Good Friday and Ukraine: An Occasion for Praise?

 Good Friday and Ukraine: An Occasion for Praise?

Certainly Good Friday is a lament. The psalm appointed for that day is a psalm of lament. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” intones Psalm 22. Jesus quotes this psalm from the cross in the passion narratives of both Matthew and Mark. But why then does Psalm 22 go on to exclaim “Praise the Lord…. My praise is of him in the great assembly.” Psalms of lament are expressions of praise (Bernard Anderson). Praise is lament answered (Walter Brueggemann). Praise is confidence (hoping against hope) that the God who has “forsaken me” will nevertheless hear the cry of the poor and satisfy the hungry (Psalm 22). 

As Russia began its large scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Yaakov Dov Bleich, the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, invited Jews and Christians to pray Psalm 31, an individual lament (as is Psalm 22). This psalm according to Luke’s Gospel contains Jesus’ last words: “Into your hands I commend my spirit…”(v. 5). This psalm too in spite of cruel affliction: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble;/ my eye is consumed with sorrow, and also my throat and my belly” (v. 9); turns to trust: “But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord./ I have said, ‘You are my God,” (v. 14) and “My times are in your hand;/ rescue me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me” (v. 15). By March 1, five days after the Rabbi’s call to prayer, the city of Kharkiv amidst fierce fighting was surrounded by Russian troops. And the Psalm continues astonishingly, “Praise be to the Lord, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city” (v. 21, NIV). Ukraine’s Good Friday is an occasion for lament without question, and according to the psalms it may also be an occasion for trust and praise.

Praise shapes “pain into hope, and grief into possibility.”^1. The Welsh poet Waldo Williams remarked that the purpose of praise is “to recreate an unblemished world.”^2. This is a “world marked by justice, mercy, and peace.”^3. Praise is not “transactional” though it is often seen that way – offering praise as a precondition to obtaining some benefit. In fact, it is a letting go. Brueggemann begins and ends his book Israel’s Praise with this assertion: “Praise articulates and embodies our capacity to yield, submit, and abandon ourselves in trust and gratitude to the One whose we are.”^4. One sees this submission in praise and trust in the Rabbi’s recital of Psalm 31, “My times are in your hand.” At a deep level there seems to be a human need (Brueggemann calls it a vocation) to praise. The Syriac Christian, Jacob of Serugh (5^th century) wrote: “The very  pulse of my created being requires Your praise, and, as by its nature, it hastens to You to give praise.”^5. The utterance of praise then according to Jacob is an essential quality of being human. If this is so we should see it across various cultures.

We find praise often expressed as poetry. There is Syriac praise poetry, African, Arabic, Celtic, the psalms and so forth. I hope the following brief survey will demonstrate this human need to praise and draw us more deeply into its meaning for our own Christian tradition, even on a Good Friday. 

Syriac Praise Poetry 

Let’s start with the Syriac tradition and its most famous poet/theologian, Saint Ephrem (4th century). Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. Language carries meanings and associations, and perhaps Syriac allows us to get closer to some of the thought patterns of Jesus.

Ephrem’s poem, “The Eucharistic Marriage Feast,” situates praise as an integral part of Christian life. Mary says to her son, “they have no wine.” And of her son she says, “Do whatever he tells you.” Praise places Jesus at the center around which everything else is oriented. Jars are filled with over 120 gallons of water that Jesus transforms into wine. It is an epiphany, revealing praise as a transformation from emptiness to superabundance. Praise is the way humans cope with the extraordinary and continuing magnitude of God’s love. ^6. Ephrem begins his poem on the Eucharist with this reference to the wedding feast at Cana:

I have invited You, Lord, to a wedding feast of songs,

but the wine – the utterance of praise – at our feast has run out. 

(You are) the guest who filled with good wine the jars;

fill my mouth with Your praise. ^7.

In the daily prayer of the Episcopal Church there is the assurance that when God opens our lips, “our mouth shall proclaim your praise.”^8. 

Ephrem concludes his poem with paradox.  Greek philosophy with its rather static categories had not yet arrived in Syria.  This happenstance freed Ephrem to use paradox as a more dynamic and fluid way of doing theology.

It is right that humanity should acknowledge Your divinity,

it is right for the supernal beings to worship Your humanity;

the supernal beings were amazed to see how small You become,

and those below to see how exalted! ^9.

The refrain finds praise grounded in truth:

Praise to You from everyone

who has perceived Your truth. ^10.

Praise roots itself in truth, not deception or ingratitude.

