The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice

by Mary Albert Darling, Shane Claiborne activist, author, co-founder - Red Letter Christians (Foreword by)

Overview

Acclaimed evangelical speaker and writer Tony Campolo teams up with spiritual director and teacher Mary Albert Darling to reveal some gems from the liturgical Christian tradition to Protestants who may be ready for a refreshing change. While steeped in their own evangelical tradition, the authors are not afraid to venture back into Christian history and reclaim practices that have long been considered exclusively Catholic--including Centering Prayer, along with works by Ignatius Loyola and Catherine of Siena--as excellent spiritual tools to help evangelicals grow in faith and love for the poor. A vital theme in Campolo and Darling's work is that spirituality is not solely an individualistic practice but must lead Christians to love and help the oppressed. True Christian mysticism, they posit, is not an either/or proposition. That's because the nexus between evangelism and justice is to be found in Christian mysticism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506454924
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	03/05/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	233
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Mary Albert Darling is a professor whose teachings in communication, spiritual formation, and justice have taken her outside the United States to Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mary is a spiritual director trained in Ignatian spirituality, a certified Enneagram teacher, and coauthor of Connecting Like Jesus.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

WHAT MYSTICAL CHRISTIANITY IS ALL ABOUT

The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or he or she will not exist at all.

— Karl Rahner, The Practice of Faith (1983)

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT spirituality. It is about how ordinary people can mystically experience God in the depths of their beings and the ways in which such experiences transform them. When we were drawing up plans to write this book, Mary was concerned that the words mystic and mystical would present difficulties for some readers. She worried that some might think that we were into a kind of New Age religiosity, even though she knew from her studies and personal experience that certain forms of mysticism have always been, and still are, a vital part of Christianity. We finally decided to use the term "mystical Christianity" to distinguish the kind of spirituality we are advocating from other forms known in the Christian community. For instance, using the word mystical makes it clear that the Christian spirituality that we are discussing here is not to be confused with the kind used as a synonym for personal piety, which too often comes with destructive legalism, or scholastic Christianity, which can reduce faith to theological propositions. Both of these kinds of spirituality can lead to a loveless religion, which the Apostle Paul strongly warned against when he wrote, "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (I Corinthians 13:1).

This book is about tapping into the love and reality that go beyond what rules and reason alone can apprehend. We want to show how daily moments marked by mystical revelations of God's love reveal the limits of propositional truth. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Corinthians 2:12–14).

When we use the word mystical we are referring to experiences that involve being filled with this same Spirit. This is Christian mysticism. William James, in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, helps us see a variety of ways in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives, even though James was not writing specifically from a Christian perspective. For James, mystical experiences transcend rational description, can defy verbal expression, and, although at times short-lived, can provide a special sense of intimate "knowing" that has a profound effect on those who have them. A mystic, therefore, is one who experiences God in transrational and nonempirical ways. This kind of transcendent intimacy with God is what is involved in "getting to know Jesus" and being "born again."

Types of Mystical Experiences

Although there are many types of mystical experiences, I explore five of them that are particularly relevant to increasing our intimacy with God: new insights, I-thou relationships, heightened awareness, conversion experiences, and breakthrough experiences. Most of us will readily admit, upon reflection, that we have experienced at least some of these.

New Insights

First, there is a kind of mystical experience that breaks into the consciousness when something you have experienced before is suddenly, with no conscious effort, perceived in a new and more profound way. This can be such a common experience that most people are reluctant to even call it mystical. Something akin to this may happen to a Christian who, while reading scripture under the influence of the Holy Spirit, suddenly gains a new and profound insight or truth. You are apt to hear the person say, "I've read that passage a hundred times, but I never before understood what I understand now." It is as though there has been a revelation from God, and the reader cannot help but feel a special excitement upon discovering this new and deeper meaning of that scriptural passage.

Most of us have had such moments of insight when we see familiar things in completely new ways. This is something of what Jesus predicted when he told his disciples, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:13).

We hope that the spiritual practices that Mary lays out in Part Two of this book will make those who commit to them more ready for and susceptible to such moments of revelation. One of our prime goals is to enable you to find richer meanings in your reading of scripture and to gain an enhanced capacity for listening to what God is trying to say to you as you read.

I-Thou Relationships

The second kind of mystical experience involves a special subjective connectedness with another being. Martin Buber, a twentieth-century Austrian Jewish philosopher, translator, and educator, in his classic book I and Thou, helps us understand something of what happens during such mystical encounters. Although Buber wrote mainly about such interactions with humans, he also believed that these encounters can occur with nonhumans as well. Buber distinguishes between knowing objectively about another being and knowing that being. For example, when we know about someone we might have pertinent information regarding that person, but that data fails to connect us with that person's essential self. Buber called this an "I-it" relationship.

