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.