Oneness

In the fundamentalist Baptist church where I grew up, "Mystic" and "mysticism" were very naughty words. They were synonimous with Tarot Cards, oiuji boards, and Satanists. Either that or, when coupled with the adjective "Eastern" was instantly associated with the Hare Krishna's or some other "cult."

I've come to appreciate Tarot cards, actually. And I've developed no small interest in Mysticism in my travels. Because I have found that mysticism is what the religious impulse is all about. "Mysticism" means the search for, or enjoyment of, union with God.

This is hardly a dangerous concept, especially for members of one of the most inherently mystical religions in existence, Christianity. Christians universally believe that the believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and that real and eternal union with God is the very foundation of our faith. Unfortunately, this gloriously Good News has been reduced to a simply cognitive recognition, and the tremendously important experience of our union with God has been tragically neglected. Protestants may be especially guilty of this, but no knowledgeable Catholic can be ignorant of the long, rich tradition of Catholic mystical experience. With notable exceptions like Thomas Merton, mysticism in the Christian world seems to be dying a quiet death. This is tragic, because the very essence of Christianity is its historical emphasis on lived experience. The New Testament isn't a doctrinal statement, but a living testimony of what the authors saw, felt, and experienced to the depths of their being. Paul wrote about situations that were real in the early church, not abstractions. Christians believe that Jesus was not, as the Gnostics alleged, a disembodied spirit that only appeared to be man, but a living, breathing, sweating, hurting, feeling human being who entered into the whole of human life. If this were not so, perhaps we could ignore the experience of union with God. There is yet a greater reason we cannot, for we hold that God himself united with this flesh.

After Jesus' resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit arrived with a dramatic entrance and gave the apostles yet another kind of divine ecstatic experience which was theirs for the whole of their earthly lives and should be part of the lived experience of ours. If it is not then we are missing a valuable part of our heritage--so valuable, in fact, that the gradual exclusion of it from our Christian traditions has resulted in dangerous attitudes towards our neighbors, our own bodies, and to the Earth herself. This exclusion is in no small part responsible for the precarious position we find ourselves faced with at the twilight of the twentieth century.

We rob ourselves of great treasures when we ignore such important Christian writers such as Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Nicholas of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, Brother Lawrence, Saint Francis, Saint Ignatias, John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Evelyn Underhill, Charles Williams and Thomas Merton. Mystics, one and all, who have brought the breath of life to what has at times been a very repressed and oppressive tradition. What we must recognize is that mysticism is not a dangerous heresy, but an essential ingredient to vital Christian living.

This is not to say that there is no practice of mysticism at all in Christendom, it's just that no one has bothered to give it name and see it as part of the historical ministry of God's gracious union with his children. I am speaking of many prominent movements of our century, such as the civil rights struggles, the return to monasticism in Roman Catholic circles and the Charismatic renewal in both Protestant and Catholic bodies. The Holy Spirit is not easily repressed, and has a way of slipping through our artificial structures to surprise us.

Once we have recognized the importance of mysticism in our own tradition, we are free to view the mysticism of other faith traditions as well. The desire within humans to enjoy union with the divine is universal. The various techniques and schools within the existing traditions are a result of our universal longing for our Beloved, and need to be understood as such. Every tradition has fostered a mysticism--and, indeed, how could it be otherwise? Even inherently un-mystical religions such as Islam, have not stamped out their own sect of mystics, the Sufis.

"One-ness" is the essence of mysticism, both Eastern and Western, and although this affords us a great deal of common ground with other faith traditions, Western mysticism is informed largely by Western theology and possesses a thoroughly Western flavor. The study of Taoism invites us to discover our own tradition of one-ness. The Tao Te Ching says,

People of ancient times possessed oneness.
The sky attained oneness and so became clear.
Earth attained oneness and so found peace.
The Spirit attains oneness and so is replenished.
The Valley attained oneness and so became full.
All things attain oneness and they
flourish.
The ancient leaders attained oneness
And so became an example for all the world.

All of this is achieved by oneness. (39)


The phrase "attained oneness" above has different meanings. "Attain" denotes not something which these things were once without, but a realization of how things are. Thus, when "the sky attained oneness," the sky realized its unity with all, and because of this, all was made clear to him. When the "Earth attained oneness" it realized its unity will all and this filled her with peace, and so on. It is interesting that the people, at the beginning of this chapter of the Tao Te Ching, didn't need to attain oneness, they already possessed it. How wonderful this must have been! Remember that to Lao Tzu, the ancients knew the Tao and how to live within it; it is the people of his own time (and ours) who have forgotten this truth and need to rediscover it.

"God is Everywhere"
When children ask "Where is God?" most adults are likely to answer, "Why, God is everywhere." The answer arrives in the mind of the child as a great and glorious mystery. To adults, however, this is a stock response which is forgotten as soon as it is uttered. We say it because it was, most likely, the answer we were given as children when we posed the same question. It holds none of the mystery for us now that it did for us as children. Why is this? Perhaps it is because we no longer believe it. It is an intellectual "fact," not a lived and perceived reality. It is proffered as an adequate answer for children, who cannot possibly concieve of the complexity of the dualistic model of reality our post-enlightenment mindset has bequethed to us. I suggest that it is we adults who are not capable of conceiving a unitary model of reality handed down to us by our pre-enlightenment saints and theologians. We need to become "as little children" and carefully consider the answer we flippantly toss to the young.

