Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism - 15

Text, p. 75	Comment	Notes
Departing from the usual convention, they are hard—sometimes impossible—to understand.	Right now, is it enough to trust and hold my figurative hands in front of me and feel my way, with or without a map? After all, running has progressed that way. For the longest time, I was sure I would never get past running only a few minutes, and walking the rest. This morning I ran up a full block of 10% grade hill and, while winded at the top, I kept going to the end of the block. WE HUMANS HATE UNCERTAINTY. WE WANT CLARITY. WE WANT TO KNOW THAT WHAT WE HOLD DEAR WILL NOT CHANGE AND WILL ALWAYS BE THERE. WE GO A BIT CRAZY WHEN THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN. We yell “Heretic!” We yell “Queer!” We yell, “Ick!” We say no. Anything to get out of being in relationship with The Eternal I Am that I Am. Mystics try to express that, despite the scariness, we must be in relationship with this Dicey Deus. Genesis 32.30-32 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ It’s the only way my life is preserved.
As a result, the orthodox have been forced to regard their makers as madmen or heretics: when they were really only practical men struggling to disclose great matters by imperfect means.
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Without prejudice to individual beliefs, and without offering an opinion as to the exclusive truth of any one religious system or revelation—for here we are concerned neither with controversy nor with apologetics—we are bound to allow as a historical fact that mysticism, so far, has found its best map in Christianity.
Christian philosophy, especially that Neoplatonic theology which, taking up and harmonizing all that was best in the spiritual intuitions of Greece, India, and Egypt, was developed by the great doctors of the early and mediaeval Church, supports and elucidates the revelations of the individual mystic as no other system of thought has been able to do.	And now I will await her persuasive argument as to this. I’ve always intuited this, or taken it on faith, but did not feel equal to offering an argument that would persuade others to this conclusion.	How in Heaven’s name does one absorb the treasures of this book without having to tediously work through sentence by sentence? Yet, if I don’t, I will miss important gems. I think I do work through it sentence by sentence, and resign myself to being at this for a long time.
***
We owe to the great fathers of the first five centuries—to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine; above all to Dionysius the Areopagite, the great Christian contemporary of Proclus—the preservation of that mighty system of scaffolding which enabled the Catholic mystics to build up the towers and bulwarks of the City of God.	These names are famililar to me, as is some of the substance of their work, but what does it mean in any given moment of Christian response to life’s details? Not everyone is able to or desirous of studying these doctors of the Church. Even those who are interested, do they say to themselves, “Should I do this? What would Irenaeus say?” To me, mysticism is a way to cut through the slog of studying the doctors of the Church, and have that in-Person encounter of the Jacob kind.

A Year With Thomas Merton - August 16

At Peace in Solitude

This morning—grey, cool, peace. The unquestionable realization of the rightness of living in the woods full-time, because it is from God and it is His work. So much could be said! What is immediately perceptible is the immense relief, the burden of ambiguity that is lifted, and I am without care—no anxiety about being pulled between my job and my vocation….I feel as if my whole being were an act of thankfulness—even the gut is relaxed and at peace after a good meditation and long study of Irenaeus in Wingren’s book, Man and the Incarnation. The woods all crackle with guerrilla warfare—the hunters are out for squirrel season (as if there were a squirrel left!). Even this idiot ritual does not make me impatient. In their way, they love the woods too: but I wish their way were less destructive and less a lie.

“I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Psalm 80 is where I am in my perpetual Psalter, and there is no question that solitude gives a different horizon to the Psalter, precisely because of the light and nourishment one especially needs.

The five days I have had in real solitude have been a revelation, and whatever questions I may have had about it have been answered. Over and over again I see that this life is what I have always hoped it would be and always sought. A life of peace, silence, purpose, meaning. It is not always easy, but calls for a blessed and salutary effort—and a little goes a long way. Everything about it is rewarding.

August 21 and 25, 1965, V.283

A Year With Thomas Merton - August 6

The Blessing of an Ordinary Work

The blessing of Prime under the tall pines, in the cool of early morning, behind the hermitage. The blessing of sawing wood, cutting grass, cleaning house, washing dishes. The blessing of a quiet, alert concentrated, fully “present” meditation. The blessing of God’s presence and guidance. I am very aware of the meaning of God’s presence and guidance. I am very aware of the meaning of faith and fidelity, and of the implications of the relationship they establish. This place is marked with the blessed sign of my covenant with Him Who has redeemed me. May I never fail this goodness, this mercy!

A superb passage from Irenaeus (Adversus haereses, 4.39):

“If you are the work of God, wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time….Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you…lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers. By guarding this conformity, you will ascend to perfection….To do this is proper to the kindness of God; to have it done is becoming to human nature. If, therefore, you hand over to Him what is yours, namely, faith in Him and submission, you will see his skill and be a perfect work of God.”

August 25 and 26, 1965, V.284-85