African Praise Poetry 

Many had their first encounter with African praise poetry at President Barak Obama’s Inauguration ceremony in 2009 where Elizabeth Alexander read her poem, “Praise Song for the Day, Praise Song for Struggle.” I first became aware of African praise poetry in 2002 at a workshop on Creativity Through Writing and Storytelling with storyteller Jay O’Callahan who tells his tales all over the world.  He first came upon the idea of praise poems when he was telling stories in Africa.  Jay says that “if you give people a gift of praising themselves, it is a sacred act.”  

In Lesotho boys were expected to compose their own lithoko (the word for praise poem that comes from the verb ho roka -  “to praise”).  “At one time almost every adult male Sotho was able to compose and chant his own lithoko…” ^11.  The poem is not self-congratulatory as though the poem was oriented about one’s self.  Instead, the context in which the poem was composed would be one of proud traditional values, a love of the land, and an historically continuous community.  Here is part of an initiate’s lithoko.  Each initiate is given a new name that begins with the letter “L.”  In this case the boy’s new name was Lefata.  He makes me smile.  I can just imagine a thirteen-year-old coming up with something like this!

Lefata, wander on and go down

To go and see how huts stand

To go and see dark-complexioned girls.

A dark-complexioned young man, I, Lefata

A young man with a beautiful voice

A young man to be called a chief

A young man to be given a shield.

Girls love him without knowing him

They go about breaking themselves into small pieces.^12.

When we praise a person or ourselves in the context of the divine, each one is part of God’s good creation.  The boy Lefata with a 13-year-old’s enthusiasm rises on the tide of his community and tradition none of which is removed from the divine.  We praise the activity that leads to fulfillment of each person in all that they were created to be. 

In the Episcopal Church at confirmation instead of composing a lithoko, the bishop prays that each confirmand may continue God’s forever, and daily increase in Holy Spirit until arrival in that everlasting kingdom.^13.  Each belongs to God with the space to stretch out and be all that God meant everyone to be. That prayer is very much in the tradition of praise. In O’Callahan’s words, at confirmation, the confirmands are being taught the meaning of praise for themselves and that is a sacred act. 

Three weeks after the Rabbi’s prayer in Kharkiv, Russia, having already surrounded the city, though unable to capture it, resorted to destroying it. “Russia aims to demoralize the city’s inhabitants with overwhelming and indiscriminate firepower.” One resident concluded, “They want to destroy it all, they want to demoralize people.”^14. A week prior Vera Lytovchenko, a concert violinist, began to play her violin in a basement bomb shelter. She said I want people to see that “Someone is alive and someone keeps hope and is optimistic.”^15. That is an act of praise. She was teaching others to have praise for themselves, that they are God’s forever, and that lesson is a sacred act. No matter the incessant shelling and demoralization, we are alive when there is room, small as it may be, for praise in our hearts. Perhaps it is like finding a small, morning ember in ashes that had been banked over coals in the night.

                                                                Israel’s Praise Psalms

In addition to psalms of lament that express praise there are praise psalms proper such as Psalm 136. This psalm begins with an invocation that calls upon the community to praise.  The divine Name is spoken.  The God of Israel has an identity and may be addressed personally even though God is beyond our grasp and control. 

                Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

                        for his mercy endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of gods,

for his mercy endures forever.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords,

for his mercy endures forever.

This invocation includes the imperative to praise and the reason for it.  Praise evokes a world in which God is active.  So in historic situations where there was distress and God’s help was needed, God acted mercifully.  This is the main portion of the psalm and the motive for the people’s praise.  God’s sovereignty and majesty are seen in the story of God’s people.  

God the Creator:

Who spread out the earth upon the waters,

for his mercy endures forever.

God the Deliverer:

Who struck down the first-born of Egypt,

for his mercy endures forever.

God the “Homemaker:”

And gave away their lands for an inheritance,

for his mercy endures forever.

The psalm concludes with a refrain in which the people are not self-congratulatory but remember their low estate, and God’s deliverance.  God is to be praised for the sustenance given to all creatures: human and animal, plant and mineral.  Creation is a continuing activity of sustaining God’s creatures.  The  psalm’s refrain seems to strike a universal note of praise at the end.

Give thanks to the God of heaven,

for his mercy endures forever.

It would seem there is an openness to God that embraces the whole cosmos and what can one do but praise. Esther de Waal quotes Thomas Merton who observed that, “In the Psalms we drink divine praise at its pure and stainless source, in all its primitive sincerity and perfection.” ^16. One reason to refer to the primitive sincerity of the psalm’s praise is an aggression and occupation of another’s land that would be deemed unjust by today’s standards. Primitive sincerity also however brings us close in time to a people who saw God active and at the center of their understanding of life. That daily activity of God in the midst of whatever is happening is the basis of praise.

