Experience First
Mystic Mondays May 23, 2016
I am not sure yet, but I can imagine the name of this weekly blog changing/evolving/shifting to something new. There is a small part of me that whispers, "C'mon, Brian, you need to show that you know what you are doing. Don't be so wishy washy." But there is a larger voice, even a wiser one I think, that reminds me I have stepped into a lifetime pilgrimage. I have chosen to follow the unfolding movement of whatever this thing is that tells us religion (as we know it) is dissolving away in favor of a new spiritual consciousness and way of being together. No one really knows what they are doing in this time.At the end of the Lenten pilgrimage where I wrote from the theme "Between Two Worlds" it became crystal clear that my particular voice was to honor the raw spiritual experiences that so many are expressing and to re-introduce the ancient tradition of religious mysticism. I am absolutely convinced that the shift we are experiencing can be captured and understood by re-inserting the language of mysticism into our conversations again.But something this week told me that my title has me coming in from the wrong side of the dialogue. Actually, I don't think my small revelation will change much about my writing and its content. The reflections will end up being pretty much the same. What is different is that I can't lose sight of the fact that it is experience first, mysticism second.
Let me explain. I am feeling the same struggle on Sunday morning with regard to preaching. For centuries in the Protestant tradition people have come to hear a preacher expound on some pithy scriptural text. The Bible held authority in their lives. Many of them may have even held that the Bible was the actual words of God. Given these assumptions the Bible came first; experience second. I have always worked hard to tie the words, the themes and the stories of the Bible to people real life experiences. But increasingly I can feel that it is not the Bible that holds ultimate authority in a person's life; it is their experiences. I have been known to present sermon series where I first started with a shared experience, value, or social issue and THEN tie it back to the Bible. What I am doing when I do this is acknowledging the authority of a person's life over the authority of the Bible.The point is this. Over the years I have discovered that when I preach I don't try to shape and mold people's lives to look like the Bible; rather I use the Bible to shed light on and deepen people's experience of life.Which is why it hit me this week--I may have fallen back into the old pattern of assuming a religious tradition first and honoring experience second. I was ready to introduce you to the world of religious mysticism like a college professor whose duty it is to teach a subject despite the interest, readiness, and experience of his students.I could feel it, but I wasn't able to name it until I sat with a woman this week in the final days of her life. The conversation was deep. She wanted to talk about death and her remaining lessons. We touched, we laughed, we shared tears. We spoke as if her coming send off was just as common and just as exciting and terrifying as walking down the aisle for the first time. It's moments like these that remind me of why I do pastoral ministry. There is no other profession where I am given the privilege and the access to a person's most vulnerable and sacred moments of life. I am truly blessed.
I realized then that I didn't want to talk about mysticism. I wanted to talk about life. I wanted to talk about the soul. I wanted to talk about that Sacred character who shows up in moments like this.The truth is religious mysticism gives us a language to know why dying is not just dying; it is an invitation to participate in some divine sacred unfolding--even in death.I do believe that the tradition of mysticism is experiencing a resurgence. But seriously--who really cares about mysticism! What we care about are our experiences. What we care about is what we feel. What we care about is how the world tastes, smells, looks, sounds and feels (which, BTW, is what mysticism is all about!).Experience first, mysticism second.Mystic Mondays, as a title, might fade away. But the blog is here to stay.
When God Changed Her Address
Mystic Mondays May 16, 2016I think I have always believed in God--or some such version of a presence that lies underneath, beyond and behind the reality that these two blurry eyes can still see. It is important to state that up front before I describe how religious mysticism crept into my vocabulary. It wasn't that I had some grand conversion from a life of rationalistic, objective, scientific empiricism to suddenly "seeing the divine light."No.
My route to mysticism happened the same way that I went from being young to old. It just crept up on me until one day I realized that "believing in God" didn't even seem like the right question anymore. I don't believe in God any more than I believe in the soothing sound of music or the flow of a river or the kiss of a lover. Music, rivers and kisses are to be enjoyed and felt and experienced. I suppose if I was pressed I would say that I believe in those things, but belief is not the point, right? It's not that I don't believe in them. I just would never talk of such sensual and intimate experiences as falling in the category of mere belief. Do I believe in cycling? No! I just cycle.I remember preaching a sermon about eight years ago that was really the precursor to my movement toward mysticism. I called it, "The Day God Changed Her Address." In the sermon I explained that much of our belief and the images we have of God were shaped by the Biblical world view that predated Galileo by two to three millennia. God was simply that unknown world and reality that existed just beyond the sky. In Genesis it is said that "God separated the waters from the waters" which is a reference to a dome that separated earth from heaven. Humans lived on the earth. God lived in heaven. And back then God wasn't too far away.
