian of Norwich and many of the other mystics) offer us insight into how to read the Bible as well. Of course, Julian — like anyone else — may have made mistakes, gotten some things wrong. We are not required to slavishly obey everything she (or anyone else) says about the text.
Our job may seem daunting: we need to bring critical thinking and adult discernment to bear when we read the Bible (or for that matter, when we read Biblical scholars, commentators and interpreters). We can be assured that we will not always agree with the experts, or each other (and we have to be humble enough to admit that we ourselves don’t always get it right either).
Back to my image that the Bible is more like a conversation than a monologue: we who read the Bible here in the third millennium are invited to join in an ongoing conversation, that has already been continuing for centuries and will carry on long after we are gone. We need to do so humbly, acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers. But when a writer says something that rings true, it’s worth taking it on, at least as a hypothesis.
For me, Julian’s declaration that there’s no wrath in God absolutely rings true. When I hear Christians talk about the wrath of God, I assume that they are telling me more about themselves and their beliefs and image of God, then offering me anything new about the God who is vast, limitless love and compassion.
“Wishful Thinking” — or Mystical Insight?
So does Julian of Norwich represent just “wishful thinking” when it comes to her commentary on the wrath of God — or is she offering us a kind of mystical insight into a new way of approaching God (and the Bible)?
Everyone who reads this blog post will have to answer that question for yourself. What rings most true for you? The idea that God must be wrathful because some ancient Biblical passages speak of God’s anger, or the idea that Julian’s insight into scripture can offer us a deeper appreciation of God’s love, even though it may mean interpreting the Bible in a different way than we are used to?
For what it’s worth, here’s my perspective; I don’t think Julian’s words represent just “wishful thinking” at all, but rather an important and profound theological statement. Julian is calling us to a more consistent and hopeful understanding of God as infinitely loving, infinitely compassionate, infinitely merciful. To do this, we have to learn new ways of interpreting the Bible (maybe more like our Jewish friends, and less like fundamentalist Christians). But the good news is, we can continue to read the Bible as an inspiring text, while also taking into consideration the wisdom of all the ages in learning how to interpret it most consistently (and most lovingly).
One final point: my reader speculates that it may be necessary to believe that God is wrathful because God naturally is opposed to evil and injustice. That’s a good point, but then I am reminded of Jesus’s teaching to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Certainly Jesus would not command us to do something that is not already present in the heart of God! We are to love our “enemies” because God loves everyone, even those who are responsible for evil and injustice and suffering.
God’s love does not mitigate God’s justice. A God of infinite and unalloyed love will still demand that we mortals take responsibility for repairing all the ways that we have caused suffering (for others, or even for ourselves). God remains the God of justice, of siding with the vulnerable and the oppressed, with opting for the poor and the downtrodden. But God does all of this out of love. Even how God deals with those cause harm, who oppress or who are unjust — it will all emerge out of infinite love. I, for one, think it’s a far more humbling thought to have to hold up my sins and imperfections to love, than to anger!
But as humbling as that thought may be, I’m also comforted by knowing that there is no limit to God’s mercy, and that God is with me every step of the way: from my admission that by myself I am ultimately incapable of righting my wrongs, to my feeble efforts to make amends when and where I can, to my ultimate giving of myself entirely to God’s clemency and mercy.
See? No wrath necessary. God is love. Love will handle everything.
I’ve been working my way through Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice: Renewing the Contemplative Tradition, a book in Routledge’s “Contemporary Theological Explorations in Mysticism” series. There’s a delightful essay in it called “Unlikely Mystics” about the sense of wonder and numinous reality that people encounter when visiting medieval cathedrals. Based on her research at Durham Cathedral in England, author Rosalind Brown describes the cathedral as “mystical space for ordinary people.” Telling the story of a visitor to the cathedral who had two very different experiences of the building at different points in her life, Brown makes this observation:
Mystical experience is not entirely from beyond ourselves; in an incarnational faith it incorporates our humanity, our particularity, into the life of the Trinitarian God.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Mysticism — at least, theistic mysticism — is about relationship. We often think that mysticism is about experience (we equate “mystical experience” with peak or ecstatic moments), or about consciousness (what makes a mystical experience “mystical” is how it represents an enlarging or enlightening of awareness, an “in-rushing” of divine union or sacred presence). Those are certainly meaningful categories for understanding or exploring the landscape of mystical spirituality. But theistic mysticism — God-centered or divine mysticism — always anchors experience and consciousness, no matter how beautiful or illuminating, in relationship — specifically the relationship between the creature (the person) and the Creator (God, for lack of a better word).