                                                                       Arabic Praise Poetry

Given the “dividing wall” (Ephesians 2:14) separating Palestinians (both Christian and Muslim) in the occupied territories from Jews and Israeli Arabs in Israel is it possible that Jews and Muslims might both have their own poetry of praise?  There is indeed Arab praise poetry. The poem that I will look at is “Ka’b ibn Zuhayr and the Mantle of the Prophet.” It is based on the pre-Islamic praise tradition and tells of Ka’b’s conversion to Islam in the 7^th century.  Praise in the Arab tradition is a process.  There is a prelude that describes some loss or separation. Then there is the journey that is dangerous and ambiguous.  It is a kind of in-between state, perhaps the crossing of some threshold.  Finally, there is the praise of having arrived, a state of fulfillment.

Ka’b’s poem begins with a traditional motif of a departed, lost lover.

Su’ad has departed and today

my heart is sick,…

Alas! What a mistress, had she been true

to what she promised…

But she is a mistress

in whose blood are mixed

Calamity, mendacity,

inconstancy, and perfidy. ^17.

The name Su’ad is related to the word for prosperity, good fortune and happiness.  Allegorically, this is the loss of a tribal society that had stability though was false and unreliable.

Next comes the journey.  The poet describes his camel, “the best of she-camels of noble breed and easy pace.”  The poet is traveling to a land “Never to be reached but by a she-camel/huge and robust/That despite fatigue sustains/ her amble and her trot.”  The camel is understood allegorically to be the poet’s own resolve in the face of almost unbearable loss.  The final verse of this section reads: “Tearing her clothes from her breast/ with her bare hands,/ Her woolen shift ripped from her collarbone/ in shreds.”  The relentless motion of the she-camel on this perilous journey is like a grieving mother fiercely tearing at her clothing over the loss of her first born.

The final and third section of the poem is the arrival/conversion of the poet in a praise of rebirth.  To his former associates who were of no help, the poet cries: “Out of my way,/ you bastards!…”  Tribal bonds are emphatically cut off. Then comes the possibility of a new, salvific relationship.

But from God’s Messenger

pardon is hoped.

Go easy, and let Him be your guide

who gave to you

The gift of the Qur’an in which

are warnings and discernment! 

In this praise poem we have the movement from false hope to hope fulfilled, from misguidance to true discernment.  Suzanne Stetkevych writes that here we have “the Islamic message of right guidance and divine might.” ^18.  Praise is a process of getting on the right path.  The poem is an affirmation of Islamic faith and the fulfillment of one’s self in Allah/God through praise.

Celtic Praise Poetry

The final selection of praise poetry will be from the Celtic tradition. This poetry originated in “the cultic celebration of the pagan king by professional poets.” ^19.  In the following 13^th century poem the author, most likely a cleric, wrote a praise poem to Christ the first five lines of which would have served well in a poem of praise to a king.

In the name of the Lord, mine to praise, of great praise,

I shall praise God, great the triumph of his love,

God who defended us, God who made us, God who saved us,

God our hope, perfect and honorable, beautiful his blessing.

We are in God’s power, God above, Trinity’s king. ^20.

Like a king whose triumph is great, the poet praises God.  We find in praise an asymmetry between the king and bard, or in this case, God and the poet.  The human person is in God’s power. The poet participates in God’s beautiful blessing bringing salvation and joy and is moved to praise.  God is the defender of the poet, as once the king protected the bard.  There is an overflow of largesse in the perfect and honorable stature of Trinity’s king warranting praise.

The poem then goes on to pick up themes from the resurrection narrative of fear (terrible grief), companionship (the perfect rite) and new life (cosmic mending, paradise/salvation).

God proved himself our liberation by his suffering,

God came to be imprisoned in humility.

Wise Lord, who will free us by Judgment Day,

Who will lead us to the feast through his mercy and sanctity

In paradise, in pure release from the burden of sin,

Who will bring us salvation through penance and the five wounds.

Terrible grief, God defended us when he took on flesh.

Man would be lost if the perfect rite had not redeemed him.

Through the cross, blood-stained, came salvation to the world.

Christ, strong shepherd, his honor shall not fail.

It is not by domination that the victory is won but by suffering and love. Does the terrible grief refer to the cross or to the marginalized in their state of oppression?  This is an incarnational story.  God is present in having taken on flesh, and in the real presence of communion.  The “perfect rite” of the Eucharist reorients Jesus’ followers and the poet.  The poem begins: “In the name of the Lord” that would have for the poet Eucharistic connotations.  The Eucharist gifts its participants with a worldview of cosmic mending with Christ at the center. What can one do but praise this Giver of mutuality and healing?

