It's This, Or Nothing

"Mysticism begins when the totally transcendent image of God starts to recede; and there's a deepening sense of God as immanent, present, here, now, within me. Augustine's line was "God is more intimate to me than I am to myself” or “more me than I am myself." St. Catherine of Genoa shouted it in the streets, "My deepest me is God!"

So you must overcome the gap to know—and then Someone Else is doing the knowing through you. God is no longer "out there." At this point, it's not like one has a new relationship with God; it's like one has a whole new God! “God himself is my counselor, and at night my innermost being instructs me,” says the Psalmist (16:7).

The mystics are those who are let in on this secret mystery of God's love affair with all souls, and recognize the simultaneous love affair with the individual soul—as if it were the only one God loves. It's absolutely our unique affair, and that sets the whole thing on a different and deeper ground than mere organized religion can ever achieve by itself.

Recently, I gave my friend Alex my crucifix. Ten inches high, steel, comtempory design: the hanging man announcing, wordlessly,  acceptance of the struggle, the inevitability of suffering, and ultimately, the victory of the human spirit over everything, even death. 

"If this holds no meaning for you, hand it back to me, because it's precious: but if you understand  it, keep it." He kept it. 

I am done with collecting things, it is time to be giving them away. This, I believe is wisdom. I am well into the second half of my life and my work now is to give out: this is all the purpose one's life needs. To be done with collecting, gathering in, building up making a name for oneself, getting to the top of the heap .. . It's the season for letting go, it is the death before I die, it is freedom. I write this with a light and grateful heart: this isn't morbidity or depression, this is parting with the things, material and spiritual that I no longer want or need, so that I may proceed unhindered into my last years, hopefully, joyfully, with a deeper awareness of what really matters. 

The opening paragraphs were written by Richard Rohr OFM, whom I met when he visited England a few years ago, and whose teachings have had  such a great effect on me. 

Someone once asked me if I am a mystic.How I laughed! One of those first half of life things I've given up, is trying to be good. ( If mystics WERE good... )  I was such a prig when I was trying to be good. Now I don't try to be anything except me, and that, I am learning is good enough! That battle's over. I do though, know what the mystics know, which is the outcome of another battle - faith v skepticism. I am a theist, but it is the God of the mystics, the Indwelling One that I know and honour, not the bossy intolerant anti-Christ of pseudo-religion. 

No, my God is the lover of my soul, who, funnily enough, appears to have faith in me to accept the struggle, to acknowledge the suffering and ultimately to know, as another mystic, Mother Julian of Norwich did, that, " All shall be well. And all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

 

Having An Off Day

I am full of myself today.



That's  the thing. I have been reading three texts concurrently. The New Scientist, on 'Self' ( 'Where is it, if it's there at all?' ) Fr Richard Rohr on 'The Search for Our True Self' ('It's there, you just have know where to look for it') and, for light relief, 'The Tablet' on the Poping Drama now being played out at the Vatican. ('Who..?' No, it's no good, the machinations of Papal politics defy summation.)



(Pause for a swig of tea, which, because that paragraph took so long to construct, has now gone cold.)

I am thinking hard about myself and what that means. I was asked to leave the philosophy class when at college, so I must apologise for my ignorance about a subject that's been chewed over for millennia, on occasions with pebbles in the mouth, so I believe, but I shall plough on as if ignorance is  bliss.

The NS report begins:

'As you wake up each morning, hazy and disoriented, you gradually become aware of the rustling of the sheets, sense their texture and squint at the light. One aspect of your self has reassembled: the first-person observer of reality, inhabiting a human body.

As wakefulness grows, so does your sense of having a past, a personality and motivations. Your self is complete, as both witness of the world and bearer of your consciousness and identity. You.

This intuitive sense of self is an effortless and fundamental human experience. But it is nothing more than an elaborate illusion. Under scrutiny, many common-sense beliefs about selfhood begin to unravel. Some thinkers even go as far as claiming that there is no such thing as the self. '

Due to the fortuitous consequence of being ejected from the philosophy class, I am not burdened with being a 'thinker' , so I cannot claim, ' that there is no such thing as the  self.'