So much of the language of mystical experience/consciousness/relationship is unitive or nondual in nature: “one with God,” “divine union,” “God and I are not-two” — but the reason why such language is even necessary stems from the fact that we have a pervasive sense of the otherness of God/The Mystery: the nondual unitive theosis (“en-God-dening”) of mysticism has to be talked about because it represents a rupture or transformation of the all-too-common experience of God-as-separate. And while we can argue that such a sense of separation is wrong, or misguided, or incomplete, for many people, it simply is. And I think there’s nothing to be gained for shaming those for whom God is encountered as “other.” Instead, let’s see this for what it is: a splendid and beautiful opportunity to be in relationship with the divine other, even if such a relationship ultimately leads to a recognition that “God” and “I” have been one all along!
So the heart of mysticism, divine union, is relational. But it’s not just a spirit-to-spirit or mind-to-mind nonduality. Again, speaking at least in a Christian sense, the relational nature of mysticism is an embodied or incarnational relationship. We do not just imagine that we are one with God — we embody it. We bring our own selves into the relationship: the fullness of our selves, mind, spirit and body.
So this is why you and I can both visit a sacred site, like a monastery or a holy well or a shrine associated with a mystic, and one of us has a luminous sense of divine presence while the other one was left unmoved. God is not playing favorites here, as much as it might seem like that. Nor is the Mystery “rewarding” one person while ignoring the other.
Rather, there are a host of variables at play here: a person’s capacity for belief and wonder, their emotional state, their need or desire for a sense of divine presence, and maybe even the inscrutable mystery of God’s own designs (it is possible that for some people a mystical experience or sense of encounter with the divine could be frightening, or ego-inflating, or in some other way counter-indicated for the good of that person’s soul).
The common theme here is that the fullness of the human being matters when it comes to mystical spirituality: my body, my mind, my soul, my beliefs, my feelings: all have a part to play in the “particularity” of how I encounter the Trinitarian God.
More than once in a my life, I have been at a particular place and have enjoyed a surprising and meaningful sense of God’s loving and beautiful presence. Then, a year or a quarter-century later, I return to that particular location, only to find that my experience of it is remarkably different the second time around. Does this mean I am somehow “less worthy”? Or that there is a capricious randomness to mysticism that makes any sense of the presence of God completely unpredictable? I suppose you could make the case for either of these interpretations.
But I prefer to think of it this way: mysticism means relationship: the human encounter with the mystery we call God. Like all relationships, I can never fully be in control of this encounter. All I can do is try to bring myself as fully and consciously to the encounter as I can. But even there, I never have full control over the mystery of my own being, let alone God’s! Issues concerning my health, wellness, emotional state, physical fitness, experience of illness or trauma, etc. etc. are often partially or fully outside my control. So all I really can do is to do my best to show up — and then experience what ever it is I am available to experience.
Mystically speaking, we “show up” by praying. By opening our hearts and minds and souls to meditation, to contemplation. We make ourselves available and we consent to the hidden mystery of the divine presence. Then, we experience whatever we experience. Maybe “nothing.” Maybe simply a sense of yearning or hope. Maybe boredom or a sense of fidgety unease. And maybe a sense of euphoria, or happiness, or rapture, or ecstasy, or boundary-dissolving union.
This is why the mystics tell us not to over-focus on experience. Maybe the key is, don’t waste time and energy judging or evaluating our experience (or lack thereof). Let God meet us in our bodies, in our particular places, just as we are. And then trust whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) as just what the God-human relationship needs, at that place in space and team. Trust the particularity of the mystical encounter, no matter how hidden it may be. Let our humanity, our “contribution” to the mystical encounter, be what it is: and let God receive that gift as God gives God’s own immeasurable gifts to us. In this gift-encountering-gift, the mystery happens: no matter what we feel or experience.