Conclusion

As I began with a Syriac writer let me end with Ephrem the Syrian (4^th century) again making the case that praise is part of what it means to be alive. He says:

“While I live I will give praise, and not be as if I had no existence;

I will give praise during my lifetime, and will not be as someone

        dead among the living.” ^21.

If there is life on Good Friday and indeed in Ukraine then there is praise. Lament, sorrowful as it is, is not the giving up of hope. Rather lament progresses into praise as an answer to its cry of loss. The three Marys at the cross are rooted in an abiding love. The Kharkiv Rabbi and Concert Violinist in the bomb shelter are instances of praise. And there are many who amid the ashes and night of bombardment find the small ember of praise alive and giving life. God is great enough to uphold one’s trust and powerful enough to make a way out of no way. Praise yields to the One whose compassion is greater than loss and death. This is what it means to be alive. The pulse of our created being beats to the rhythm of praise.

This is no insular insight but is found in cultures and religions throughout the world. Praise is our human response to the effusion of God’s love. For instance, where a case of wine might do, 120 gallons are provided. There is an overabundance. Luminous love reveals an inherent dignity to each one. Praise of oneself is not self-congratulatory, but finds its basis and truth in God, and so is sacred. When reduced to thirst and injury God can be called on. Again in the praise psalm 136, It is the Lord of Lords “who remembered us in our low estate, for his mercy endures for ever” (v.23). God denounces injustice and is active in steadfast love. The journey is dangerous, from the terrible grief of loss to new life and rebirth. Praise gets us on the right path. We make this journey as lowly as God is mighty. Yet the mighty God became small, to be our fellow-sufferer, in order also to be our liberator through limitless compassion. When one encounters praise in different cultures one finds this breadth of meaning. In fact, praise seems so inherent in each place that without it one could scarcely be called human. 

Notes

The translation of psalms is from The Book of Common Prayer unless otherwise indicated.

Other scripture translations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

1. Brueggemann, Walter; Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988; p. 136.
2. Allchin, A. M.; Praise Above All: Discovering the Welsh Tradition; Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991; p. 3.
3. Brueggemann, Op. cit., p. 160
4. Ibid., pp. 1 and 160.
5. Hansbury, Mary, editor; The Prayers of Jacob of Serugh; Oxford: SLG Press, Convent of the Incarnation Fairacres, 2015, p. 6.
6. Ford, David F. And Hardy, Daniel W.; Living in Praise:: Worshipping and Knowing God; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005; p. 2. In a later book, Ford concludes: “God is a self-distributing God continually overflowing in love through the Holy Spirit.” (Ford, David F.; The Shape of Living: Spiritual Directions for Everyday Life; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999; p. 194.
7. Brock, Sebastian P., and Kiraz, George A., translators and editors; Ephrem the Syrian: Select Poems; Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009; p. 217.
8. The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the use of The Episcopal Church; New York: The Seabury Press, 1979; p. 80.
9. Brock and Kiraz, Op. Cit., p. 221
10.  Ibid., p. 217
11.  Damage, M. And Sanders, P. B., editors and translators; Lithoko: Sotho Praise-Poems; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974; p. 22.
12.  Gleason, Judith; Leaf and Bone: African Praise-Poems; New York: Penguin Books, 1994; p. 19.
13.  The Book of Common Prayer; Op. cit., p. 418.
14.  McCann, Allison, Gamio, Lazaro Lu Denise, and Robles, Pablo; “Russia is Destroying Kharkiv: Residents describe what has been lost after three weeks of attacks;” The New York Times, March 17 (Accessed March 18).
15.  Santalucia, Pablo; “Sheltering from bombs, Ukraine’s ‘cellar violinist’ plays to lift spirits;” PBS NewsHour; Rome, Italy: Associated Press, March 9, 2022 (Accessed March 18).
16.  de Waal, Esther; The Celtic Way of Prayer:: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination; London Hodder & Stoughton, 1996; p. 182.
17.  Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney; The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010; p. 27-49.
18.  Ibid., p. 57.
19.  de Waal, Esther; Op. cit., p. 168
20.  Davies, Oliver; Celtic Christianity in Early Medieval Wales; Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996; pp. 52-3. I follow Davies in his interpretation of this poem.
21.  Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem; Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1992; p. 45

Flag bearing the Name Jesus flies during capital insurrection

 

            Among all the stars and stripes, the stars and bars (probably the first time it has been taken into the Capital), and Trump MAGA banners, I watched a “seditionist” carry a flag with the Name “Jesus” in the assault of the nation’s capital on January 6. It came six days after Christians celebrated the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ and prayed, “Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world…” The answer to this prayer, the sanctification that grows within, is one’s increasing awareness, that is, surrender to a power greater than one’s self, the gift of humility; an increasing relatedness to and love for all of creation; increasing hope that longs for transcendent unity and justice; and the freedom that faith brings. Rather, on Wednesday’s rampage we saw a hardness of heart, a stony ground in which there is no growth of awareness, relationship, hope, or freedom. It is not the first time the Name of Jesus has been evoked to destroy. Even at the start Jesus hammers away at disciples’ hard hearts with question after question: “Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember?” (Mark 8: 17-18)