Beyond these I-it relationships, in which other people or animals are viewed as objects or "things out there in the world," there are mystical encounters that Buber calls "I-thou" relationships, in which we connect with others in such a way that we feel a oneness of mind and heart. These I-thou experiences prove to be so profound that each individual feels he or she knows the deepest thoughts and emotions of the other. In such encounters there is a spiritual unity so intense that it seems that each knows the other as if he or she is the other. These are holy moments and are, in part, what the Apostle Paul was trying to explain to us when, in his great love chapter, he wrote, "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known" (I Corinthians 13:12).

Jesus had the capacity for these I-thou encounters par excellence. The Bible tells us that "he himself knew what was in everyone" (John 2:25). Whenever we imagine how Jesus interacted with people, it would help if we tried to understand them in terms of these I-thou encounters.

Heightened Awareness

The third kind of mystical spirituality is that in which the Christian senses a "hyperawareness" of the glorious presence of God in the everyday experiences of life. The spiritually alive person enjoys the ordinary things in life in a most extraordinary manner. All of us can experience Christ in more mystically transforming ways by starting with the ordinary — it is as simple as that. Through these inklings of mysticism, we begin to see our lives and the world with a new awareness.

In Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, the main character, Emily, discovers the joy of being fully alive too late. After she dies, she pleads to be allowed to return and look in on one day of her life, one last time. She picks her twelfth birthday. During the play, Emily becomes dismayed as she recognizes how little the people she loves comprehend the joys of life or experience them with any depth of awareness. She cries out to be taken away, so that she does not have to witness how little her family and friends pay attention to the preciousness of life. Listen to Emily's words:

Goodbye, Grover's Corners. ... Goodbye to clocks ticking ... and Mama's sunflowers — and food and coffee — and new-ironed dresses and hot baths — and sleeping and waking up! Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?

One of the marks of mystical Christianity is a growing awareness of the wonders of our everyday, ordinary experiences, which leads to a greater sense of how precious the ordinary really is. As writer and minister Frederick Buechner once said, "There is no event so common place but that God is present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize Him or not to recognize Him."

I hope that everyone can have those mystical times when, endowed by the Holy Spirit, the world comes alive in ways that thrill the soul. The grass appears greener, the sun shines brighter, the flowers exhibit new and magnificent luster, and the whole Earth radiates beauty that is almost intoxicating. As Paul told us in Romans 8:10, those of us who were experiencing a deadness to life are suddenly "made alive." We experience life in a new way in these moments, and we experience it "more abundantly" (John 10:10 KJV).

A "heightened awareness" type of mystical spirituality not only changes the way we perceive the world, it also infuses the ordinary experiences of everyday life with a mysterious thrill and a divinely inspired meaning. This is the kind of spirituality that is movingly taught in the writings of Brother Lawrence. This seventeenth-century Catholic saint showed us ways to "practice the presence of God," so that even while completing his mundane chores in the kitchen of his monastery he consciously moved his heart and mind toward God. We too need to cultivate mystical moments such as these so as to better see the holy in the everyday places of our lives, as Brother Lawrence did — even in the pots and pans. He prayed, "Lord of all pots and pans and things ... make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates!" For Brother Lawrence, his time of daily chores did not differ from his time of prayer. He said he could "possess God in as great tranquility" in the midst of the bustle and clatter of the kitchen as he could when he was on his knees, alone with God. That is because he took great pains to do each task purely for the love of God, praying throughout his day for the strength to do this. Whenever his mind wandered, he brought it back to God "always as with me as well as in me." Brother Lawrence eventually came to a state where he could say, "It would be difficult for me not to think of God as it was at first to accustom myself to it." He had learned to live with his mind "stayed on Thee" (Isaiah 26:3 KJV). This glorying in the ordinary is a kind of mysticism that can make our lives into heaven on earth.

There is an ancient saying: "Before enlightenment — chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment — chop wood, carry water." Those who become spiritually alive in the ordinary may go on doing the same things they did before, but they will do them with an entirely new frame of mind and heart. Everything will be changed. In scripture we are told, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men" (Colossians 3:23 NIV). Putting ourselves into every task, as the scripture tells us, requires that we be invaded by the Holy Spirit in such a way as to energize us and give us passion in all that we do.

All three of these kinds of mystical spirituality are available to anyone who is open to an invasion of the self by the Holy Spirit. There is no need, as an old hymn suggests, to have some supernatural dream or some prophet's ecstasy. Anyone who prays to God for redemption through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ can have these experiences. They can then be cultivated through spiritual practices and prayerful supplications such as those described in Part Two of this book.

These spiritual disciplines can make us ready to daily receive the infilling of the Spirit of Christ that gives us life. We are instructed in scripture to "watch and pray" (Mark 13:33) and to "wait patiently" (Romans 8:25) because the Spirit "blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes" (John 3:8). We know that we cannot control the Holy Spirit, but we also know that we can prepare our hearts and minds so that "at the midnight hour" when the Holy One comes, we will be like the wise virgins in Jesus' parable, and will be ready to receive the Holy Spirit and be married into an intimacy (Matthew 25:1–13) that will transform us and empower us to help transform the world. It is to that end that we write this book.