Yes, mysticism involves the mind, the imagination, the heart. But it also involves the body. Your body is the “location” of your relationship with God. It truly is, therefore, a temple of the Holy.
Cynthia Bourgeault’s latest book, just published this year, is a brief statement of her faith; the book is called The Corner of Fourth and Nondual. If you have been exploring contemplative Christian spirituality for any time now, you probably saw the pun in this title with no problem. But if not, no worries! Perhaps this post will shed some light for you.
“The Corner” that Bourgeault is referring to is a street corner in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. These days it’s the corner of South 4th Street and West Muhammad Ali Boulevard, but in 1958 the intersection was known simply as “the corner of Fourth and Walnut.” On March 18, 1958, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton encountered the mystery of love at this corner. As he later recounted in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudoangels, “spiritual men,” men of interior life, what have you…
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Like Julian of Norwich and other mystics before him, Merton not only recounts the experience of this moment of profound realization, but he also reflects on its meaning, not only for himself, but indeed for us all. In the moment in which he fell in love with everyone he saw, his self-esteem that was embedded in the sense that being a monk made him somehow “special” simply evaporated. Now, his joy arose not from how special his vocation was, but rather from how ordinary it was. Being a human being mattered for more, spiritually speaking, than being a monk! For it is our very humanity that links us to Christ (and, we might add, and Merton himself probably would have added a decade later: our humanity also links us to the Buddha, and to Muhammad, and to Moses, and to White Buffalo Calf Woman, and to Isis, and Brigid of Ireland, and Lao-Tzu, and Ramakrishna… and on and on the list goes).
At the corner of Fourth and Walnut, March 2014. You can barely see the street names etched in the cornerstone, above my head and to either side.
Merton not only fell in love with everyone he saw, but he saw them all “walking around shining like the sun.” Perhaps those two realities are inter-connected. Perhaps when our eyes our opened and we realize that we are all made of stardust, and so we all shine like the sun and the stars, the only rational response is to fall deliciously into love. For God is love, therefore, to fall in love (with one person or with the entire human race) is to fall in God — with one another, of course.
Merton goes on to write such words of hope as few people dare to utter in our day:
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. But this cannot be seen, only believed and “understood” by a peculiar gift.
I write these words as tanks roll across the countryside of Ukraine, somberly cognizant that almost two-thirds of a century after Merton’s epiphany, war and hatred and cruelty and greed remain so very present in our world and our lives. And while perhaps too many of are invested in worshiping our very own selves, it seems that few of us could ever be bothered to worship one another. We have not crossed the line of Merton’s conjectured “big problem” because we remain so embedded in the (again, Merton’s words) “the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.”
But here Merton draws on a French term that he declares he cannot translate: le point vierge. I only know enough French to be dangerous, but it seems to me this could be rendered as either “the virgin point” or “the blank spot.” I think we need to hold both of these possible translations in creative tension. Here’s what Merton has to say about le point vierge:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives… This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our son-ship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.
The point of innocence and emptiness is in everybody, meaning it’s in you and me as well as Merton and Christ and the Buddha. I think we have seen echoes of this idea in the mystics throughout the ages. In the Quaker tradition you can find the concept of the Inner Light, “that which is of God” in the heart of every human being. Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic, called this “the spark of the soul” and the twentieth century mystical philosopher W. T. Stace called it “the apex of the soul.” Julian of Norwich, writing in her typically beautiful poetic style, has this to say:
I saw and understood most certainly that in every soul that will be saved is a godly will which never assented to sin, nor ever shall… it can never intend evil, but always intends good constantly, and does good in the sight of God… And so I understood that man’s soul is made of nothing, that is to say, it is made, but of nothing that is made, in this way: when God was to make man’s body he took the slime of the earth,* which is matter mixed and gathered from all bodily things, and from that he made man’s body; but for the making of man’s soul he would not take anything at all, but made it. And so created nature is rightfully united to the creator, which is essential uncreated nature, that is, God. And so it is that there neither can nor shall be anything at all between God and man’s soul.