          President Donald Trump debated his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden on September 29. When asked about white supremacy and the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, the President told that group to “stand back and stand by.” They did and would be called up just over three months later on the Epiphany as were Herod’s troops long ago to destroy what Herod supposed was a rival “king.” Reaction to Trump’s directive in the debate raised the flag of white supremacy and dismayingly of Jesus.

          For those whose hearts have hardened into white Christian dominance, the rival is not a king but a changing environment that includes people of color as equal partners in conversation, worship, and business. In 25 years the United States will be majority non-white, according to its Census Bureau. Right now more non-white children are being born than white. “Do you still not perceive or understand?” Jesus asks. Robert Jones in his book on white supremacy in American Christianity writes: “By activating the white supremacy sequence within white Christian DNA, which was primed for receptivity by the perceived external threat of racial and cultural change in the country, Trump was able to convert white evangelicals in the course of a single political campaign from so-called values voters to ‘nostalgia voters.’” ^1. “Make America Great Again,” a time when society chose to value whiteness and Christianity over others. White supremacy, racism, and antisemitism exist on common ground where race-based binaries are the rule – White over Black, Gentile over Jew, American (white and Christian) over immigrant (the Muslim ban), and so on. Supremacy is about the privileged keeping out the other. It builds walls whether along the Mexican border or in Israel keeping out those who “don’t belong.” One message on the Palestinian side of the Israeli barrier says: “Walls don’t work here, and they won’t work in America.” These steel and concrete walls are the outward sign of a hardened heart.

          Jesus asks, “Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember?” Children of God do not carry a flag with the Name of Jesus in order to tear down! Rather we pray to plant in every heart the mightier power of love. One who remembers is the seventh century monk Martyrius, born in what today is modern Iraq. He writes: “Truly great and mighty is the power of God’s word. For the word of God has changed the offspring of vipers into children of God. So let us constantly sow it within the hard soil of our heart waiting for it to soften it so that the white-ear of life may sprout up in it. For the word of God is at the same time the seed and the water; and even though we have a heart like stone, it will be softened and split up by the water of the Spirit, so that it can bring forth holy fruit that is pleasing to God.” ^2. May that same water of the Spirit cause to grow in all – increasing awareness, relationship, hope, and faith’s freedom from constricting narrowness.

1.     Jones, Robert P.; White Too Long: the Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity; New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020; p. 22 (nook edition).

2.     Brock, Sebastian; The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life: Introduced and Translated by Sebastian Brock; Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications Inc., 1987; p. 224.

Pandemics and Mysticism

Introduction

Has the 2020 pandemic placed humankind at the threshold of a new beginning? Covid-19 is revealing the inequality and exclusion that have been present in U.S. society all along. A new beginning must insure the values of inclusion and equality. Whether it is in our families, our businesses, our communities, whether they be big steps or small, whether others tell us our endeavors are misdirected or not, we need to act toward greater inclusion and equality. This blog post attempts to place Covid-19 pandemic in the context of mysticism, now and during another pandemic in the 14^th century.

14^th Century

On April 19, 2020 The New York Times Opinion Section began a weeks-long series on the novel coronavirus and the inequalities within the United States that it has exposed, and that have been a pre-existing condition that has made the virus so much worse in our country. Unsurprisingly, they took a glance back to the pandemic of the 14^th century. What they missed however was the flowering of mysticism that accompanied that plague. This is some of what Walter Scheidel, a professor of classics and history at Stanford University, said.

In the fall of 1347, rat fleas carrying bubonic plague entered Italy on a few ships from the Black Sea. Over the next four years, a pandemic tore through Europe and the Middle East. Panic spread, as the lymph nodes in victims’ armpits and groins swelled into buboes, black blisters covered their bodies, fevered soared and organs failed. Perhaps a third of Europe’s people perished.

Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Decameron” offers an eyewitness account: ‘When all the graves were full, huge trenches were excavated in the churchyards, into which new arrivals were placed in their hundreds, stowed tier upon tier like ships’ cargo.”

According to Agnolo di Tura of Siena, “so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.”….
            In looking for illumination from the past on our current pandemic, we must be wary of superficial analogies. Even in the worst-case scenario, Covid-19 will kill a far smaller share of the world's population than any of these earlier disasters did, and it will touch the active work force and the next generation even more lightly...