Only one problem. As our scientific curiosity grew and our knowledge of the universe expanded heaven (or that place beyond what we could see and know) got further and further away. Heaven was no longer just above the rain clouds. No. Heaven was somewhere out beyond the moon. Then heaven had to be out beyond our solar system. As the Hubble telescope captured pictures millions of light years away heaven then got pushed even further away. And, if the universe continues to expand, as modern astronomy claims, and if heaven is still that reality beyond our known universe, then it appears that God is running from us as fast as his little supernatural feet will allow.Modern science has exploded the idea that God is just beyond the physical world that we can see and know. The view of God that people of Biblical times no longer makes sense given our understanding of the universe.Like I said I have always believed in God in one sense or another. But science didn't explode my trust in this Divine Presence we call God. All it did was convince me that "God changed her address."Diana Butler Bass in interviews about her book Grounded says that what happened is that God has come home to earth. Of course, neither Diana Butler Bass nor I literally believe that God decided to move closer to home. God has probably been right by our side all along. But our images of God have shifted. If the Heavenly God is not being pushed further and further from us by the reality of an expanding universe then it is quite possible that God is right here in our human experience struggling, wrestling, loving, and dancing right along with us lovely and fragile human creatures.I think my mysticism started with this. I used to pray to the God of the heavens feeling like my prayers were like leaving a voicemail for God. Now I pray to the God of the earth feeling like my prayers are like planting seeds in a garden.
Is that God Sitting Next to You?
Mystic Mondays May 9, 2016
Five years ago I remember sitting in the chancel area of a mostly empty church on a sunny Labor Day Sunday. I was eight weeks into my 4,000 mile cycling pilgrimage where I was wrestling with both personal losses as well as the shifting and dissolving away of professional ministry, as I have come to know it. On this particular Sunday the sermon was a Q and A. I was decked out in my tight cycling outfit ready to take questions from the robed up Presbyterian minister. I answered questions about the highlights of my trip, the challenges as well as the discoveries of the trip and where God showed up for me.Toward the end of the service I was sitting politely going with the flow of the remainder of the liturgy when a father and son rode by on their bicycles on this as-close-t0-heaven Labor Day weekend as one could get. I immediately thought, "I wonder who is worshiping more? We in our pews facing a cross or those two out under the sun enjoying their intimate connection?"Of course, the real answer is probably that all of us were worshiping in our own way. But I was struck by the connection between my thoughts that Sunday morning and this picture that ponders,
Religion is a person sitting in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is a person sitting in a kayak thinking about God.
I do get what the author of this little modern proverb was going for--religion is out; spirituality is in. But I also believe it is a false dichotomy. I don't think it is quite as either/or as the author has presented it (or even as I once believed myself). My growing lens for mysticism has me wanting to write my own version: "Religion is a person in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is a person sitting in a kayak thinking about God. Mysticism is expecting God to plop down in the seat next to you--whether in a pew or a kayak."Most of you know me well enough to know that I derive special pleasure cycling through the countryside or up over a mountain pass. There is nothing like breathing in the frigid air on a snow shoe trip high in the Cascades in January when all is blanketed in a powdery white. And the few times I have kayaked have left me in a peaceful, blissful state grateful for the solitude, the surprise lift offs of blue herons, and the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the boat.
But I have also served the Church long enough to have tasted that same connection to the Sacred in congregational life. More often than not I can feel the presence of God or some healing presence when sitting at hospital bedside of someone under my care. The sacred moments of singing hymns to a church member in the hours before her death always seem to call up a Sacred Friend who fills the room with love and light. And potlucks! Have you ever experienced the buzz in a room when bouncing youngsters, shuffling elders, busy servers, and families all join in communion at a shared meal from a hundred different kitchens? It's a like a party in heaven! Then there are those moments when the music is just right, the choir is in rare form, and the anthem isn't just a part of the order of the service, but a healing voice of angels blessing all who hear.I do appreciate the church/kayak picture and its attempt to name a shifting reality that all of us, I imagine, must feel. There is something happening and the language around religion and spirituality is at the core of that discussion. But my experience tells me that it is not as simple or as either/or as the proverb suggests. My experience tells me that God is just as likely to show up in the rhythm of congregational life as She does out there are on the still glassy surface of a lake at dawn while a kayaker paddles from one shore to another.I don't think that God chooses to show up either in the pews or in a kayak. God has a way of showing up wherever life and love and vitality and connection and communion are present. Maybe God is sitting next to you right now...