The human soul is made of … nothing? Sounds like a blank spot to me! And in that nothingness we are united with God, for there is nothing at all between God and the human soul… a virgin point, innocent and sacred?
Although Julian is cautious and limits her perview just to “every soul that will be saved,” Merton with less to fear from the authorities makes a more bold statement: it is in everybody. Yes, including you and me. The virgin point, the place of pure nothingness, is within you, right here, right now. It is where you as a creature touch without mediation the infinity of the Uncreated. It is the source of love, of joy, of meaning and understanding. It is empty, which is to say silent, which is to say still. Like Merton, we have no “program” for perceiving this divine spark within us, but trusting that it is “only given,” we can drink deep of the wells of silence and contemplation to make ourselves available to recognize le point vierge as it always, already, exists within us.
It’s in you: right here, right now, always and immediately. The reason why mystics and contemplatives are so insistent on intentional silence as a spiritual practice is that we know that our words and thoughts always get in the way of the inaudible presence of le point vierge. The best way to be present to le point vierge, nestled deep within our heart, is to simply be wordlessly loving and intentionally silent before it. We have monkey minds, so our silent practice is really a dance of getting distracted, and returning to the silence; getting distracted and returning, distracted and returning. The distractions are not our enemy, for they set the stage for the beautiful gesture of return, of restoring ourselves in the rest of silence. This is the heart of le point vierge, and the heart of contemplation, the heart of mysticism, the heart of a truly spiritual life. You do not have to “attain” this gift, for it is freely given. We all simply need to learn how to receive such a silent gift with reverence and quiet joy.
Unless you’re a Christian history geek, chances are you’ve never heard of Origen. He lived in Egypt from about 185 to 253—meaning he was a third-century Christian, who died sixty years before Constantine decriminalized the faith. In other words, he lived long before the desert fathers and mothers, before the rise of Christian monasticism, before what we now know as “Christian mysticism” or “contemplative spirituality” really took shape. Indeed, Origen’s extensive writings inspired the great desert father Evagrius, who is generally considered to be the first Christian writer to describe contemplative prayer in his work.
The “idea” that I’m referring to is the notion that Christian spirituality can be understood as involving three stages. To give this notion a bit of gravitas, Origen appealed to the Hebrew Scriptures. He saw three of the wisdom books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, which appear in consecutive order in the Christian Old Testament; as symbolic of these three stages, which he labeled (in Greek) ethike, physike, and enoptike. Translated into English, the stages involve the acquisition of virtue or ethics, which leads to a more Godly way of relating to the natural world, which in turn prepares one for the vision of God, or contemplation.
It’s not hard to connect the dots with the wisdom literature Origen appealed to: for Proverbs is moralistic and concerned with proper behavior; while Ecclesiastes, deeply existential and almost cynical in tone, seems to suggest a detached, “spiritual” way of relating to the world; leading finally to the Song of Songs, the sensual collection of love poems interpreted by Origen as a grand metaphor for the love of God for humanity.
Origen of Alexandria
Origen’s ideas were shaped and adapted by future spiritual writers, finally reaching a classic formulation in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, an anonymous Syrian monk who lived around the year 500. In his essay on angels called The Celestial Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius describes the “beatitude of God” as “purifying, illuminating, and perfecting; or rather it is itself purification, illumination, and perfection.” This “threefold way” appears again and again in subsequent spiritual teachings, both in the eastern and western churches; writers as diverse as St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Ruysbroeck, and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange have used some form of this three-step model in their explication of the spiritual life.
Others, like Evelyn Underhill, expand upon it (Underhill proposed a five-stage model of awakening, purification, illumination, dark night of the soul, and the unitive life). Even in our time, Robert Davis Hughes’ splendid study of the spiritual life, Beloved Dust, uses the threefold way, although with the metaphor of waves crashing on the shore to suggest a cyclical, rather than linear, way of approaching the stages.
