Nov 162012
 

The great mystic anchoress, Julian of Norwich, has said these two simple things:

Between God and the soul there is no between. (1)

The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything. (2)

While these statements are short and plainly written, their implications for the mystical life are nonetheless profound.

First, let’s consider what is meant by ‘soul’. Today, as in Julian’s day, it is common for Christians to think of the soul as an immaterial thinking and feeling aspect of our being that occupies or animates the physical body. (Anima, the Greek root of ‘animate’, actually means soul.)  For some people, ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ are interchangeable, yet in Christianity there is an ancient tradition of considering the whole human being as a trinity – body, soul, and spirit – where spirit is the very essence of our being in its most transcendent state or level. The soul is therefore the immanent manifestation of spirit, taking on a particular identity through life in this world. In this context, we see that the soul of a human being, at least while living in this world, cannot be understood in its wholeness apart from the body. The importance of this wholeness to Christianity is reflected in the doctrine of the resurrection of the physical body.   In any case, all of our thoughts and feelings, our knowledge of self, of the world, and even of God, develop in conjunction with our bodily experiences in this world. Therefore, in reflecting upon the soul’s relationship with God, it makes sense to consider all the dimensions of human experience – physical, emotional, intellectual, and transcendental – as offering ways of knowing oneness with God or, as Julian says, beholding God in everything.

It is my observation that most people who are driven to experience greater communion with God tend to seek powerful emotional or intellectual experiences they take to be the preferred evidence of God’s presence in their lives. In fact, many people focus almost exclusively on a particular type of experience as the only one they consider truly valid, and so they might strive repeatedly to evoke such an experience through corresponding activities and ignore or negate the other possibilities. However, if Julian is right, and I believe she is, then limiting the ways we are open to knowing God is how we ourselves create an illusory “between” to separate us from God, and thereby we rob ourselves of the “fullness of joy” that is possible for us.

Opportunities to appreciate this fullness are constantly available.  It takes very little consideration to realize that these dimensions are intricately interconnected. Indeed it is arguably impossible to conceive of a physical, emotional, or intellectual experience that is not accompanied by experience in at least one of the other two dimensions.  Even dreams, visions, and hallucinations, which we might be tempted to deny any material reality, are nonetheless accompanied by electrochemical activity in our bodies, and they are experienced by the mind as having the sensory characteristics of physical objects and events. And while intuiting or contemplation in the transcendental dimension can occur apart from the other dimensions, it also immediately gives rise to reactions in one or more of them.

Finally, in playing on Julian’s words, I want to note that ‘the fullness of love is to behold the beloved in all ways’ – physical, emotional, intellectual, and transcendental.  In its various forms, prayer, being the intentional effort to commune with God,  also has the potential to reach across all four dimensions, if it does not always do so to some degree. These realizations, taken with Jesus’ teaching to love God with all that we are and our neighbors as ourselves, and all of it considered within the context of St. John’s assertion that God is Love, provides us with the richest, most promising, most accessible, and most whole model for what it can mean to be a Christian mystic.

Maranatha

Agape

 

 

1.Chapter 46, Revelations of Divine Love; another version reads, “For our soul is so fully oned to God of His own Goodness that between God and our soul may be right nought.”

2. Chapter 35; another version reads, “…for it is more worship to God to behold Him in all than in any special thing.”

  4 Responses to “Mysticism and Holism”

  1. Hi Chuck,

    I keep wondering when you are going to post something I can strongly disagree with, but it hasn’t happened yet! (Lol)

    It seems to me that a lot of people think if they are not “feeling it”, and that feeling isn’t “good”, nothing is happening. I have certainly been guilty of this myself. There is also an underlying belief within Christianity that the body, the earth, and all it contains are “bad”. I think that was a very unfortunate twist to the message of Christianity.

    The other thing that occurs to me is that all of the spiritual authors we read, including the famous contemplatives and mystics, were already, to some extent, “transformed” when they said what they had to say. So, if the rest of us haven’t experienced that same transformation, we are not going to know what the hell they are talking about. The only reason we read them in the first place is because they “arrived”, and we haven’t! In my view this transformation includes all aspects of the human person; body, soul and spirit, as Chuck said.

