The Mystical Path
Friday, February 14, 2025
The condition of mysticism will never be over, for we are of it. We never feel at home elsewhere, but only in the serenity and comfort of our communion with God. We may attempt to make excuses for this state, hoping that it would finally go away and we would then we able to function well in the “real” world. Yet, not only has this never been meant to be, we must no longer yearn for what we are not.
—Beverly Lanzetta, Path of the Heart
Theologian Beverly Lanzetta writes of the universal nature of mystical longing:
In religious traditions, the word “mysticism” refers to a direct experience of Divine Presence, and to the highest levels of union with Divine Mystery. It also includes the human longing for the ultimate, and the path the soul follows toward intimacy with God. It implies that the mystical quest is intrinsic to human nature—that our souls are constituted to turn toward the divine light as a plant turns toward the sun…. The impetus of one’s entire being never rests until it rests in God. This internal movement toward divine communion—rather than our daily distraction—is the essence of spirituality. When our hearts are diverted from the quest for meaning and love, we suffer. When we experience the true longing of the soul, seeking union with the divine—we know the meaning of life itself and are illuminated by the light of peace.
Yet, haven’t most of us attempted to make excuses for this deep, interior longing, hoping that it would finally go away and we would be able to function in the “real” world?… We tell ourselves we are not worthy of communion; we’re not capable. Yet despite our denial, the mystical heartbeat never abates; its lifeblood courses through our veins, calling us home.
When we focus on this one essential need, we discover the soul’s passion to belong to God. And it is this insistent tug from the infinite that guides our souls on the mystic quest and compels openness of heart.
Lanzetta encourages us to nurture our mystical longing for God through all the challenges we face:
Through this pursuit of devotion to God, you will at times grieve over abandoning what society considers necessary for material and professional survival. Daily you will struggle to reconcile the tension between what is socially practical and your desire to give your heart to the quest. Then the false self will resist: “I must be practical, I must take care of my survival needs, I must not give too much.” These are the voices that obstruct the soul’s desire, even as it experiences the inner light and is consumed by a need for love.
No doubt some will view spiritual longing as impractical. But, mystically, the passion for the Divine is extremely practical; in fact, it is the only practicality. For the soul’s longing to rest in God [is] a road map and a key to unlocking the true self.
__________________________________________________
5 On Friday; John Chaffee
1.
“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.“
– Isaiah 5:20, 8th Century Prophetic Text
Several years ago, I did a chapter-by-chapter read-through of the book of Isaiah. It was during that first year of COVID-19, and much was happening worldwide.
During that time, I read a commentary on Isaiah straight through while I was teaching it. Teaching is always the best way to learn a topic thoroughly. I discovered that the book of Isaiah contained so much timeless wisdom that it became one of my favorite books of the Hebrew Scriptures. Alongside Job, the two of them are probably the books I reflect on the most often.
Jeremiah talks about the need for a New Covenant because Israel had botched the previous one so terribly that God essentially divorced Israel. Ezekiel preaches about the need to return to true holiness and the need for a New Temple. Isaiah takes a different turn, saying that Israel’s exile is a New Exodus that will somehow lead to a New Creation.
All the prophets maintain the need to call things truthfully what they are. Only by looking at the world honestly can we truly assess if we are heading for our demise. The problem that every generation must face is whether or not it is calling good as evil and evil as good, and we are prone to listening to people with the loudest microphones or the largest bank accounts the most.
2.
“To those who ask us from whence we have come or whom we have for a leader, we say that we have come in accordance with the counsels of Jesus to cut down our warlike and arrogant swords of argument into plowshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting.
For we no longer take ‘sword against a nation, nor do we learn ‘anymore to make war, having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader.”
– Origen of Alexandria, 2nd Century Early Church Father
It boggles my mind how Western Christianity seems to have a fixation on weapons.
I saw a clip about a year ago where a tank drove out over some cars in a Christian men’s conference stadium. Guns were being displayed, and fireworks/pyrotechnics were alongside the American flag. The ordeal made me think, “This is not what Jesus had in mind.”
Origen, a controversial figure in the Early Church and the first person to develop a systematic theology, disapproved of war and violence. He also disapproved of nations using violence against one another.
It is hard to believe that some consider America a Christian nation when we have the largest military budget in the world.
Something has gone terribly wrong, and the only solution is a profound return to the red lettering of the Bible.
If you want to read an interesting book on this topic, I highly recommend Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw.
3.
“‘Gospels of Sin Management’ presume a Christ with no serious work other than redeeming humankind. They foster “vampire Christians” who only want a little blood for their sins but have nothing more to do with Jesus until heaven.“
– Dallas Willard, American Philosopher & Theologian
This past Monday, I sat down with a mentor over dinner. We had not seen each other in almost a year. (Life has just been that busy.)
Nearly 3 hours of catching up happened. I honestly enjoyed it and needed it.
One fascinating thing is that we lamented/commented/acknowledged that the conventional understanding of Christianity and Church attendance is built around morality. We go to Church because our morals are out of wack, or we want to be encouraged to continue being moral. Perhaps some enjoy the community and the songs. All of these things are good, but they are a fraction of what the whole thing is supposed to be about.
Jesus lays claim to everything in our lives. Either Jesus means everything, or Jesus means nothing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about this in the first few chapters of his book Discipleship (aka The Cost of Discipleship).
The scope of God’s redemption plan is so much larger than simply creating moral people who hold the door open for each other at the gas station. It is so strange to me because in all my years of Church work, the more I started to teach and preach beyond simplistic morality lessons, the more I was told I was being “disruptive” or even “doing the devil’s work.”
If we have a current understanding of Church and Christianity that does not dive into the fullness of what it means to be human, to engage the topics of redeeming the earth, reconciling world conflicts, enacting mercy, and helping the least of these…
Well, then we shouldn’t be surprised if people eventually find that definition of the faith as vacuous and not worthy of our time.
4.
“Hey, sorry I missed your text. I am processing a non-stop 24/7 onslaught of information with a brain designed to eat berries in a cave.“
– A Meme from the Internet
Man, isn’t this the truth.
This Lent, I have some ideas for what I want to do, and it will likely mean pulling back hard from all forms of media.
5.
“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.“
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian Nobel Prize Winner
Solzhenitsyn’s book, The Gulag Archipelago, is considered the single piece of literature that brought down Communism.
In it, he considers falsehood the prime sin and the ability to tell the truth as the prime metric for whether or not someone has integrity.
It is the inability to tell the truth that can snowball into a whole avalanche of destruction, lead to oppressive regimes, abuse of power, and full-scale war. All of these things can be avoided if there is the deliberate choice to always tell the truth, even in the smallest things.
If Jesus says that the “Truth will make you free, ” we can probably argue the inverse… “Untruth will take your freedom.”