There’s nothing sacrosanct about the threefold way; it is not found in the Bible (unless you accept Origen’s rather fanciful interpretation of entire books as carrying symbolic meaning). I think it has had such currency in the tradition for so long simply because it is a useful way of mapping the life. After all, purification (in Greek, katharsis) suggests a kind of spiritual detoxification, a process of letting go of anything that stands in the way of growth in grace–a logical starting point for any serious exploration of contemplation. This leads to illumination (theoria), or contemplation proper, where the cleansed soul is now open to beholding the beauty of the divine mystery; a process which in turn releases into perfection or union (theosis), a profound, graced state of nonduality where God and the created soul are “not-two.”
As Meister Eckhart so eloquently described it, “The eye with which I see God is exactly the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowledge and one love” (Sermon 16).
This is mind-boggling stuff, and words like “purification” or “illumination” or “unitive” can strike ordinary Christians, who simply want to get closer to God, as unnecessarily abstract (or abstruse). So I was truly impressed this past weekend, when I was leading a retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, and was discussing the threefold way with the retreatants. One woman raised her hand, and said “It seems to me that the first stage is about learning the rules, while in the second stage you move from the rules to wisdom, and in the final stage you move into love.”
I didn’t miss a beat. “Do you mind if I write about that?”
“Of course,” she said humbly. “After all, it didn’t come from me.”
I suppose some scholars or other folks who make it their business to be “theology police” would gladly argue over the defects in trying to simplify purgation, illumination, and union in terms of law, wisdom, and love. But that would be to grossly miss the point. After all, no word we use can ever capture the mysterious dynamics of grace in our lives. But what makes law, wisdom, and love such a wonderfully succinct explanation of the threefold way is its sheer simplicity.
An important part of the spiritual life is learning how appropriate boundaries are necessary for any kind of relationship (including our relationship with God, and with our own selves). And just as important is discovering that place where a deep discerning wisdom takes us beyond a rigid, legalistic, “by-the-book” approach to God. And such wisdom, in turn, provides the foundation for what is really the main point behind spirituality: to receive love, to grow in love, to become love. I for one cannot think of a better way to describe theosis. May we all receive the grace to follow this path.
Note: this article was originally posted to Patheos on June 19, 2012. At a reader’s request, I’m reposting here on my blog. — CM
Hello friends, here’s a little video for you to watch…
I recently did some training with the folks who operate Patreon, the membership website that provides a way for individuals to support creative professionals (like me). Over 100 people help make the Anamchara.com blog possible through Patreon, and their ongoing support has made a profound difference in my ability to manage — and write new content for — this blog.
Patreon encourages its creative professionals to develop small “thank you” gifts for current and new patrons. As I reflected on this idea, what came to mind was a series of prayer cards — cards with beautiful images on one side and meditations, prompts or other prayer-related writing on the other side, writing drawn from either this blog, or one of my books, or even new writing specifically for the card. I very quickly created four of these cards and had them printed up. I’ve got ideas for at least two dozen (!) more, so I will continue to create new prayer cards, probably 1-3 new ones each quarter.
These will not be for sale — they’ll be available exclusively as thank you gifts for patrons. All patrons will receive PDF copies that you can print for yourself or store on your electronic device. Patrons at the $10/month or higher levels will get actual cards, mailed to you from me. And for patrons at the $20/month or higher levels, I’ll autograph the cards.
Whenever I poll the patrons of this blog, you consistently say that most of you support the blog just because you love it, and not for any “perks” you may receive. I understand and appreciate that! Still, these cards are a fun thing for me to do as a special way of expressing my gratitude for your support. I hope you will enjoy the cards.
I was speaking with a few friends of mine who are spiritual directors recently, and we were talking about the work they do accompanying people who seek to draw closer to God.
If you are not familiar with spiritual direction, it is a ministry of interactive care, in which a person supports another in the journey into deeper intimacy with God. A spiritual director does not “direct” in the sense of giving orders, but may provide a sense of orientation or calibration, helping to keep the conversation (and the prayer) always grounded in divine love.