21^st  Century

Religion and spirituality already suffering today’s disenchantment will also be touched much more lightly than before by this pandemic. But it is worth looking at the role of mysticism today and whether it has the energy to pull those who are open to God-consciousness into a new society of more inclusion and equality.

On May 10, 2020, the New York Times published the article “Christianity Gets Weird,” Tara Isabella Burton wrote: “More and more young Christians, disillusioned by political binaries, economic uncertainties and spiritual emptiness that have come to define modern America, are finding solace in a decidedly anti-modern vision of faith. As the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns throw the failures of the current social order into stark relief, old forms of religiosity offer a glimpse of the transcendent beyond the present…. (F)or these weird Christians, this crisis doubles as a call to action.” One commented that Christianity (in light of the pandemic) “compels us not just to take care of people around us but to seek to further integrate our lives and fortunes into those of the people around us, a sort of solidarity that necessarily entails creating these organizations to help each other.”

What is described as weird is merely taking seriously that “mystic sweet communion” where we sing of mysticism in that old hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.” We tend to use very little bandwidth for our God-consciousness, though mysticism is foundational to the church. The first step is to awaken to a grander vision for our life, what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls “radical amazement.” To do this we want to open our minds to the forces that impinge upon us – appreciations of beauty, feelings of thankfulness, the love given us by friends. Mindfulness taught by Thich Nhat Hahn among others is a lesson in this openness.

Mysticism

We can encounter God within us, in our human spirit, because God, apparently or not, is already there.

The meaning of mysticism is basically “an experience of the Divine,” or as a friend suggests the “divine" could be rendered "Buddha-nature" ... or Tao, or holographic whole, or Mysterium Tremendum, or the One in the many. It is a sense within the human person that a transcendent and divine presence or power is directly encountering him or her.

The conditions of the 14^th century generated and encouraged a blossoming of this mysticism. In Italy there was Catherine of Siena, in England Julian of Norwich among others. German mysticism at the time included Johannes Tauler. There was the Beguine movement in the Netherlands, and mystic Jan van Ruusbroec. “The fourteenth century… was a time not only of great natural disaster as the bubonic plague ravaged Europe, but also a period of conflict.  It was the century of the Hundred Years War ….. the masses… were eager for the personal experience of God.” (God Within, p. 190)

Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1416) lived in this perilous time when all of Europe was wracked with suffering. She answers the question how does one cope?  How could something small endure such great catastrophe?  As an answer, Julian believed that God’s love embraces everything.

He showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball.  I looked at it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, “What can this be?”  I was amazed that it could last, for I thought, because of its littleness, it would suddenly have fallen into nothing.  And I was answered by my understanding, “It lasts, and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.”      (Two Worlds, p. 149)

God’s love beholds, holds, upholds, and enfolds each one of us.

Similarly the 21^st century has seen pandemics such as Ebola, H1N1 and the global covid-19 pandemic. It also has been a time of terrible conflict in the Middle East. And we too have seen a rise in mysticism. There are, Franciscan Richard Rohr, Episcopal priests Cynthia Bourgeault and Matthew Fox, Dr. Barbara Holmes, the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn, among others. The Center for Contemporary Mysticism (contemporarymysticism.org) has introduced mystics such as Patricia Pearce, Mary Reed, Cyndi Smith, Joan Diver. But I wonder if there are also smaller mystics, “little ones” as Therese of Lisieux might say. Is it possible that there could be a groundswell of grassroots mystics, which I think is the genius of the Center for Contemporary Mysticism.

Threshold

The pandemic brings a sense of ending. Nothing will ever be the same. The future is unclear. Esther de Waal points out that a threshold is sacred. It opens onto “the other, the new, the strange, and (shows) the image of difference, mystery, otherness at work in God’s world.” (Living on the Border, p. 5) The most profound threshold we can cross is that between the inner and the exterior, “between going deeper into the interior self and emerging to meet the world beyond the self without protective defenses, as friend not as foe.” (Living on the Border, p. 3) Then in openness and receptivity we can come to know the universe as basically a hopeful and benevolent place. Mysticism makes no sense without hope. The threshold is where we pause to honor the significance of crossing over. de Waal asks, “Am I willing to cross the threshold of new understanding by being open and receptive, not closed in and defensive?” (Living on the Border, p. 3)

The Flemish mystic Jan van Ruusbroec believed that contemplation of the transcendent unity of the divine Trinity brings us, through the touch of divine love, to the threshold of the divine mystery.  

