The Prophet-Mystic
In an essay for ONEING: The Path of the Prophet, Mirabai Starr describes grief as the thread which draws together the work of prophets and mystics:
Our religious conditioning has carved a gulf between the prophet and the mystic, just as we have between action and contemplation and between transcendence and immanence. It’s easy to buy into the illusion that these two spiritual orientations are fundamentally and mutually exclusive. But you can, of course, be both a prophet and a mystic. You can be, and probably are, a prophet-mystic.
Fr. Richard Rohr has often declared that the most important word in the title of the organization he founded, the Center for Action and Contemplation, is “and.” We are activists and contemplatives. We are prophets and mystics. We access momentary nondual states, especially in silence, and we carry the fruits we harvest in such moments back into the world to nourish ourselves and feed the hungry.
The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain. Contemplative practices train us to befriend reality, to become intimate with all things by offering them our complete attention. In this way, the prophet and the mystic occupy the same broken-open space. The nexus is grief. The mystic has tasted the grace of direct experience of the sacred and then seemingly lost the connection. She feels the pain of separation from the divine and longs for union. The prophet has perceived the brokenness of the world and is incapable of unseeing it. He feels the pain of injustice and cannot help but protest. But the mystic cannot jump to union without spending time in the emptiness of longing. The prophet must sit in helplessness before stepping up and speaking out.
Many years ago, my friend [Fr.] William Hart McNichols (quoting the wild woman theologian Adrienne von Speyr) told me that “the prophets are inconsolable.” I will never forget that. At the time, I still harbored a dualistic sense of political versus spiritual and fancied myself more a contemplative than an activist, even though I grew up in a family that was passionately engaged in protesting the Vietnam War. In our secular Jewish family, the Berrigan brothers, radical Catholic priests dedicated to peace and justice, were revered as heroes, on the same level as Abraham Joshua Heschel or Angela Davis. While I was never at home in the political arena, with its absolute judgments of right and wrong and fixed delineations between victims and perpetrators, I was proud of my parents’ social conscience. But it all felt somewhat disconnected from the heart. Then, years later, Fr. Bill built that bridge for me. The prophets, like the mystics, responded from the holy ground of the broken heart.
| Learning from the Mystics: St. Teresa of Avila |
| Quote of the Week: “Our intellects, no matter how sharp, can no more grasp this than they can comprehend God. It is said, though, that he created us in his own image. If this is true (which it is), there is no point wearing ourselves out trying to fathom the great beauty of this castle (our soul) with our mere minds. Even though the castle (the soul) is a created thing, there is a vast difference between Creator and creature, so the fact that they soul is made in God’s image means that it is impossible for us to understand her sublime dignity and loveliness.”- From Interior Castle, 1.21Reflection This quote brought me to misty-eyed tears the first time I read it. Never before had a piece brought me to tears. Theology had never done it, but St. Teresa’s word here in her spiritual classic, Interior Castle, did so in the first two pages. Systematic theology is good and fine, however, to talk about the interior life in such poetic terms is not exactly the domain of theology. In the 1200s there was a split that happened as Aristotle was rediscovered in the academic world. Many began to study “scholastic theology” in the universities, while the monasteries studied “monastic theology.” Monastic theology is understood as being more poetic, imaginal, symbolic, etc. St. Teresa of Avila’s magnum opus, Interior Castle, is monastic theology. Often, Christian theology is built upon the brokenness of humanity. However, St. Teresa of Avila starts off Interior Castle with a strong statement of the infinite beauty, worth and dignity of the human person. This is the launchpad, this is the starting point, this is where she chooses to establish humanity… as being in the image of God. For St. Teresa of Avila and many others, to begin anywhere else than being the Image of God is to lay the wrong foundation. Prayer Beloved, grant us that we might have the proper starting point. Help us to rest in as well as begin from the reality that we are made in Your image. Allow this truth to speak to our deepest parts, to remind us of our own infinite beauty, worth and dignity as well as that of other people. May this be the starting point of our every moment and action. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen and amen. |
| Life Overview of St. Teresa of Avila: Who is She: St. Teresa of Avila Where: Born in Avila, Spain. Died in Salamanca, Spain. When: 1515-1582AD Why She is Important: She was a member of the Carmelite order, and sought to help reform the Catholic church of her day along with St. John of the Cross. Most Known For: St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle was considered a classic relatively quickly. Using the local imagery of castles, she wrote about spiritual marriage with God as “mansions/rooms” within the human soul in which the innermost “mansion/room” is where the Lord already sits enthroned. Notable Works to Check Out: Interior Castle | The Way of Perfection | The Book of My Life |
| The Idol of Mission: Effectiveness is Not Faithfulness |
 As modern, post-enlightenment, Industrial Age, capitalist people we tend to celebrate values like efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. Fortunes can be made by shaving a few minutes or pennies from a manufacturing process or market strategy. I’m writing this at an airport as I wait to board a Southwest Airlines flight—a company that has thrived on being efficient. Southwest was a tiny startup airline in the 1970s that disrupted the entire industry with the “10-minute turn.” Realizing planes only make money when they are in the air, Southwest cut the time on the ground to unload and reload a plane to just 10 minutes. The profits quickly followed. Our culture rewards effectiveness.The same celebration of effectiveness can be seen in the modern church, but this has a dark side. When missional effectiveness becomes paramount, we can mistakingly equate effectiveness with faithfulness. We can fool ourselves into believing God is pleased with us simply because we are accomplishing measurable things in his name. (ABC’s) A remarkable story in the Old Testament reveals the dangers of confusing effectiveness and faithfulness.When God’s people were in the wilderness without food or water they complained to Moses. Turning to the Lord for a solution, Moses was commanded to speak to a rock and water would flow from it for the people to drink, but Moses disobeyed God’s command. Rather than speaking to the rock, he struck it twice with his staff. The Lord punished Moses severely for his irreverence and disobedience by forbidding him from entering the Promised Land. Instead, Moses died within sight of it. The story appears straightforward, except for what happened when Moses disobeyed—the water flowed abundantly from the rock! He still performed a miracle, or, more accurately, God still performed a miracle through an unfaithful leader. From a human point of view, Moses’ ministry was incredibly effective, full of power, and praised by the people, but from God’s point of view, Moses was a failure—his ministry at the waters of Meribah was rejected.Moses shows us that it is entirely possible to be effective but unfaithful. Likewise, Jesus’ ministry was perceived to be utterly ineffective as he hung on the cross, was rejected by his people, and was humiliated, but we know it was his ultimate act of faithfulness to the Father. We must be careful not to confuse effectiveness with faithfulness because doing so may cause us to praise what God condemns and reject what God affirms. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 7:21–23 NUMBERS 20:10–13 WEEKLY PRAYER Ignatius Loyola (1495–1556) Lord Jesus Christ, fill us, we pray, with your light and life, that we may reveal your wondrous glory. Grant that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give and nothing too hard to bear. Amen. |
