I don't know who, besides me, needs a break from politics. I came across this episode of Father Jim Martin's podcast on America Media. In this one he talks with Mirabai Starr, who is the author of several books. She discusses mysticism as something which is attainable by everyone. It is interesting that she comes from a secular Jewish background, but has explored the mysticism of many religions, and was particularly drawn to the Catholic mystics such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x0bNQiLE7jg&list=PLFA_2Z1L-3tq0x873_jc5I9lDhuC3V9P4&index=1&pp=iAQB0gcJCesJAYcqIYzv
I found it interesting, maybe you will too.
Thanks for this. I will listen to it later today. I bought Mysticism by Simon Critchley awhile back but haven't gotten around to it.
ReplyDeleteI need a break from politics, too, but it's difficult to avoid (or resist). Make it stop!
"...its difficult to avoid (or resist). I know! It's like catnip sometimes.
DeleteIt was an interesting interview. It reveals a Sacred Space I’ve encountered but never stayed in for long although I think it does permeate my attitudes. I can’t say that death was my gateway as it was for Ms. Starr. I have been awestruck by the very fact of existence. I reverence people, animals and things, even though I am prone to anger these days. I think I’m a better person for what mystical or spiritual things I have experienced or at least less bad. Mysticism just seems so incompatible with the systems we live in. I think we need more if it. Didn’t Rahner say the. Christianity of the future will be mystical or nothing?
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I've had mystical experiences, but I sometimes have moments of feeling a connection. Like you said, I don't stay in them long. We see "...through a glass, darkly."
DeleteThanks, Katherine. I listened this morning. Starr reminds me a lot of some of the Unitarians I have known.
ReplyDeleteI think Western (and especially American) culture, because it is materialistic and individualistic, represses mystic connections. Talking about it makes you sound crazy, and I think the experience defies words anyway.
Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality" and Eliot's "Choir Invisible" both affirm the mystical and how modern life quashes it.
Eliot, ironically, hated Catholicism but loved mystics like Teresa of Avila. Hopefully she got that squared when she joined the Choir Invisible.
When I think of Wordsworth, I always think of "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home..."
DeleteFinest poem in the English language, if you ask me. But not sure it resonates with much if anybody now.
DeleteOne of our favorite areas of England is the Lake District. Apparently it’s bumper to bumper traffic during peak tourist season. Luckily for us, the three trips we took there were off season, but still good weather. Beautiful. We went to see where Wordsworth lived and were lucky enough on one trip to be there during daffodil season. We can certainly see why he found that area inspirational.
DeleteI am not well acquainted with a lot of poetry. So I re- read this poem. It does resonate with me because I feel closest to God in nature. Apparently Wordsworth also experienced the divine in nature.
ReplyDeleteI have only listened to the beginning of the podcast, which now has captions on YouTube, unlike some of the other America magazine podcasts. It seems that James Martin’s first mystical experience, while still a child, was experiencing God in nature. I thought about that, because one of the joys of raising our sons was experiencing with them their joy when experiencing nature when they were very young. Before they took it for granted. We adults lose that. Wordsworth also captured that childhood experience.
I was also interested in the unusual multi- faith retreat center near Taos where his guest grew up. Taos and its setting in the magnificent desert surrounding it is a place very conducive to the mystical. It’s practically in the air you breathe. I will listen to the rest of the podcast later.
I’m not a fan of podcasts - I like that the NYT always provides transcripts of their podcasts.
I like it when podcasts are on YouTube because they are easy to access and a lot of them do have subtitles if I don't want to turn on sound. We always turn on subtitles if we're watching stuff on BritBox or Acorn.
DeleteI have only been in Taos once, when I was about eleven. We were on a family trip. Of course that was before it got to be an art colony and a bit new age. What I remember most was the pueblo, which had been a continuously occupied village for nearly a thousand years. We just walked around, tourists didn't go inside because there were people still living there. We also went into the San Francisco de Asis church, in Ranchos de Taos, which is a separate village. The church dates to the 18th century and is still in use as a parish church. When we were there, there was a funeral pending. The casket was covered with a chenille bedspread. Which I though was appropriate since they were in a sense putting someone to bed.
There are a number of places in the SW that are denigrated as New Age. The NM desert is incredible, including Taos. Also Sedona, AZ. Overtly New Age but also a strong sense of the mystical. Perhaps some of these New Age places connect with the mystical better than more conventional places like churches. Sedona was also a place where I felt the divine in the air. And the north rim of the Grand Canyon, not associated with New Age as far as I know. But somehow these desert places feel more mystical to me than urban places, or even forests. Lonely places next to water ( not crowded beaches) do also, but the deserts convey the mystical to me more than any other natural place. Jesus’s home was in the desert. Sometimes he escaped to the unpeopled parts of the desert. The wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers is rooted in the mystical.
DeleteI’ve always wanted to go to Tantur and take one of the desert pilgrimages. It’s been on my bucket list for years, but it probably won’t happen.
I don't know that I would want to visit the Holy Land, especially with the way things are now. But I always thought I would like to see the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. Something mystical about water.
DeleteI've read that a very common urge for people at the end of life is to go to water, especially the ocean. Makes sense if that's where life originated.
DeleteTantur used to have shorter programs - some were two weeks. I would be happy to attend a six week program, but I can’t.