Conversion Experiences

The fourth kind of mystical experience that is regularly reported is often associated with sudden and transforming conversions. There are those who, on special occasions, hear and respond to the gospel and report being overwhelmed by God in dramatic ways. William James reports such conversions in Varieties of Religious Experience. One woman who was converted in this manner said:

I was taken to a camp-meeting, mother and religious friends seeking and praying for my conversion. My emotional nature was stirred to its depths; confessions of depravity and pleading with God for salvation from sin made me oblivious of all surroundings. I pled for mercy, and had a vivid realization of forgiveness and renewal of my nature. When rising from my knees I exclaimed, "Old things have passed away, all things have become new." It was like entering another world, a new state of existence. Natural objects were glorified, my spiritual vision was so clarified that I saw beauty in every material object in the universe, the woods were vocal with heavenly music; my soul exulted in the love of God, and I wanted everybody to share my joy.

While other testimonies are less dramatic, all of them, as William James says, denote experiences whereby "a self hitherto divided, consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified as consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities." All segments of the evangelical community affirm the validity of such conversion experiences. The evangelist Billy Graham has, through his preaching crusades, made conversions of this kind an almost normative part of American religion.

Breakthrough Experiences

There is still another kind of mysticism exemplified by those whom Mary and I call the "supersaints ," people who have been caught up into some mystical unity with God and who have enjoyed a kind of heavenly "breakthrough" experience that can only be called miraculous.

Moses was such a supersaint. When Moses encountered God on Mount Sinai, he experienced something spiritual that other godly persons will never enjoy in this life. The scripture tells us of this experience in Exodus 34:4–5: "So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, 'The LORD.'" The experience was so awesome for Moses that he removed his sandals because he sensed that he was standing on holy ground. This was not just an ordinary place and an ordinary experience; it was God breaking into Moses' world in a miraculous manner.

Consider also the experiences of the Apostle Paul. While he never met Jesus while Jesus walked the earth, Paul nevertheless claims that he was once personally taught by Jesus after being taken up into heaven to meet with him. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians 12:1–4, "It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows — was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat."

Since Bible times there have been other supersaints who have had breakthrough mystical experiences with God that, while they do not have the same authority as the supersaints in the Bible, still challenge us and give us, if we are candid, a certain sense of uneasiness. This latter group of supersaints includes Catholics and Protestants alike. Among the Catholics, we list Saints Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Augustine of Hippo, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Siena. Each of these, along with many others, had experiences that the German scholar Rudolph Otto calls the "mysterium tremendum." These are experiences wherein God breaks into the lives of Christians at certain times so that they experience an ecstatic unity with God that transcends what most will ever know this side of heaven.

Saint Augustine described one such mystical ecstasy this way:

And I ... beheld with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up all space. ... He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows eternity. Love knoweth it. O Truth Who art Eternity! And Love Who art Truth! And Eternity Who art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I sigh night and day. Thee when I first knew, thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was what I might see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And thou didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth Thy beams of light upon me most strongly, and I trembled with love and awe.

On the Protestant side, although leaders like John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, learned much from the Catholic mystics, there has been a shying away from their ecstasies among mainline Protestants. Nevertheless, there are testimonies that should not be ignored. Consider this one from John Bunyan, author of the seventeenth-century classic The Pilgrim's Progress:

The glory of these words was then so weighty on me that I was ... ready to swoon as I sat; yet not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace. ... This made a strange seizure on my spirit; it brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that before did use, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow and make a hideous noise within me. It showed me that ... Jesus Christ had not quite forsaken and cast off my soul. ... Now could I see myself in Heaven and Earth at once; in Heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my Righteousness and Life, though on Earth my body or person. ... Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Foreword, xi,
Preface, xiii,
Acknowledgments, xix,
An Introduction to Mystical Christianity, xxi,
Part One Knowing God Intimately: Where Christian Mysticism Can Take Us Tony Campolo,
1 What Mystical Christianity Is All About, 3,
2 Christian Mysticism and Personal Evangelism, 22,
3 Christian Mysticism and Working for Justice, 37,
Part Two Fueling Intimacy: The Mystical Path Mary Albert Darling,
4 Awakening to Mysticism and a Holistic Gospel(Even If You're Not a Monk), 59,
5 Cultivating Holy Habits, 75,
6 Moving from Self-Awareness to God-Awareness: The Prayer of Examen, 92,
7 Becoming God's Friend: Lectio Divina, 114,
8 Deepening Our Intimacy with God: Centering Prayer, 130,
9 Committing to a Holistic Gospel, 146,
Part Three Taking Intimacy with God into the World Mary Albert Darling and Tony Campolo,
10 Avoiding Two Temptations, 173,
11 Connecting Intimacy and Action, 187,
Epilogue, 209,
Postscript, 213,
Notes, 215,
Discussion/Reflection Guide, 225,
The Authors, 241,
Index, 243,