Being a little slow sometimes, I only just found a wonderful homily for the Sunday before last - 3rd February - posted on the Order of the Holy Cross lectionary blog. Ideally you should read the whole thing, but I'll just post here the bits that really echoed my own experience:
First, let me say a word on altered states of consciousness. "Altered states of consciousness" or "altered states of awareness" are phrases used in anthropology and psychology to describe temporary conditions in which we experience reality in a very different way from what is usual or normative in our respective societies.
Our contemporary Western societies frown on such states. And we are socialized to repress the experience we gain in such experiences. The most commonly accepted altered state of consciousness amongst us is dreaming. As a Western society we accept altered states of consciousness to the extent that their content remains purely private and personal.
Most human societies recognize learning value to altered states of consciousness and accept that thought-leaders have something to share about the nature of reality in telling the story of their altered states of consciousness.
I have had the grace to have a couple of waking state mystical experiences, another phrase to describe one type of altered state of consciousness. They changed my life by the intensity and importance of what they taught me.
But if a video camera had been trying to record it, it would have captured nothing but the normalcy of the subway ride and subway station where it happened. Does it mean it didn't happen? God speaks, even today, and God is not restricted in how we are spoken to...
As a monk who yearns to be ever more awake and present to the Presence of God, Moses struck me as a wonderful model as I read and prayed this text.
Free yourself up from the busy-ness, get the help you need, show up, make yourself available, sit there, don't just do something.
And then, be ready to wait. Discerning God's call is not your thing, if you are into instant gratification and multi-tasking.
I know this sort of talk would horrify some of my brothers and sisters (more brothers than sisters, I think!) in evangelical circles, but really we cannot know the deep things of God so long as we insist on confining ourselves in the prison of what is, at root, secular thinking about God. I mean the determination to restrict our mental and spiritual activity in respect of our Creator and his dealings with us, his Scriptures, and their bearing on our lives, to the outer, reasoned and willed, layer of our personality - the place where we do business, mend cars, and study commerce and politics.
Jesus of course saw this very clearly, and, on a visit to Bethany, gently pointed it out to Martha when she became frustrated with her sister Mary (Luke 10.38-42).
5 comments:
Just re your own thoughts, Mike, I suppose there are many reasons why some people never get beyond the rational - maybe self-absorption and preoccupation with the world, or being closed to the supernatural (which I can never fathom, if one professes to believe in God), and often I think it is also a refusal of grace, for I'm sure that God's grace is offered to all and touches all, but it is a matter of receptivity and openness, isn't it.
Thank you for this, Mike. Speaking as one who has been thought 'weird' for most of my life, I sincerely appreciate this frank talk about the mystical life.
It is neither far away nor unusual, and if God speaks to you, it does not mean that you are going barmy! Gabrielle said it - to refuse to believe in one's own experiences of altered states as a visit and gift from God is to refuse a grace.
Personally, the needful everyday activities aside, I find being wholly rational a great bore- and frighteningly 'apart', from God, from the created world, and from that soul spark of 'self' which is immortal.
More and more I am convinced that everything my eyes see is not real.
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