MYSTICS

Hi There !

So, over the years- more than many by now -

I've bumped into all sorts of "Public People,"

people in the public eye.

They are as varied as their fields of

politics, economics, philosophy,

journalism, religion, music, sports,

theater, theology, spirituality:

John Kennedy, Jude Wanniski, Gabriel Marcel, Eric Sevareid,

Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle, Dom James Fox, Bishop John Shelby Spong,

Lou Rawls, Judy Collins, Muhammad Ali, Sidney Poitier, Helen Hayes, Katie Hepburn,

Hans Kung, Gerald May, Richard Rohr.



Knowing them from afar was one thing. Connecting with them up close and personal was

altogether different.  Personal encounter transforms awareness, connects, opens a relationship.



So it is spiritually. We can read books, go to lectures, workshops, retreats, even religious services

and end up with "knowledge about" but minus  "encounter with" The Spirit.

We know of it, and that from afar.

The difference is like reading a romance novel compared to falling in love.

Anthony De Mello, S.J. puts it like this.
                                                 
                                                 No one ever became drunk

                                                 on the word wine.

Wine, not word!!

Getting drunk on wine, falling in love are wonderful metaphors for the mystic.

A mystic is one intoxicated, enfolded into  the "mystery" of it all,

The Mystery of All That Is.



Mystery doesn't mean unknowable.

It means way more than knowable, infinitely more than knowable.

It's like the Atlantic Ocean ( Pacific if you are on the west coast ).

We can grasp a little bit of it,

but we can't grasp much of it with eye, hands, or mind.

There's just a whole lot more to it.



So it is with God.

We can know a tiny bit about God.

In no way, though, can we come within a million light years

of fully grasping  God in our head.

We can, however, awake to the realization that

we are grasped, held, embraced, wrapped into

the Mystery that is God,

the way a lover delights

to be grasped, held, embraced, wrapped into the beloved.

People letting themselves  be loved like that are mystics.



Karl Rahner was one of the most gifted and giving theologians of our recent past.

Even more and better, he was sprung spiritually.

He knew more about God than any twenty of us bundled.

Way more than that, he loved being in Love.

He was intoxicated, awash in God's Love.

Rahner, though, was concerned with "wordy," "busy" religion

passing itself off as spiritual,

and in sad  truth stalling,

if not stymieing,

the spiritual.

He spoke a truth in love.

                                                       In the days ahead

                                                       you will either be a mystic

                                                       ( one who has experienced God for real )

                                                       or you will be nothing at all.

We're there !

Those "days ahead " are today!



How about we chill end distill a bit?

A mystic is not some air head without a day job

sitting in the corner going " OMMMMMMMMMMM "  all the time.

Most mystics are

bread and butter, garden variety,

go to work every day, have a family kind of folks.

They delight that God is passionately in love with them and they are beginning to respond.

They and God are the truest of soulmates.

They share and do everything together.

The mystic lets go of the illusion of independence

and luxuriates in interdependence.

The mystic lets go of self to be  All.

Dom Bede Griffith put it like this.

                                                         I was no longer

                                                          the center of my life

                                                          and therefore

                                                          I could see God in everything.

The mystic encounters God in everything and everyone.

Mystics realize that what appears as particular

is part and parcel of the  universal.

So, changing a baby or a tire, selling furnitureor buying groceries,

voting, going to corporate or your kid's game,

mystics are one in One.

Another way to stutter about it is:


                                   A MYSTIC

                                                   DELIGHTS

                                                                 TO BE

                                                                        A DROP OF WATER

                                                                                   IN THE OCEAN OF GOD.


A mystic is awash in the sea of it all,

The Sea Of All That Is.



Now, in all honesty, bread and butter, garden variety,

go to work everyday, have a family kind of mystics

regularly, consistently, mess up, sin, screw things up.

God just loves on them and says,

                                                        "Get it out of your system. 

                                                         I'll just wait,

                                                         but hurry up,

                                                         because I'm nuts about you

                                                         and I want to make love."




The mystic usually has some "knowledge" about God.

Much more importantly,

the mystic is always  "experiencing"  God,

and that for real,

as Rahner reminds us.,

Yet paradoxically,

that goes without saying

because words don't know how to get there.

The mystic, like Buddha,

wakes up to it - the lights go on.

For the mystic

                                                              The light

                                                               at the end of the tunnel

                                                               is not an illusion.

                                                               The tunnel is.

                                                                                     Author unknown - but so on!!



This awakening is a gradual dawning of the

                                                              
                                                         RIGHT NOW ALWAYS.



                                                               The journey to God

                                                               is merely the re-awaking

                                                               of where you are always,

                                                               and what you are forever.

                                                               It is a journey without distance

                                                                to a goal

                                                                that has never changed.

                                                                                                A Course on Miracles




This has been great!

I love mixing it up with mystics!!

One last beautiful paradox.

                                   A DROP OF WATER

                                                 IS THE OCEAN.

                                                                  THE OCEAN

                                                                       IS THE DROP OF WATER.


Bonaventure put it like this:

                                    YOU ARE NOT GOD

                                                                    AND

                                                                           YOU ARE NOT NOT GOD.


Mystics get that!!

All the best!!

(it was described above and we're all invited ).

                      John Frank