If we faced the reality of God's presence in all things and in all places, the theological and doctrinal implications would seriously call into question many of our accepted positions. Alan Watts wrote,

"God is the most obvious thing in the world. He is absolutely self-evident--the simplest, clearest and closest reality of life and consciousness. We are only unaware of him because we are too complicated, for our vision is darkened by the complexity of our pride. We seek him beyond the horizon with our noses lifted high in the air and fail to see that he lies at our very feet."2

Catholic Christians (Roman, Orthodox and Anglican), for whom union of the divine with the mundane is a central aspect of daily spirituality. For medieval Catholics the intellectual acceptence of this reality was secondary to the experience of it. Many medieval Christian writers are labeled "the medieval mystics" for this very reason. The experience of the presence of God in all things was for them an awesome intuitive mystery.

"God created all things in such a way that they are not outside himself, as ignorant people falsely imagine. Rather,
All creatures flow outward, but nonetheless remain within God.
God created all things this way:
not that they might stand outside of God, nor alongside God, nor beyond God,
but that they might
come into God
and receive God
and dwell in God.
For this reason everything that is, is bathed in God,
is enveloped by God,
who is round-about us all, enveloping us."6

This quote from Meister Eckhart is representative of the views of many of the medieval mystics. What is also very interesting about them is that, although their theology was profoundly incarnational, predisposing them toward a mystical experience of God, this knowledge of God-in-all is not a standard teaching but comes in the form of a revelation, a realization above and beyond official dogma.

Julian of Norwich is profoundly struck by the sudden knowledge of God in a mere hazelnut; that God is in the hazelnut, and by his love, sustains its existence. "The fullness of joy," wrote Julian, "is to behold God in everything."7 Mechtild of Magdeburg says "The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things."8 The medieval mystics accepted this not because of theological proofs, but from direct experience. All of life became truly religious. All of life was lived "in God." Suddenly Jesus' words about ministering to the "least of these" as ministering to him are transformed from figurative language into present, literal reality. Christ's sharing of human burdens and sin and pain did not end with the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, but is a continuing communion in birth and death and pain and joy and sin and redemption with all of Creation throughout all of time.

God says:

Now is the time
to tell you where I am
and where I will be.

I am

in Myself
in all places
in all things
as I ever have been
without beginning.11

When God is perceived as present in nature, we begin to view nature very differently; with respect, with reverence. When in our thinking God becomes one with nature, there is a shifting of attitudes about ourselves that allows us to begin to perceive ourselves as one with nature, too.

As one begins to process this new way of thinking, it becomes clear that God is profoundly inclusive-how could anything possibly be "beyond" God? Try though we might, we creatures cannot "other" ourselves from God. We are inescapably filled with God by virtue of God's love for us and for all. God, "whether we like it or not, want it or not, know it or not" is united to us and is enfleshed in us.15 Nicholas of Cusa wrote, "Divinity is the enfolding and unfolding of everything that is. Divinity is in all things in such a way that all things are in divinity."16 For this reason we can begin to understand evil's repulsion of the divine; to be unable to escape divinity is, for evil, truly horrifying. For this reason, evil is in constant denial, and in denying God's love and presence and power, is trapped in a web of lies both to others and to itself.

The gift of union with all of Creation offers us an incredible opportunity to grasp something of the mystery of the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. At my church, we are all in an uproar about Lent. And in this season of Lent, when we are surrounded by symbols and rituals, it is important for me to remember that we use symbols because God loves symbols. It is his best means of making the invisible and the ungraspable both understandable and real to humankind. Therefore, as truths have from the dawn of time been embodied in story, God enfleshed the truth of his union with us in a story in first century Palestine. God has given us a symbol for this union with all flesh. In the words of Alan Watts,

"The eternal Word, the Logos, becomes flesh, making our nature his nature; he assumes our limitations, suffers our pains and dies our death. More that this, he bears the burden of our sins: that is he remains in union with us even though we crucify him and spit on him; he continues to dwell within us and to offer, or sacrifice, our lives to God even though we commit every imaginable form of depravity. In short, God has wedded himself to humanity, has united his divine essence with our inmost being 'for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in heath' for all eternity."17 (Italics by author)

It is the same yesterday, today and always. Even though we curse him, even though we brutalize each other, even though we are poisoning the earth, God stays here with us. Even though we torture one another, even though we operate out of fear and mistrust, even though we betray our brother with a kiss, or a shady business deal, or a bag of crack cocaine, God does not abandon us. The crucifixion is a snapshot of what is true for all time. No matter what we do to him, no matter how we grieve him, no matter how much pain and suffering we cause to ourselves and others, GOD IS WITH US ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD. The crucifixion is a covenant of God with us: I am not going to abandon you. I am not coming down off of this cross until its over. I am here to stay!

He is still there, friends, remaining in union with all flesh, your flesh, my flesh, bearing our pain, our suffering and our sins until the end of the world, when this earth gives up her last gasp and says "It is finished." He is here and he is not leaving. He is here and he is not giving up. He is here and he loves you enough to remain on the cross of your hearts and minds and souls no matter who you are, what you have done, or what you may ever do. Despite our ghastly offenses, God remains enfleshed among us. "God has wedded himself to humanity, has united his divine essence with our inmost being 'for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health' for all eternity....The fact is the fact: we have been given union with God whether we like it or not, want it or not, know it or not." And God is not going to leave us or let go of us. Ever.

God is not giving up on you. He is not going to pack it in and go home when the going gets rough. He is not going to abandon you when you fall. He is not going to reject you when you do something you know is wrong. He is God. He is the lover of our souls who has wedded himself to us forever. He is the One who says, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." Amen.