A Chance Encounter

We were camping in the Cascades this weekend. Yesterday, when I tried to go hiking with my husband I was too sore, and so I had to turn back to rest while he hiked on. Intending to write I found a quiet place near the edge of a lava flow. I spread out a blanket and started by reading the bible, intending to work on Icon, my symbolic novel experiment in mystic writing, in a bit. For a while I was distracted by the clicking of some insects that sounded something like I might imagine rattlesnakes to sound like, but I started to calm down reading about Solomon and the queen of Sheba, Joash, Elisha, political uprisings and child kings. Oddly, the biblical violence was soothing and spoke of stories both of God and man and what I might write.

Eventually, I went looking for a new quote for the chapter seven of Icon since it wasn't turning out to be about what I thought it would be about. And in the middle of reading Matthew, a deer dashed around the corner of the lava flow. All I heard was the thunder of its steps and looked up terrified. It skidded to a stop, staring at me, just as terrified, ears outward, dust rising around its red brown coat. For a small fraction of a moment, we just stared at each other terrified, and I was unsure if I should run or if it would run me over first, then the deer turned to the side and dashed off, leaving me exhilarated and feeling blessed.

A second deer poked its head around the edge of the lava flow cautiously, warned by the terror of the first. For a second we watched each other, before it turned back the way it'd come, leaving me in peace. Still their beauty touched me, inspired me to actually try to write. I decided on a passage about vine branches from John from the last supper, looked it up, and I took out the laptop to write.

Terror and beauty and mystery was there in that encounter with the deer and I think I am perhaps rather like them when it comes to glimpsing God. He waits, quietly, patiently, and I turn the corner, busy with my own thoughts, only to stop in sheer terror at seeing him. I am curious, I want to investigate, but also afraid, and so dash on in a different direction. Instead, I hope that next time I come face to face with Him, I will pause, then draw closer instead.

Also, I think I should sit quietly out in the middle of nowhere more often. Nature has a way of leading me to its creator.

About

Why do I write? This is a question that easily gets lost in the storytelling of creative fiction, in the intellectual excitement of research papers, in the emotional torrent of personal journals, and in the love and desire to share in letters to those I care for. Yet, underneath them all burns the same fire, the same source of inspiration—my faith in God.

This journal is my attempt to explore my inner life with writing and my writing with my inner life. As "The Soul of the Apostolate" counsels religious that you cannot give to others what you don't have spiritually yourself, so us writers based in faith cannot give in our words that we have yet to accept. This is my journey both in faith and in the written word, to seek both the presence of God and to share it in all I write, whether implicitly or explicitly.

After several false starts and ramblings, I think I've finally found my place and purpose for this blog. This is not about preaching to others, but about exploring God, mysticism, and the inner writing life. If this sparks your interest either as a writer or a seeker of God, feel free to add your own thoughts. Please just remember this is for all of us ultimately a journey we make alone with the Lord of Heaven, and so be respectful of the many traditions and background from which we all come. I cannot separate my journey to know God from my Catholic faith, and I certainly don't expect anyone else to leave their own traditions behind.  But this is not a place for apologetics, but to simply share.

Success

Oh Lord... I think I want success too much.  My writing is stalled, my prayer life is stalled, all  I want to do is sleep or zone out.  Yet, more than that, I want the glamor and income of success.  I want thousands of inspired readers.  I want to be able to pay my bills.  I want to have kids.  I have many desires.

Lord, bless me.  Guilde me.  Help me to find You.  Help me to do Your will.  Help me to keep turning to You and to trust in Your mercy and guidence.  

Amen.

Charisms

Is writing a charism for me?  I took a test to help me find where to look for my spiritual gifts and it came up on the top of them.  This is only a indicator of what I might investigate to look for them, prayer and decernment is the only way to know for sure.

Oh Lord, you know I want to serve you.  You know you want to write to bring people to you.  Help me.  Inspire me.  Lead me on the right path with my writing.  Show me what you want me to write.  Give me your Holy Spirit and lead me in your ways.

Help me learn, oh Lord, if writing is a charism, a gift from you.  I love to write, and it will always draw me forward.  I don't know for sure though if is a charism, a gift of the Holy Spirit.  It is my deepest longing to show people you, to make them turn to you, through my writing.  To inspire them with your love and joy, your plan for their life.  It is my desire to share the stories within me to others.  If you wish to give me this gift and use me for more, I am open to it.  If not, I will accept whatever other plan you have for my life.

Regardless, Lord, I want to put my writing in your hands.  My desires, my longing, and my dreams.  Show me the way you wish me to go.

The Bell

We went to Goodwill to look for i-pods—a lot of them go second hand these days.  I didn't expect to see the bell.  It sat in the glass case (lacking of electronic music players unfortunately) with dorje rubberbanded to the top of it.  It made me think of the movie Kundun—wasn't there a bell like that in it?

I'm notoriously shy.  I hate counters and customer service representatives… one reason I'm not into jewelry.  Buying it is too embarrassing.  But we were there already, my husband looking over electronic something-or-others, and so I peered at it through the glass, to shy to ask just yet.

Indian, I told myself.  An Indian Buddhist bell.  Somehow it'd be less of a let down then if I did find out it was Indian.  I wanted the bell anyway, even if it was Indian.  The tag read 19.99.  Could I really afford something so frivolous… something so pagan?  What if it was a cheap fake?  Could the bell really be worth that.

I thought; I agonized; I paced.  I probably would have sent shudders of irritation through countless generations of Tibetan monks with my wanting, wish, desiring of the bell.  God was probably rolling his eyes at him.  I went home and looked up Indian (and Tibetan) bells online.  

