Susan Stabile, an experienced spiritual director and retreat director trained in the Ignatian tradition, led a popular class during this year’s Synod School called “Learning from Modern-Day Mystics.”
Synod School is put on each summer at Buena Vista University by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies.
Stabile defined a mystic as “a person who is deeply aware of the powerful presence of the divine spirit,” someone who “seeks, above all, the knowledge and love of God and who experiences to an extraordinary degree the profoundly personal encounter with the energy of divine life.”
Mystics “often perceive the presence of God throughout the world of nature and all that is alive, leading to a transfiguration of the ordinary all around them,” according to Ursula King. Father Richard Rohr called it “experiential knowledge of the Holy, the transcendent … God,” adding that “even one little peek into one little corner of the mystery is more than enough.”
Forebears of modern African American mystics include Sojourner Truth and Jarena Lee, the first Black woman to publish an autobiography and, along with Truth, part of the Second Great Awakening.
No less a theologian than Dr. Howard Thurman called mysticism the “response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within his own spirit.” Thurman “believed the mystic is motivated by a desire that everyone have the opportunity to experience holiness and a personal relationship with God,” Stabile said. “Social action for Thurman is sacramental. The mystic does not retreat from life but is here to promote God’s vision for this Earth.”
Stabile’s second session focused on “The Poet as Mystic.” She read Mary Oliver’s “Praying” and called poetry “one of the most useful expressions of a mystic’s inner experience.” The poet who was considered in depth during this class session was Gerard Manley Hopkins, especially his “God’s Grandeur” and “Pied Beauty.”
“Hopkins led a relatively short but passionate life,” Stabile said. “He had a relationship with Jesus Christ that seems at times to be so intimate as to remind us of those women mystics from the late Middle Ages who emphasized their spiritual union with Christ.”
Hopkins converted to Catholicism and became a priest, initially burning all his poetry and then starting all over. But “he always put his responsibilities as a priest ahead of his poetry,” Stabile said.
On the third day, Stabile explored mystics’ use of imagination and storytelling. The Jesuit priest, Father Anthony De Mello, was an important figure on this day. De Mello defined an awakened person as “a person who no longer marches to the drums of society” but is rather “a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within.”
Thich Nhat Hanh once called the beginning of mindfulness “when something we do in ordinary life can become a profound meditation with enough attention to the present.” An apostle of peace and nonviolence, Hanh was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On the final day of class, Stabile looked at other modern mystics and some of the characteristics of deep religious experience. She opened with Julie Fehrenbacher’s poem “The Most Important Thing,” which ends with these words: “I whisper hallelujah to the friendly sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.”
The mystics for this day included Evelyn Underhill, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Thomas Merton and Simone Weil.
Stabile called Underhill “a quiet giant in the world of mysticism.” She was the first woman to lecture clergy in the Church of England and one of the first women to offer a retreat. Her “Practical Mysticism” is an effort “to demystify mysticism,” Stabile said.
Heschel was among the giants in the civil rights movement. Deported by the Nazis in 1938, he viewed ecumenism as the necessary means to combat racism.
Merton is “a favorite of mine,” Stabile said. To Merton, contemplation is “the response to a call: a call from [One] who has no voice, and yet who speaks in everything that is.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Martha Reisner, Director, Affiliated Markets, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions
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Let us pray:
Welcoming God, teach us the importance of hospitality as a means of sharing Christian love. Give us opportunities to extend hospitality freely and sincerely, and hearts to receive it with grace. Amen.
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