In the Christian tradition, it is said that the only true spiritual director is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, who is poured into each of our hearts, provides the ultimate “compass” for guiding us more and more fully and deeply into the felicity of God’s presence, love, mercy and care. Thus, the human spiritual director functions like a midwife, someone there to provide care and support and guidance, but always with a humble recognition that there role is to hold a sacred space where the intimacy of God’s love may emerge more fully in the heart of the seeker.
So back to the conversation with my friends who have a ministry of spiritual direction. One of them, I can’t recall who, suggested that ultimately in spiritual direction there are only two questions:
Who is God?
Who are you?
If you’d like, you can pose these questions each in the light of the other:
Who is God, to you?
Who are you, in relation to God?
Just as you cannot have a healthy and sustainable mature human relationship without two human beings who are at least minimally capable of autonomy and care for another, likewise anyone hoping for a meaningful relationship with God must grapple with both of these questions, for their sense of self — and their sense of God, what is sometimes called their “image of God” — will shape and impact how they understand and experience their spiritual journey.
If you believe God is punishing and wrathful, what kind of relationship will you have with God? Probably one that is very guarded and self-armored, and you might subconsciously be doing all you can to keep God at arm’s length. Conversely, if deep down inside you see yourself as fundamentally unloveable, that will also constrict your capacity to truly be vulnerable and available for God’s love to flow into your life.
When my friend made this simple statement, I nodded in agreement, for my journey both in receiving spiritual direction and in serving as a spiritual director for others, these two questions keep arising again and again. Even someone with a basically mature sense of self and a strong image of God-as-Love will still find that the deep work of prayer, meditation and contemplation will continually yield new insights into places where we need healing, and our image of God might need reconfiguring.
These questions are not just for the ministry of spiritual direction. Indeed, I would suggest that anyone who wants to explore contemplative spirituality and the mystical life would do well to reflect on these questions, intentionally and often.
If you think you are being called into intimacy with God — even into the beatitude of union with God — then take the time to ponder these questions: Who is this God who is calling you? How do you experience God? What do you know about God? What are some things you may have been told about God (in childhood, or even more recently) that simply don’t ring true? Are you afraid of God? Is it possible to trust God, and how does that play out in your life? Where does your image of God need to be deepened, or healed, or transformed?
Likewise, who are the “you” that God is calling? How does God see you? Is God’s sense of who you are consistent with your self-image? Is there something difficult or painful in your life that you are running away from, or not quite ready to face? Do you need the support of others, like a therapist (note: spiritual direction is not the same thing as therapy, and most spiritual directors are trained to make referrals when a person appears to be in need of therapeutic care)? Do you have one or more active addictions, and if so, are you willing to take the steps needed to enter into recovery? Are any of your relationships broken (including your relationship with yourself)? Are you happy? Peaceful? Joyful? If not, what resources can you tap into to bring more felicity, serenity and joy into your life? Where do you hurt (spiritually as well as physically)? What do you want — what do you really want, at the deepest level of your heart? What sacrifices are you willing to make in order to get what you want?
These questions are just a start, but all of them (the “God” questions and the “self” questions) are meant to inspire discernment — thoughtful, mindful, heart-centered reflection on where we are, and where we believe we are called to go.
The mystical life is an invitation into deep mystery, which makes sense, for on a very real level, both God and self ultimately are mysteries to ourselves. We can learn much about who we are, and how we understand God, and put those two understandings together to nurture a healthy and meaningful relationship between self and God, even to the point of experiencing union with God. But the nature of mystical spirituality is such that, no matter how deep our understanding might be, it will always be suspended over the loving abyss of infinite unknowing. Some people might find that image unsettling or even scary. But for those who have a sense of God as love and the presence of God as a merciful and caring presence, even the abyss of the mystery is not unsafe, but rather simply an infinite forum for the most intimate of encounters: between the loving Creator and the beloved creature.
Mysticism crosses all religious and spiritual boundaries. In other words, mysticism — like prayer or meditation or worship or sacrifice — is a universal spiritual/religious concept, not something that is limited to just one religious or wisdom tradition.
What Baron Friedrich von Hugel called “the mystical element of religion” can be found in all the world’s great traditions, east and west, indigenous and cross-cultural. Granted, the word mysticism with its roots in Greek paganism and its rich contemplative tradition within Christianity, is not always a word or concept that other spiritual traditions might claim as their own.