    There is no “spiritual” life per se. There is only life, which includes that and a whole lot more. Again, this is something that I failed to realize early on, so I’m sure I wasted a lot of time trying to force myself into some kind of transformation. I would say that for most people, this transformation takes place over a long period of time, perhaps even the term of their natural lives. And, nobody wants to hear that. It is subtle and can appear to be slow, until one day “It” seems to have arrived spontaneously. Whatever that “It” is, is what we were seeking all along. “It” is not one “It” above some other “It. “It” is just “It”. Buddhists refer to “what” is, and “how” it is in any given moment as the “thusness” or“suchness” of things. Change is constant and so is transformation. Things are thus. Things are such. As a “practice” try being aware of that.

    This is a journey with no particular destination that we are aware of. That part of the deal is up to God, and so is our own, unique transformation.

    • Thanks for the thoughtful reflections, Steve.

      There is no “spiritual” life per se. There is only life, which includes that and a whole lot more.

      Yes, well said. As I see it, physics and mysticism both lead to this understanding.

      About the “It,” as you noted, a lot of us have the expectation that coming to “It” will mean being in some rapturously happy state all the time, hearing a Divine Voice speaking wisdom, feeling a Divine Hand providing guidance, as if that is what Julian meant by “the fullness of joy.” Yet so many mystics have asserted that “It” is really more like an underlying sense of peace, a peace that remains even when we are suffering and don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t mean to limit “It” to that, but only to provide contrast to what so many of us expect.

      Joseph Campbell said something similar:

      I have a firm belief in this now, not only in terms of my own experience, but in knowing the experiences of other people. When you follow your bliss, and by bliss I mean the deep sense of being in it, and doing what the push is out of your own existence—it may not be fun, but it’s your bliss and there’s bliss behind pain too.

      You follow that and doors will open where there were no doors before, where you would not have thought there’d be doors, and where there wouldn’t be a door for anybody else.

      … And so I think the best thing I can say is to follow your bliss. If your bliss is just your fun and your excitement, you’re on the wrong track. I mean, you need instruction. Know where your bliss is. And that involves coming down to a deep place in yourself.” The Hero’s Journey, p. 217

      Agape,
      Chuck

  2. Chuck,

    YQ: “In fact, many people focus almost exclusively on a particular type of experience as the only one they consider truly valid, and so they might strive repeatedly to evoke such an experience through corresponding activities and ignore or negate the other possibilities.”

    Spoken very well indeed! It is an interesting aspect of God to tease us with the reward of more if we are but just willing to be teased. I consider that a wooing. God’s love being somewhat like an eternal temptress so to speak causing us to desire Him and not allowing anything else to get in the way.

    It is good to be in the hands of a jealous God :>)

    I simply have to laugh now, but in years past when others tried to convince me I was “wrong” it confused me so much that I considered either I was seriously impaired mentally because the “arguers” left me floundering with the evidences of my experiences and not having any answers that satisfied me. It was very “tricky” but somehow I managed not to deny or hide what I knew God had done. In this, I became more knowledgeable and accepting of others with their own personal weighings of the body, soul, and spirit.

    And now, this. This mystical and contemplative plight I’ve thrown myself into. What further contemplations of a possibility of brain damage exist? : ) Again the my “green” is your “red” analogy seems very fitting.

    Julian’s statement: “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” Seems to have significance in removing the “between” stuff and leaving us with “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all shall be well. Or even: “All well, and all well, a n d a l l w e l l.” I’ve heard this stated where the breakdown of the statement is placed in a certain pacing when voiced:

    All shall be well – spoken quickly
    And all (pause) shall be well – slightly slower
    And (pause) all manner of thing (pause) shall be well.
    A contemplative side I suppose.

    YQ: “Even dreams, visions, and hallucinations, which we might be tempted to deny any material reality, are nonetheless accompanied by electrochemical activity in our bodies, and they are experienced by the mind as having the sensory characteristics of physical objects and events.”

    In my research of “near death experiences” and “shared near death experiences” it certainly seems to apply here.

    Thanks for the link – that was educating in itself.

    I don’t know about “this isn’t a school” mentioned in one thread. Perhaps it’s “boot camp”.

    Peace
    Fred

  3. […] to do, then to do so without including the feminine would be something significantly less than the wholeness I feel moved to experience and […]

 Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)