Deletehttps://tantur.org/sabbatical-programs/six-week-sabbatical/
End of life wishes. We need to sell our house. We need a smaller home on one level that we can modify to be wheelchair accessible. . hopefully neither of us are yet at the end of our lives, but it’s getting a whole lot closer. He will be 85 in November. We have both always loved water. I grew up on a mountain lake and he grew up on the Chesapeake Bay. I too dream of living somewhere with a beautiful water view as we wait to reach our final destination. But it’s expensive . My husband isn’t as fond of the desert as I am. I did once suggest moving to Santa Fe. My cousin and her husband moved there a few years ago and they love it. We visited it long, long ago and also thought it was a wonderful city and area. But my husband isn’t interested.
DeleteThe wonder of the virtual world is that we can all live beside the ocean or lake as well as go to great liturgies.
DeleteThis afternoon I happened to go down to Fairport harbor with its scenic lighthouse and freighters that come and go along with sailboats. I watch it daily, actually year around. During the summer you have to pay to park in the parking lot. Now it is free.
I also watch the east coast webcams including the Hamptons and Mrytle Beach. One of my favorite webcams is in one of the riches areas of the Hamptons. Yet sometimes there is no one out there enjoying it, probably busy earning more money so they can stay there or hoping to move closer to the beach where the camera is.
I am very happy to be thousands of miles away from it and the hurricanes. My aunt Lois and her husband were always on the watch for hurricanes. Twice they had to run away from one. Their home was further away than mine is from the lake.
When I was younger, I went down to the Lake (about ten miles and a ten-minute drive) almost daily from April through October. Walked about two miles once I was down there. However, I don't have the energy to continue to do that. I am happy to watch the Lake Cameras and take pictures of beautiful sunsets, and cloud formations.
It is fun to do some virtual traveling. I have looked at some videos of how the places my ancestors came from look in the present day.
DeleteKatherine, you have spoken of your interest in near-death experiences. Wondering if what Starr said about death being a gateway to mysticism resonated with you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked at the hospital in college, there was often such relief at the end of a patient's suffering. One of the nurses said every death was a reminder that we are not in charge of these cosmic forces. Always a lot of reverence around a death bed among hospital staff, always someone with the person as they died and in taking bodies to the morgue.
I certainly felt that with my dad. Not sure it qualifies as mystical, but certainly the "good death" we all want.
Much less so with my mom, who died in the hospital where the organ transplant people took over.
Glad that I cannot donate organs due to cancer, and I would not donate another loved one's unless they specifically told me to.
I did notice what she said about death being a gateway to mysticism. Death is a sort of liminal space, between worlds.
DeleteWhat you said about death sometimes being a relief is true. I would say both my parents had a happy death. But Mom had one really horrible awful year preceding it. With Dad it was more a gradual decline of his body being 93. Both of them had family members with them at the end. But they both managed to kind of tip-toe out of this life when no one was looking. Typical of them, they never liked a fuss.
About organ donation, I think I have so many miles on my organs by this time that they wouldn't do anyone any good. One reads some disturbing things about the ethics surrounding organ donation.
I'm sorry about your mom. It's really hard to see anyone brought low, but especially someone you love.
DeleteThanks Jean. One thing that seems common to the near death experiences is that when you pass to the other side you leave all your physical suffering behind, and you're not even thinking about it any more. So that's how I think of Mom, and anyone who has suffered through an illness.
DeleteThe last year of life can be tough. I’ve made it 78 years without ever witnessing a death or even final days or weeks or months. Sudden deaths. My husband’s father died in the hospital. His mother died 5 weeks earlier in the nursing home section of their retirement community. She had been in a coma for several days, but woke up about 4 am and asked the nurse to call her husband who lived in their independent apartment in the same building. They didn’t have a great relationship, but at that moment she wanted him. She died a few minutes after he got there. When he died in the hospital 5 weeks later it was also about 4 am. He was alone. Maybe a nurse was there, I don’t remember. No family. Both died of cancer. During the year after my husband’s fall, in California, we had so many ER experiences, including three near death experiences in Ears, that one of my nightly prayers was asking God to not let him die in an ER if his time was near. “Please God, not in an ER.”
DeleteHaving family there and being at home is the best.
Didn't mean to get us off on a death jag. I saw that Fr Martin has an interview with Jim Gaffigan. Will see if Raber wants to watch that when he gets home.
ReplyDeleteTo avoid too much news, we have been watching YouTube's about medieval wool production in northern Europe. Fun fact: It took 200 square yards of woven wool to make a Viking ship sail. A boat could be knocked together in a matter of weeks. The spinning, weaving, piecing, and finishing a sail could take two years. Nothing mystical about that, but there ya go.
Jean, when you were going to school in Cambridge and traveling around the country did you go to the Lake District?
ReplyDeleteNo. Time and money were very limited, tho I did have a BritRail pass. Spent most of my time in London and Cambridge and environs, but I had about 5 days before my flight left London that I chose to spend in Scotland.
DeleteI always hoped to spend some time in Scotland.We did go to Edinburgh for a few days but nowhere else. We stayed in the city. I would have liked to go to the Highlands and also visit some of the lochs.
DeleteDidn’t you also go to Wales? Your heritage isn’t it?
No Wales.
Delete