On April 26 Richard Rohr began a series of meditations on Liminal Space, which to my mind is another image of threshold. He writes, liminal space “is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next…. It is a graced time, but often does not feel ‘graced’ in any way…. In liminal space we sometimes need to not-do and not-perform according to our usual successful patterns. We actually need to fail abruptly and deliberately falter to understand other dimensions of life…. It takes time but this experience can help us reenter the world with freedom and new, creative approaches to life.”

Angels meet us at these thresholds, those messengers of the divine. Angels can be disturbing because they urge us to go beyond where we are. Angels carry news of journeys to be taken, changes to be made, demands to be met, tasks to be carried out, growing to be done.

Enchantment

Angels bring the message of the beyond. Angels are all about transcendence. To believe in them, says David Bentley Hart, is to live an enchanted life. What threatens civilization he argues is simple disenchantment. The age of technology makes it difficult to live in the world as an enchanted place. And my, are we disenchanted today! We are disenchanted with our government. They have left us unprepared and some of our leaders mislead. We are disenchanted with church. Has religion served to exclude and widen divisions among us? We are disenchanted with our work. Unemployment soars and job-based health insurance disappears when needed most. David Bentley Hart calls upon us to raise our sights to the angels who “continue to move in their inaccessible heavens, apparently still calling out to mortals, still able to provoke  our sons and daughters to prophesy, our old men to dream dreams, our young men to see visions” (A Splendid Wickedness, p. 219). The angels want us to live enchanted lives! Look for the divine that envisions a recreated world unblemished by exclusion and inequality.

Mystics

Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380)

Catherine praying alone in her garden would often sing. Singing is one of the ways we reach for God. She drew energy in those alone times from her practice of prayer. She wrote of her soul in dialogue with God where she found an inclusive love that enfolded the ancestors and all creatures.

“O mad lover!  It was not enough for you to take on our humanity.  You had to die as well.  Nor was death enough.  You descended to the depths to summon our holy ancestors and fulfill your truth and mercy… You deep well of charity! It seems you are so madly in love with your creatures that you could not live without us.  What could move you to such mercy?  Not duty or any need, but only love. (Two Worlds, p. 155)

Catherine also understood that for mysticism to be obedient to the transcendent message it hears, it must be active. A consistent message is a world more inclusive of its creatures, more equal in its opportunity. Catherine calls this walking with two feet: love of God and love of neighbor.

When Catherine of Sienna had to leave her cherished solitude to go and talk with someone in need, she felt a sharp pain in her heart.  This is what she understood God was saying to her: “Be quiet, sweetest daughter; it is necessary for you to fulfill your every duty.  I have no intention of cutting you off from me; on the contrary, I wish to bind you more closely to myself, by means of love of the neighbor.  You know that the precepts of love are two: love of me, and love of neighbor; in these, as I have testified, consist the Law and the Prophets.  I want you to fulfill these two commandments.  You must walk, in fact with both feet, not one, and with two wings fly to heaven.” (Great Mystics, p. 33)

One finds a similar message in this Prayer Book collect:

Collect for Proper 9 – “O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.”

Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1416)

Julian of Norwich’s experience of God as protector/protectress who envelops us in a sustaining and all-embracing love finds its fullest expression in her remarks on the motherhood of Christ.  “So we see that Jesus is the true mother of our nature, for he made us.  He is our Mother, too, by grace, because he took our created nature upon himself.  All the lovely deeds and tender services that beloved motherhood implies are appropriate to the Second Person.  In him the godly will is always safe and sound, both in nature and grace, because of his own fundamental goodness.” (God Within, p. 187) So too in this experience of God we discover we have the same “Mother.” All are equal in this mother’s love.

We are enfolded and equally loved in God. This experience can come to us in many ways. It is not necessary to be especially gifted. The secret touches of the Spirit are adapted to whatever abilities we have to receive them. Julian writes: “Then we can do no more than gaze in delight with a tremendous desire to be united wholly to him, to live where he lives, to enjoy his love, and to delight in his goodness.  It is then that we, through our humble, persevering prayer, and the help of his grace, come to him now, in this present life.  There will be many secret touches that we will feel and see, sweet and spiritual, and adapted to our ability to receive them.  This is achieved by the grace of the Holy Spirit, both now and until the time that, still longing and living, we die.  On that day we shall come to our Lord, knowing ourself clearly, possessing God completely.  Eternally ‘hid in God’ we shall see him truly and feel him fully, hear him spiritually, smell him delightfully, and taste him sweetly!” (God Within, p. 188)

Johannes Tauler (c.1300-1361)

It frequently seems to me that the more I try to manage things the more unmanageable they become. The more I try to pull on a tangle the more knotted it becomes. The more I try to exercise perfect control the more out of control my life seems to get. Johannes Tauler suggests that this might actually be a grace of God. He writes:

“Those however who are God’s true witnesses rely upon God in the good and the bad and they rely stoutly upon his will, whether he gives to them or takes from them. They do not hold to their own intentions.  And so if they think that they can perform great things and begin to count upon that, then God will frequently shatter whatever it is that they do because he means well with them, and thus things frequently happen which were not desired…. Thus every form of fixity is broken, and we are turned back upon our own nothingness, and are dependent upon God, acknowledging him in simple, humble faith and renouncing all fixity.”  (God Within, p. 90)

As with Julian of Norwich, the experience of divine presence can come in many ways matching each person’s capacity. According to Johannes Tauler: “… the expectation of the Holy Spirit differs from person to person.  Some receive the Holy Spirit with their senses in a way that is conceivable to the senses, while others receive him in a much nobler way with their higher powers, with their rational powers and in a rational way which is much above that of the senses.  But a third group receive him not only in this way but they also receive him in their hidden abyss, in the secret domain, the ground where the precious image of the Holy Trinity is concealed, the highest part of the soul.” (God Within, p. 83-84) Mysticism is not limited to those who can access the sacred in the highest part of the soul. The divine can be present to the senses and intellect as well. This is the basis for a grassroots mysticism that can attain a critical mass for the transformation of the world.

Jan van Ruusbroec (1293 – 1381) 

Ruusbroec urges mystics to be active. Only in activism can mystics partner with God to recreate what has been revealed to them, a world unblemished by exclusion and inequity. “Now understand how we can meet God in each of our works, increasing in our likeness to him and more nobly possessing our blissful unity with him.  Every good work, however small it may be, which is performed in God with love and a righteous, pure intention, earns for us a greater likeness to God and eternal life in him.  A pure intention unites the scattered powers of the soul in the unity of the spirit and orientates the spirit towards God.  A pure intention is the end and beginning and adornment of all virtue.  A pure intention offers praise and honor and all virtue to God.  It passes through itself, the heavens and all things and finds God in the purity of its own ground.  That intention is pure which holds only to God and sees all things in relation to God.” (God Within, p. 136) As I said in my introductory paragraph whatever the setting, domestic, commercial, or social, and whether we feel our contribution is great or miniscule, God is there, and we draw closer to God’s likeness.

Though angels may call us from without, grace drives us from within. Ruusbroec explains: “Now the grace of God, which flows forth from God, is an interior impulse or urging of the Holy Spirit which drives our spirit from within and urges it outwards towards all the virtues.  This grace flows from within us and not from outside us, for God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves and his interior urging and working within us, whether natural or supernatural, is closer and more intimate to us than our own activity.  For this reason God works from within us outwards, whereas all creatures act upon us from without.” (God Within, p. 139-140)

Conclusion

At this time of pandemic there is a lot of talk about when society can return to normal? This is the wrong question. If we are open to a direct experience of God in small ways or large we see before us an opportunity to live into a society that is more inclusive and equal. God, Catherine of Siena understood, is madly in love with every created person and thing. All are included in this extravagant love. Julian of Norwich encountered Jesus as humankind’s “true Mother,” and just as a true mother cannot decide among her children, we are all equally loved. The message today is not so different from that of centuries past, though race and the legacy of slavery mar our current time. The pandemic drives us to a threshold. “Every form of fixity is broken,” says Johannes Tauler. The right question is what can we create in its place? God’s grace drives us and angels pull us to a less blemished place. One can begin to imagine a world that is anti-racist. This will not happen on its own. We must be driven. Every good work no matter how small is essential. It adds its own momentum or intention toward every other in creating a place of inclusion and equality. Catherine of Siena says that we get there on the two feet or two wings of love of God and love of neighbor.

There are great mystics who encounter God with a supernatural directness. But perhaps most of us are “little ones” as Thérèse of Lisieux would say. For those, there are many “secret touches” from God adapted to our ability to receive them. Johannes Tauler adds that there is not just one way to be a mystic. The Holy Spirit’s expectation differs from person to person. What is to be looked for is a grassroots mysticism where each one directly encounters God’s word for an unblemished world and are driven to love all that God has created and accept that all belong.

Bibliography and References

1.     Davies, Oliver; God Within:The Mystical Tradition of Northern Europe; Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2006.

2.     De Waal, Esther, Living on the Border: Connecting Inner and Outer Worlds; Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 2001. 

3.     Hart, David Bentley; A Splendid Wickedness and Other Essays; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016 (Nook Reader)

4.     Macquarrie, John; Two Worlds Are Ours: An Introduction to Christian Mysticism; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

5.     Rakoczy, Susan, IHM; Great Mystics and Social Justice: Walking on the Two Feet of Love; New York: Paulist Press, 2006.