So What's a Mystic, Anyway?

Sept 23 / March 15 1930

On reflection I think labeling Laubach as a Quaker is a misnomer. While he might be that, it seems more appropriate to let him label himself: a mystic. My supplemental reading of the writings of early Christians focused this week - only because it was next in the book: Foster, Richard, Devotional Classics - on John of the Cross. John was persuaded that one’s spiritual journey must, at some point, be interrupted by God so that the sins of false humility, for example, can be purged from the soul. Such purification occurs as God isolates one from all spiritual pleasure. 

(I think I have this right. An excellent resource is The Hidden Tradition of Christian Mysticism by Carl McColman available at patheos.com) In this context McColman states, “Although there have been mystics in every century of the Christian era, the sad reality is that, because of the political nature of the institutional church, many mystics have been persecuted, some even killed, and others learned to camouflage their wisdom teachings in carefully worded books and poems that appeared non-threatening to the religious authorities.” John of the Cross was persecuted and imprisoned for his teachings, and it was his belief that such a “dark night of the soul” was God’s prescription for his spiritual maturity.

Laubach fits the pattern of Christian mysticism. The term can be broadly or closely defined; Justin Taylor (The Gospel Coalition) enumerates several important elements in the lives of mystics:

1. The encounter with God is experiential. The goal is participation with God, not merely acquiring additional knowledge about him.
2. The encounter is direct; the goal is not to merely to know more about God, but to know God himself.
3. The knowledge sought is nonabstract: to learn or see something that is particular, concrete, and real.
4. The encounter or knowledge is to be unmediated. Yes, Scripture and Christ may play a role, but the point is to be united to God himself with no intermediaries—no distance and no distractions.
5. Finally, the goal of all of this knowledge is love.

Laubach’s approach to meditation and prayer fits with what is common to mysticism as described above. Moreover his understanding of spiritual growth is comparable to that of John of the Cross:

“Almost it seems to me now that the very Bible cannot be read as a substitute for meeting God soul to soul and face to face. And yet, how was this new closeness achieved? Ah, I know now that it was by cutting the very heart of my heart and by suffering. Somebody was telling me this week that nobody can make a violin speak the last depths of human longing until that soul has been made tender by some great anguish. I do not say it is the only way to the heart of God, but I must witness that it has opened an inner shrine for me which I never entered before.” 

I try to recall times of great anguish. In doing so I remember days of grief, and days of deep concern for the safety of my children, and the pain I’ve felt when I empathized with the pain being experienced by my parishioners. Was my soul made more tender because of those times? I really don’t know. Was I drawn closer to God? Perhaps. In the moment I often truly wondered about God’s presence. In retrospect I was reassured of it. However I am still not led to pray for anguish and suffering. It sounds disturbingly uncomfortable. I will have to be more deeply persuaded than I am now that it will be spiritually profitable in the long run, or truly in keeping with the will of God. The barrier, as I see it, is not having the desire of my heart being the knowledge and following of God’s will. Laubach is way ahead of me there.

Light of Christ

Sept 16 / March 9

Dear Gary,

I’ve arrived at what I believe is Laubach’s longest letter yet, the March 9 entry he calls Boundless Joy, Broken Loose. Here he sets forth his objectives for spiritual growth: 1. I must pursue this voyage of discovery in quest of God's will. I must experiment with intercessory prayer. I must confront these Moros with divine love. 

His approach grows out of his conviction that “I do not have to wait until some future time for the glorious hour. I need not sing, “Oh that will be glory for me -” and wait for any grave. This hour can be heaven. 

I concluded, All right. I can embrace at least part of this. I can pursue a discovery of God’s will. I can experiment with intercessory prayer. (I must post a disclaimer here. I do not pray, or if I do it is infrequent. I am introverted to the core and avoid conversations with others, even God. My door mat should read, “Go Away.” You may think this strange for someone whose life work has been the pastorate, but I survived.) With the last goal, confronting the Moros with divine love, I have little connection. I am totally ignorant of the Moros.

Laubach, perhaps through his familiarity with modern science, conceives of God’s actions with humanity as experiments, trying to see what can be accomplished by dealing with individuals. “For do you not see that God is trying experiments with human lives. That is why there are so many of them. He has one billion seven hundred million experiments going on around the world at this moment. And His question is, “How far will this man and that woman allow me to carry this hour?”

 Laubach doesn’t shy from the possibilities. Nor is he one to avoid superlatives. He prays, “God, how wonderful dost Thou wish this hour alone with Thee to be? Any hour for any body can be as rich as God! Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice. Catch me up in Thine arms and make this hour as terribly glorious as any human being ever lived, if Thou wilt.” And I thought, Why not? If he and God can experiment, then so can I. And church begins in 45 minutes. What better hour to open myself to a deeper understanding of God’s will? I even wrote out a list of people for intercessory prayer so I wouldn’t have to extemporize that part of it. 

And so it was during this so-called ‘experiment’ that my pastor blind-sided me. The message was founded on the values of our congregation, specifically the presence of Jesus. Her argument, and I suppose every sermon is intended to be a persuasive argument, is that Jesus (or God or the Spirit, but she ignored the theological confusion introduced by the Trinity) is always with us, and that the Light of Christ is present in every person, waiting to be discovered and used for good. 

Long ago I rejected the physical picture in Genesis of a flat earth with a domelike structure above it to hold back the waters.  What I’ve continued to firmly embrace is the spatial reality of God existing outside myself, refusing to “enter” me (or my heart) until I voiced an invitation, or professed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, or confessed my sins, or was baptized by immersion - a litany of restrictions posed by different churches I’ve attended. These hurdles had to be cleared with the deepest possible sincerity. No equivocating. No doubting. At that point of success Jesus’ presence would be assured at least in the short term. 