Even if Protestants or Jews or Muslims will tell you that their faith doesn’t have “mysticism,” you can still find spiritual practices, experiences, and teachings within theirs (and every) culture that many observers would agree falls under at least a broad understanding of mysticism, understood universally. As the old saying goes, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck, no matter what anyone else might insist…
On this blog, I’m interested in exploring mysticism in a global/universal sense, but I’m also particularly interested in Christian mysticism, as a unique expression of Christian spirituality — but also as a unique expression of world mysticism. In other posts I have shared some thoughts on What is Mysticism? (in a general sense) and What Do Christian Mystics Believe? — but today I’d like to offer five elements that differentiate mysticism-in-general from Christian-mysticism-in-particular.
Those five marks are:
Following Jesus
Rooted in the Bible
Engaged in the Christian Mystical Tradition
Union with God means Communion with God
Commitment to the love of others
There may be other signifying marks of Christian mysticism, of course; and even these five marks will be understood by different Christian mystics in different ways. Like all global religions, Christianity is culturally divergent, with many different theologies, doctrines, practices, styles of worship, and spiritual exercises found in some but not all corners of the Christian world. So not everyone will necessarily understand Christian mysticism the way I present it here. Still, I am trying to offer some orienting generalizations that can help most people to understand what puts the Christian into Christian mysticism.
First, let’s look at a brief definition of Christian mysticism, coming from my own book, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: “Christian mysticism is all about having a ‘relationship with God.’ Indeed, this is its bedrock principle.” (p. 25). So we begin to approach Christian mysticism recognizing that it has something to do with God, but not God in an abstract way, but rather an embodied, relational way. Right away, “God” is a complicated concept and means different things to different people. But without God, Christian mysticism really doesn’t exist. Allow for the word “God” to have plenty of mystery about it, but to the extent that this mysterious Divine Other is encounterable and relatable — there you find the headwaters of Christian mysticism.
Now, on to the five marks of a distinctively Christian expression of mysticism.
Christian Mysticism Means Following Jesus
There are many ways to understand Jesus, many ways of thinking about Jesus’s relationship with God and humanity. But whether you have a Trinitarian understanding of Jesus as “One with the Father” or a more humanistic way of regarding Jesus primarily as a great teacher, mysticism in a Christian sense naturally involves some sort of relationship with Jesus. So many flavors of Christianity emphasize Jesus as a savior, or as a moral exemplar, that what often gets lost is the profound message of Jesus as an initiator into union with God. “Abide in me, as I abide in you,” proclaimed the one who also taught “Love your enemies.” Taken in its fullness, Christianity is more than just a religion of personal holiness or social justice — it’s an invitation into the mystery of God, and Jesus is both the guide and, in his own words, “the Way.”
Christian Mysticism is Rooted in the Bible
The Gospels offer rich and insightful mystical teachings — but they are only a fraction of the writings that the Christian tradition regard as sacred. Jesus himself would have been familiar with the Jewish Bible, the collection of sacred writings that Christians call the Old Testament. In addition, the four Gospels and 23 other writings (mostly letters) comprise the Christian New Testament. The Bible can be a maddening book: it is ancient, and reflects that values (and blind spots) of a culture far removed from our own — although to be fair, the wisdom contained in it sometimes requires us to overcome the blind spots in our culture! Not every page of Biblical writings is contemplative or mystical, by a long shot — but there’s plenty of wisdom teachings to be found herein. Christian mystics for some two thousand years have relied on the Bible as their sacred text, so anyone curious about this path of mystical wisdom will find the Bible to be an essential resource.