"Knowing" God
Mystic Mondays May 2, 2016I remember over twenty years ago watching my father-in-law eat a whole mango. No one dared bother him when he was leaning over the sink sunk in a near state of ecstasy.
From a distance I would watch him as he would peel the skin from the juicy orange flesh with one of his many sharp paring knives. Then with the skill and precision of a surgeon (he was a surgeon himself) he would slice into the fruit making nearly perfect wedges of equal width and length. The sticky juice would run down his hands and onto his forearms as he slid each wedge into his mouth with a quiet moan each time.With the wedges gone one would think that would end his lustful enjoyment of the fruit. But the best was yet to come. My father-in-law would then suck on the seed rolling it around in his mouth as if we was a teenager enjoying his first French kiss.I promised to introduce you to this ancient world of religious mysticism that I believe is returning to our Christian traditions and to our culture. It's really kind of ironic that churches are often considered a bit old-fashioned and out of touch with today's culture when the "new spirituality" is actually a return to that "old time religion." Case in point: Saint Teresa of Avila is a Christian mystic from the 16th century. What makes a mystic is a deep, almost addictive, desire to experience God. Not just to believe in God, but to taste, touch, see, and feel God. Notice how Teresa employs the language of the senses and a soft eroticism when speaking of God here:
When my mouth touched His I became invisible,the way the earth would if the suntook it intoits arms.The ecstatic death I know. (…)How do we make love to God;how does the soul make love to God?
Teresa is talking about getting lost in experience of God just like my father-in-law got lost in the eating of a perfectly ripe and juicy mango and just like couples get lost in the beauty of making love.
It's interesting that in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) it says that Adam "knew" his wife, meaning that he had sexual intercourse with her. Mystics are those who take the language of "knowing" God a little more literally than others. Mystics aren't just interested in knowing God as if God was an acquaintance you met once. Mystics want to know God the way Adam knew Eve and the way lovers know each other.I can remember the first event that propelled me toward this deep lustful desire to know God. I was riding my bike up over the Old Toll Road in Northern California, a favorite ride that I enjoyed a handful of times every summer. The road was all dirt and gravel and rose about 1500 feet from the valley floor where Clear Lake rested peacefully. On the other side of the mountains were the vineyards of the Ukiah Valley.I had developed a predictable ritual over time. I would reach a certain point at the top where a broad clearing among the oak trees allowed me to look down over the valley. There I would stop, take out a little food, pop open my water bottle and just before consuming my reward for climbing I would look through the clearing 1500 feet below me, take a cleansing breath, and say "Thank you, God."But this time it was different.
Just before saying "thank you" I got lost. Rather than being the observer to all the beauty before me and below me I became part of the scenery. There was no separation between me and the vineyards below me. It was as if I was part of a painting crafted by some master artist who knew exactly wanted She wanted in the masterpiece to make it perfect. For a moment (I'll never be sure how long it lasted) there was no time, no past or future, no separation between the objects I was apparently looking at and me. All was one. And then it was gone. Just like that I returned to being the observer and the vineyards once again returned to being the observed.But I will never forget that feeling of being lost in the presence of God, Life, Nature, the Sacred (whatever language we need to use). For a moment I was making love to God. For one moment set in all eternity I knew God, I really knew God. And I am pretty sure all that knowing was consensual. God wanted it as much as I did!
I'll Have What He's Having!
"I and the Father are one." (John 10: 30)
Thirty years ago I assumed that those words were solely about Jesus. Today I believe those words are about me (and you and you and you!). Thirty years ago a belief that Jesus and God inhabited the same spiritual body meant that Jesus deserved some form of honor and worship. He was eternal and God-like. I was a mere rotting human. Today I do not believe that. Today I believe that Jesus was just holding a mirror up to the rest of us. If he was both divine and human, so are we.Today is the first posting for a new weekly series I am titling Mystic Mondays. Less than a month ago we concluded a 40-day Lenten pilgrimage and blog conversation on the theme "Between Two Worlds." I am very pleased to remind you again that the pilgrimage did its work (as I have come to expect when one enters an unknown landscape with only an intention).I went into the period of Lent and blogging feeling like I was caught between two worlds, much like I felt as I embarked on my first pilgrimage (www.pedalpilgrim.com/book) in 2011 as I felt the church world dying away along with my livelihood. I briefly broke through that spiritual schizophrenia on my Rome to Rumi pilgrimage, but the realities of life pulled me back into it not too many months after my return.