Difficulty arises if one doesn’t believe in eternal security, also known as "once saved, always saved.” From this perspective a Christian cannot fall from grace and be consigned to hell. Such an issue is the playground of Arminianism, which asserts that a fall from grace is possible. I only mention this in passing.But here, from my pastor, comes the disruptive teaching that the light of Christ is present in every person. What one’s response should be to that presence I’m not certain, but it certainly circumvents the church’s insistence that it alone holds the keys to the kingdom. My suspicion is growing that Laubach is a Quaker.

In a Box with God

September 7 / March 1

Dear Gary,

Francis de Sales raises the question of what constitutes true devotion. For him it is a way of living. He says we put a personal spin on our understanding of it, often seeing ourselves as devoted to God because we fast or pray or give to the poor. The contradiction comes when after fasting we have hatred in our hearts; after prayer utter hateful words; after acting charitably we refuse to forgive others. “Hence anyone who does not observe all God’s commandments cannot be held to be either good or devout.”

Frank Laubach, at least at this point, doesn’t use the word “devout.” Yet he is no less focused than de Sales. de Sales is committed to reaching “the place where I wholly, with utter honesty, resolved and then re-resolved that I would find God’s will, and I would do that will though every fibre in me said no, and I would win the battle in my thoughts.” He says, “It is a will act. I compel my mind to open straight out toward God. I wait and listen with determined sensitiveness. I fix my attention there, and sometimes it requires a long time early in the morning to attain that mental state.”

For both Laubach and de Sales the way to life with God is a path of “humble obedience. Laubach might say, “I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise.” - Psalm 119:58  

de Sales might reword Proverbs 24:14 to say, “Know also that devotion is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.” -Proverbs 24:14

Both struggle to know and do the will of God. For me a huge challenge is discerning the presence of God. My wife Margie reminded me of the Johari window, a square divided into quadrants. Each represents our degree of self knowledge/awareness:

1. what is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by others - open area, open self, free area, free self, or 'the arena'
2. what is unknown by the person about him/herself but which others know - blind area, blind self, or 'blindspot'
3. what the person knows about him/herself that others do not know - hidden area, hidden self, avoided area, avoided self or 'facade'
4. what is unknown by the person about him/herself and is also unknown by others - unknown area or unknown self

Her description left me thinking not so much about my life in general, but about my relationships with certain other people. Which category would my son and I be in, or I and my next door neighbor, or for that matter, my best friend? And in the context of this discussion, in which box do God and I find ourselves? I think it is category number one: what is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by others - open area, open self, free area, free self, or 'the arena.’ My assumption is that while I don’t know everything about God, still God knows everything about me, and I know some things about myself.

That causes our relationship to spill over into category number two: “what is unknown by me about myself but which God knows - blind area, blind self, or ‘blindspot.’ That category is reduced in size whenever I sense God’s guidance. I recently told God there was just too much in my life to be forgiven, and God replied that Jesus forgave Peter for everything. I argued that this was a long time ago. God’s response was that "My forgiveness is always now." It reminded me of the question, “When is eternity?” And the answer was, “It is always the next moment.”

I think the last two categories don’t apply. I can hide nothing from God. There is nothing I don’t know about myself that God doesn’t know. So, do I really sense God’s presence? Here I can relate to Laubach. “I do not claim success even for a day yet, in my mind, not complete success all day but some days are close to success, and every day is tingling with the joy of a glorious discovery. That thing is eternal.”

Pastor Mike

Mindfulness

Sep 2 / Feb 9

Dear Gary,

Frank Laubach says,” I feel sure now that our thoughts flow around the world even when we do not express them. So I mean to make a contribution with my thoughts every hour. I am making a strenuous effort of will to concentrate upon people, those in my presence and those out of sight in order to send to them my thoughts of Christ. I propose to think as hard of God as I can when in crowds, in the confidence that really dynamic thought will influence many others.”

Why am I initially so dismissive of Frank? When I read this the first thing that came to mind was the appearance of Yuri Geller on TV. He was, and I suppose still is, famous for performing spoon bending, telepathy, and psychokinesis. He was variously labeled a fake or a genius, but ultimately he was a performer. 

I don’t accuse Laubach of being either of those. I see him as a committed Christian whose interest lies in gaining a deeper relationship with God. At this point he views telepathy as a route to spiritual growth: “Perhaps you have begun to suspect what tremendous dynamite lies hidden in the idea. If the Christian people, the really Christian people of the world began to comprehend the power of thought, they could use it as a lever to lift the world! If people realize that telepathy is a fact …”  

I’ve dabbled in this in the past. I don’t know if I would call it experimenting. I would, however, attempt to read other people’s minds. My purpose, I confess, was usually to try and discover what they were really thinking. And I wondered if I could influence their thoughts. Perhaps influence them to say or do certain things. I have even tried it on inanimate objects. The closest I’ve ever come to success was learning that if I stared at something long enough - a ball in the yard or the bathtub faucet - it would slowly begin to drift to the right. This would continue until I blinked, at which point it would assume it’s former position and remain still.

Laubach isn’t into thought control or telekinesis, but persuading people of the reality and goodness of God. HIs hope is that as people become adept at this skill Christians will “keep their thoughts right, to make them helpful every hour from morning to night. We may yet attempt to make the world over by the sheer force of good thoughts!” He has high ideals. We have surely tried to make the world over with war, violence, immigrant suppression, promiscuity, and financial superiority. Whether this approach of thinking continually has merit, I’m not sure, but it is certainly more honorable than all the other things we keep attempting. At least spending one’s time thinking good thoughts trumps doing evil deeds, and I suspect we can’t do both at once.