Christian Mysticism engages with its own tradition
The writings of the New Testament were pretty much completed in the first century after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Some 1900 years have passed since then, centuries that have given western culture the beauty and splendor of this particular mystical tradition. If you want to explore the mysteries of Christian mysticism, you begin with Christ as met through the Bible — but that’s just the starting point. Christian mysticism draws on wisdom teachings from the hermits of the deserts in the middle east, from monks and nuns and friars throughout the middle ages, from saints and visionaries and poets and spiritual teachers, many of whom are not well known outside the mystical tradition — but who are major voices within it. Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Bernard of Clairvaux — just a few names of the essential mystical teachers in this tradition. And Christian mystics aren’t just figures from the past: the twentieth century saw its own mystical geniuses, such as Evelyn Underhill, Teilhard de Chardin, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, Howard Thurman, and many others. Every mystic has something insightful to say about the Christ-centered relationship with God. Knowing them is an essential part of knowing Christian mysticism.
Christian Mysticism recognizes Union with God — as Communion with God
If the heart of mystical spirituality is relating intimately with God, where does this ultimately lead? When Meister Eckhart said “the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me,” he is alluding to union with God. It’s not just having an experience of God, or feeling close to God, or even feeling in love with God. Mysticism boldly takes us further: the ultimate relationship, the ultimate intimacy, the ultimate love between Divine and human, is that place where we can join with Jesus in saying, “I and the father are one.” (John 10:30). And unless you think that Christians should not dare to presume that Jesus’s proclamation of unity with God could ever extend to us mere humans, well, remember equally bold statements like “Do you not realize that Christ is in you?” (II Corinthians 13:5) and “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The person united with Christ is “one spirit” with Christ (I Corinthians 6:17), and we are “partakers of the Divine Nature (II Peter 1:4). But here’s the point: all this bold language about in-dwelling, or oneness, and so forth, is not meant to suggest that the line separating the human you from the Divine Christ simply disappears. Christian mysticism, like Jewish and Sufi spirituality, operates with a paradoxical understanding: we are one with Christ, and Christ is God in a way that we are not. The key, of course, is communion — a nuanced understanding of “union” that anchors such union in love. We become one with Christ through love. It is an undifferentiated mystical union, and it is the intimate embrace of lover and beloved. Not either/or: both/and. Some people may speculate that this kind of mystical thinking is so profound and nuanced that the language of union, communion, and love are all imperfect attempts to describe an ineffable reality. I think that’s a reasonable perspective, so I remain open to the idea that the union with God in Christ that Christian mysticism points us to ultimately takes us to a place were human language, human concepts, human binary and dualistic thinking, all ultimately fail. Be that as it may, my point remains: one of the essential ways in which Christian mysticism can be distinguished from other types of mysticism is its insistence that we hold this tension of union/communion. It’s a non-duality that not only erases all dualities, but even erases the duality between duality and non-duality.
Christian Mysticism includes the love and service of others
Finally, another key marker of the Christian mystical tradition is its ongoing insistence that the love of God is most fully and beautifully expressed through the love of others, on a simple human level. Plotinus, the great Greek pagan philosopher, is renowned for describing mysticism as “the flight of the alone to the alone.” Yes, there is a solitary dimension to Christian spirituality (look at Matthew 6:6, which emphasizes the importance of praying in solitude), but it is not only a spirituality of solitude. From the earliest centuries, Christians who have felt called to becomes hermits have had to answer the question, “Whose feet shall you wash?” — a reference to John 13:14, where Jesus, having washed his disciples’ feet, instruct them to do the same for one another. The message is simple: part of the mission of every Christian is a life fo care and service for others. Obviously this can take many different forms. For some it is simply being a good citizen, a good worker, a good family member. For others it is about teaching, or speaking, or creating art that inspires and helps others. Many turn to direct service: following Jesus’s teachings, they work hard to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick, and so forth. And what about those hermits? Even they often have a ministry of hospitality, welcome those who seek them out with kindness and understanding (I know many monks, who live cloistered lives, who nevertheless work hard at caring for those who are in need). So while they may be many ways to do it, what all serious followers of Christ’s teachings have in common is a shared commitment to put the spiritual wisdom of this path into practical application by caring for one another.
Certainly, these five marks of Christian mysticism are not the only ways in which we can see something unique or distinctive about this spiritual path. Can you think of other ways that Christian mysticism is, well, Christian? It’s worth reflecting on, whether your interest in Christian mysticism is purely academic, or an expression of your own desire for a closer relationship with the mystery we call God.