This last Lenten pilgrimage that I took while sitting at a computer desk (rather than a hard leather bicycle seat) again broke through the two world confusion. I emerged from the other side feeling very much like I am no longer straddling two worlds; rather that I have a particular and specific call to articulate the bridge that I believe spans both sides of the religious/spiritual divide.That bridge is the language of religious mysticism. Those who lean more toward the spiritual side may balk at the reference to religion and those who are holding the pews down may bristle at the language of mysticism. But the truth is that our religious traditions have whole chapters dedicated to the experience of Christian mysticism. And millions of people today are acting like mystics, even if they don't have the benefit of the label or the language.My mysticism came through Jesus. Somewhere along the way I went from feeling like Jesus wanted my worship and obedience to feeling like he was offering me a divine invitation. Do you remember that wonderful scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally? (C'mon, you know which scene I am talking about. You're not going to make me describe it for you, are you? Okay, you win.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeESally (Meg Ryan)and Harry (Billy Crystal)l are sitting in a delicatessen discussing Harry's casual dismissive approach to women. Harry tells Sally, "It's not like they don't have a good time." "How do you know?" Sally asks. Harry replies, "Believe me, I know." There is an awkward exchange about whether the women he has been with are really having a good time or just faking "it." Harry returns to his meal. Sally starts moaning until she has worked herself up to a full blown screaming good time. The rest of the deli patrons all fall silent with their jaws hanging down below their collars. After the fireworks have all exploded the woman at the next table tells the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."
I don't know if Jesus was faking it, but I do know that whatever divine cocktail he was drinking I want the same thing. Whatever it was about how he lived his life that allowed him to confidently say, "I and the Father are one," I want to live that way too. I want to experience the same all-inclusive welcome that he offered equally to both saints and sinners. I want to know what it feels like to be willing to die for love and to place my life in service of a cause and a spirit much larger than myself. I want to taste the Life that Jesus tasted. I want to feel the same divine pleasure Jesus felt.In a word, I am no different than the woman at the deli who exclaimed, "I'll have what's she's having." Whatever Jesus had I want it too. "In fact, God, could you make it a double?"
Introducing "Mystic Mondays"
Dear Pedal Pilgrim Readers,The "Between Two Worlds (BTW)" Lenten Pilgrimage and Conversation did its work. The process of pilgrimage is to start with an intention, stay open to what shows up, and see what new discoveries and places one ends up at the end. Liturgically, this kind of pilgrimage is honored during Lent and ends on Easter Sunday--when resurrection, rebirth, and new life shows up. For me Easter has slowly emerged over the week or so since Easter Sunday.
Beginning on Monday, April 24 I will be offering a reflection under the title of "Mystic Mondays". During our seven-week conversation (BTW) the language and experience of religious mysticism kept showing up on a consistent basis. Some were already familiar with the language and thanked me for re-introducing into our religious lexicon. Many others shared their experiences of feeling a Oneness with nature, of sharing in intimate circles where the Sacred showed up, and spoke of having heard God's voice somewhere outside of the church building. I simply reminded them that those experiences fit into the long-forgotten (and re-emerging) tradition of religious mysticism.I have just enough exposure to it to name it, but not enough to really know what I am talking about. I would never call myself an expert on mysticism. I would only claim that my spiritual orientation and identity leans much more heavily on the language of the mystics than it does on doctrinal belief and assent. I know that I am not alone in this!
Every Monday for as long as there is energy I will provide a reflection on religious mysticism. I will structure it so that it can easily be used in small groups. I encourage you to find another friend or two or three. Or if you are already in a committed study group you could use this as the source of your study and conversation. I will publish it on Monday mornings at 4:00 a.m. so that you can set a regular time with others to wrestle with it sometime during the week.This will be a shared learning opportunity. I will be learning as much as any of you. I will be developing a daily practice to read the poetry, songs, and prose of the mystics as I prepare for this weekly reflection. For those of you familiar with the rhythm of a pastor's life this will be very similar to the preparation and process of providing a Sunday sermon. The only difference is that this will be on Monday and the source of my material will be various expressions of the mystics rather than exclusively Scripture.As I teaser here are three quotes from those who have tasted the mystical honey:
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. Jalaluddin RumiI and the Father are one. Jesus of NazerethThe sunset bows to me as much as I bow to it. Pedal Pilgrim