Okay, so yes, Buddhist Mysticism fascinates me.  So does Islamic Mysticism.  One mystic tradition calls to another.  As Thomas Merton says, who better than Western Mystics to investigate Eastern Mystics and see what we all have in common?  I love music, culture, and mystic traditions.  And Christianity has a long history of borrowing things it likes.  I like the bell.  So yes, I looked up online.

Not a good deal, but not a bad one either.

With a deep breath I went back to the Goodwill counter and asked for the bell.  Looking it over I'd seen enough online to see it was in fact Tibetan, not Indian.  Not as fancy as some, but also perfectly authentic with the "made in Nepal" sticker still on it.  A little worn.  Makes me wonder who used it for what… or if it was just the mold it was made in that was worn.  Somehow I doubt some Buddhist has been using my bell until it looks worn out.

Where ever it comes from, it sings with a long echoing tone.  Each time I sit down at my computer I make a joyful noise to the Lord.

What is a Mystic?

Quote from "Wizards' Duel":

"Well, the legends never said he had a family and we are all children of Herocnian. He wasn't part of the regular nobility—he was a mystic."

"A what?" Zincu wrinkled his nose. Aepheus used the strangest words. "You and your religious stuff. What's a mystic?"

Aepheus laughed. "And you and your questions! Are you always so full of them? Must you understand everything?" He snorted. "I don't know what a mystic is, not really."

"But you just used the word! That makes no sense." Zincu flicked a small piece of ice at him.

"Well, I mean, I know a vague sense of what it means, enough to use it, but I don't really know what one is. Mystics are people who go live off in the middle of no-where and ask questions that don't have answers while looking for unity with the gods."

Zincu chuckled. "You're right, that makes absolutely no sense. How you can use a word and not know what it means, I don't know!"

"They have a feel to them, though, mystics do. A way of being quiet and saying things that even if you can't understand them, you know eventually you will if you think about it long enough. My grandmother is perhaps as close as I've ever been to someone like that. Ask her about it."

***

As requested, I'm finally going to attack this question. First briefly about mysticism in general and then more specifically Christian Mysticism… it's origins and how it's not a contradiction of terms. I'm no expert, but since this blog is named after the work of a very famous Christian mystic (St. Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle) I do feel a certain social responsibility to explaining myself.

The thing is, while everyone has a feeling about what mysticism and the mystic are, most of us don't really know. I remember the first time I tried to come up with a definition on my own, and realized I couldn't do it very well. I've met mystics, heck, I want to be one, but defining them is difficult.

Mystics do certain things, things that baffle us. They live in monasteries or on mountains. They meditate a lot. They say esoteric things that end up profound. Yet, mystics are also regular people around us, people who look quite normal, but when you get talking with them suddenly surprise you. What are they about really? And how can you strive to become one, if you don't know what one is? Even stranger, while religions vary hugely across the world, why do all the mystics seem to be cut out of the same cloth? Does that make mysticism a sort of pagan religion? It's no wonder there's so much confusions over it!

Wikipedia defines mysticism as "the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the Other, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight." What matters to the mystic is experiencing God, seeing him face to face in an intimate and personal way. The goal of a the mystic is unity with God, a setting of his (or her) whole being into resonance with the Divine Being. This is a lofty and very difficult goal, and people throughout time and across all cultures have sought it, and left behind for us various clues about how we might too seek it.

No one can tell you how to get there though, because each mystic journey is an imitate relationship with God. Others have left us hints and guidelines, but this is something that ultimately must be experienced.

The desire to reach a reintegration with God, a oneness with what is and was and will be, is so universal in the human mind and heart that every major religion out there has a mystic tradition. Mysticism is not Buddhism, although Buddhism is one of the most famous mystic traditions out there. Each mystic tradition holds fast to the theology of the religion that it comes from, with both canonical and added teaching they use to guide themselves, but all mystic traditions admit that theology is not the point. The point is meeting the divine, soul to soul, and being drawn into the eternal.

All that just to say a mystic is someone who wants to know God in direct experience.

Mysticism is incredibly simple and incredibly complex all at once.

Bear with me with all the paradoxes... mysticism often speaks in paradox and it is really and truly hard to explain it without using paradox. Next in this series of posts will be Christian Mysticism… what does it look like, what's it's history, it's character, and it's major teachers. Then, briefly, an overview of other mystic traditions around the world, and finally how it all relates to writing. This will take me a while, but I'll try to be consistent for once.

Fasting from Joy

Today "dawns" (if you can call it that) an endless gray. The sky weeps, pouring out its endless tears on my tired soul. Today I move in a fog as heavy as that that covers the mountains and enfolds the lake. Today I want to stay in bed forever. Everything, especially the writing looks hopeless. Somehow its always the writing that does that first, a precursor to all of life looking wet and gray.

And as I look at the stack of laundry on the floor contemplating the difficult task of getting dressed, comes to me something quite unrelated.

"When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."

I get up, put on my clothes, make my breakfast. I realize, today I am fasting. I'm fasting from joy.

I'm fasting from hope, from belief, from faith in a future. Today I am hungry for joy, for the feeling that life will work out for the best, for the feeling that what I do matters. Yes, today I'm hungry.

Today I write without joy, without hope, without grace.
And perhaps that hunger will remind me that I serve Someone greater. Perhaps my Father will use that hunger so that on some day in the future I will feast on joy until I cannot hold another bite.

Today, a bit of lent in the season of Easter is a promise that one day I will fast no longer.