I have a heavy cold that has settled on my chest and has reduced me to a fractious and demanding individual not fit for company. 'This is it!' I  unthink to my self, 'If I am NOT, then who the hell has this bloody cold?

Rummaging Through The Mystics

Being rather unwell, having cancelled all I was supposed to do, I spent the afternoon surfing the gurunet searching for enlightenment. Richard Rohr, a Catholic priest whom I much admire,  teaches that you cannot give away your own enlightenment. A truer word was never spoken, I have discovered that you have to flog it.

Now everyone has to make a living, and this is not a knockblog, so I am not going to pour scorn on the varied and marvellous offerings that I sampled today, I am just going to offer the seekers of this world the complete enlightenment package for FREE.

There are seven stepping stones across the River of Life to The Gardens of Eternity and here they are:

1. Put yourself in touch with your soul. (Tip: This is the part of you that gets you crying at weddings, if you are female, and at football matches if you're a man. )You could try hours and hours of meditative practices, or you could have a couple of beers. Both work, though not necessarily to the same extent.

2. Have a good look at the stories you tell about yourself, and rewrite them. I'm not suggesting that you tell porkies, just that you start a whole new narrative that begins, 'Today is going to be a good day. ' Believe me, you might as well.

3. Shut up. Now a true mystic would call this, 'entering the great silence' but personally, I find buttoning my lip just as effective. It's amazing how enlightened people think you are if you don't open your mouth.

4. Smile a lot. Faked benevolence is the next best thing to true benevolence, and you never know...

5. Learn to play a musical instrument that rings, vibrates or bangs. One that bangs is my choice for beginners.

6. Wear floaty clothes, learn to attach your heels to your thighs and ( when not observing #3) chant. 'Om' will do if you lack imagination.

7. Skip steps 1-6 and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

Now comes the sales pitch. It is obvious that palms must be crossed with silver for the PIE (Programme for Instant Enlightenment) to work, so keep enough change in your pocket to buy a large latte ,and give it away to the first beggar you come across.

Soul Food

Sometimes I give myself over to thoughts that have little to do with being a diplodocus - which, in truth, was just a passing fancy - and I think about The Meaning Of Life. Now if I'd found The Key, or even A Clue, I'd be raking it in, having written A Book and I'd be fronting a tv programme asking you for lots of money.

Keyless  and clueless then, with barely the audacity to expect you to read any more of this, I offer Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, and my take on it:

Conservatives look for absolute truth; liberals look for something “real” and authentic. Spouses look for a marriage that will last “’til death do us part.”  Believers look for a God who never fails them; scientists look for a universal theory. They are all on the same quest. We are all looking for an immortal diamond: something utterly reliable, something loyal and true, something we can always depend on, something unforgettable and shining.

There is an invitation and an offer for all of these groups from John’s very short Second Letter, when he writes: “There is a truth that lives within us that will be with us forever” (2 John 2). But most of us know very little about this, so we end up as St. Augustine admits in hisConfessions: “Late have I loved you, Beauty so very ancient and so ever new. Late have I loved you! You were within, but I was without.”

(Www.cacradicalgrace.org)

Jacob wrestled with God and got a limp and a new name for his trouble (Israel: ' Struggles with God')

I think the writer of Exodus was on to something, and Fr Richard is holding a torch to it -  this 'journey out of certainty 'doesn't feel like a walk in the park, it feels like mud wrestling.

You're in there to get hurt (which you will) and when you think you have grasped something, it's as likely to slip out of your grasp as not.

I think for fifty years and more, I avoided the fight. Who wouldn't? Certainty is safer. Makes no demands... And it seems to me, as it did to St Augustin, St Catherine of Siena, and others who got it, that the fight isn't with anyone else, or found anywhere else, it's with myself. Within not without! That's it.

So take the 'mystery of suffering' . As I tried not to in conversation with a friend last week. Why does God allow suffering? Who knows? We'll  never know. The quest in the question is, 'Why do I allow suffering? Why do you?

Struggle with THAT, and you'll know you walk with a limp too.