"The World in a Grain of Sand"

 In a worship service last year I referred to spiritual growth as a process that unfolds slowly over a lifetime as a result of hard work and intentionality. Afterwards someone in our receiving line asked, "What about mysticism?"  He was right to point out that there is another kind of religious experience, which is not slow, but can be immediate.  Mysticism can be spiritually growth-producing, is deserving of mention, respect, and, for some is worthy of cultivation.  

 Unitarian Universalists are known, even to ourselves,  to be a heady people.  So you may think that mysticism amounts to no more than an off beat intellectual idea for most of us. Not so. We are purported to be the denomination that doesn't sing particularly well either because we are too busy reading ahead to see if we agree with the words. But think about how far that comment is off the mark! 

 We can see that Unitarian Universalists are open to mysticism by the fact that the first religious source listed in our denomination's Statement of Principles and Purposes is, "Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit."  Direct experience of the mystery is mysticism.  One of the greatest Unitarian mystics was Henry David Thoreau.

 I am very well aware, from conversations we have shared, that many of you, although you don't refer to yourself as mystics, have had mystical experiences.

 William James, author of Varieties of Religious Experience, says certain features set the mystical experience apart. Mystical experience is ineffable.  That means, it defies description.  No one can really make a mystical experience clear to another. It has to be experienced first hand. Second, mystical experiences have a noetic quality.  This means that they are states of deep clarity that come by insight or revelation.  Also, for the one who experiences them, although they cannot be conveyed, they carry a "curious sense of lasting authority."  These features alone qualify an experience as mystical, but there are two more characteristics which are also usually found.  Mystical states cannot be sustained for long - After a half hour, or an hour or two, they fade.  And finally, there is a feeling within the mystic that their own will is in abeyance, and they are being grasped and held by a superior power.

 According to James, the most basic kind of mystical experience - when the familiar is suddenly and inexplicabye seen or understood with fresh insight - is quite common. For example, if you've said a prayer all your life as a child, and read it again as an adult and suddenly understand the words all the way to the core of your being, as though you've never heard them before, this might be construed as a mystic moment.

 Another frequent mystical experience, James says, is when a feeling sweeps over you that you have "been here before" as if in some indefinite past time, in just this place, with just these people, and saying just these things.

 I have had occasional rudimentary mystical experiences that have to do with seeing -  and feel very profound when they happen. For example, a couple of years ago I was in a meeting here when someone I have known for years began to offer his thoughts on something.  As he spoke I became totally caught up by the extraordinary communication of his facial features. His face was, at once, shy, gentle, enthusiastic, vulnerable. Although I had known him at a distance for years,  I felt, in the clarity of this moment, like I was seeing him for the first time. And I knew immediately that this sweet, beautiful, animated face must be what his wife sees when she looks at him. If I had had any artistic skill at all, I might have become possessed by trying to capture on canvas  what I had seen in that amazing moment. Do you ever have moments of insight, like this?

 William James reported many examples of mystic experiences in The Varieties of Religious Experience.  These collected stories make it evident that it isn't necessary to believe in God to identify as a mystic or to experience mysticism's bliss and sense of depth and heightened reality. One anecdote given by James that I particularly enjoyed was told by a Unitarian named J. Trevor. He spoke about feeling gloomy on one particularly beautiful day. His spirit rebelled at going to church with his family that day; he felt it would be spiritual suicide. (This doesn't speak very well for his Unitarian Church, does it?)  So, instead of church, Trevor  took a walk.

 He writes: " I[left them] and went up into the hills with my stick and my dog. In the loveliness of the morning, and the beauty of the hills and valleys, I soon lost my sense of sadness and regret. For nearly an hour I walked … suddenly, without warning, I felt that I was in Heaven—an inward state of peace and joy and assurance indescribably intense, accompanied with a sense of being bathed in a warm glow of light, as though the external condition had brought about the internal effect—a feeling of having passed beyond the body, though the scene around me stood out more clearly and as if nearer to me than before, by reason of the illumination... This deep emotion lasted, though with decreasing strength, until I reached home, and for some time after, only gradually passing away."

 My favorite description of a mystical experience was recounted by French philosopher Blaise Pascal.  Some time after his death in 1662, his servant found a scrap of paper hidden in the lining of his coat which turned out to be a description of something that had happened eight years before.  [1]

 In the year of grace, 1654,

On Monday, 23^rd of November,

          Feast of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr,

          And of others in the Martyrology,

Vigil of Saint Chrysogonus,

          Martyr and others,

From about half past ten in the evening

until about half past twelve

          FIRE

God of Abraham, God of Isaac,

          God of Jacob

Not of philosophers and scholars.

Certitude. Certitude.  Feeling. Joy. Peace.

God of Jesus Christ.

 Whatever happened to him that day, "Fire," was all he could say about it. For two whole hours, nothing but FIRE - not the fire of philosophers and scholars but the fire of God, unmediated, undeniable, and finally unsayable…"

 I believe we all experience moments of union with a universal spirit whether we call ourselves mystics or not.  It's a blissful state.  I have felt it when I was driving alone and suddenly found myself spellbound by the splendor of Virginia's Skyline Drive at dawn.  I have experienced it each time I held one of my newborn children for the very first time. And I have felt it each time I have vigiled at the bedside of the dying, and witnessed their last breath.

 William Blake the English poet, wrote that "If the doors of perception were cleansed, humanity would see everything as it is, infinite…"

 Catholic theologian Matthew Fox has expressed the hope that a rebirth of mysticism may help save the planet by giving us the insight needed to appreciate the natural world enough to take care of it properly.  Author Thomas Berry underscores that same idea, saying that we will learn how to save the planet only when we realize that the universe is a communion of subjects rather than collection of objects. That kind of understanding requires a mystic's insight.

 One of the most mystically oriented people I have known is our own former minister Elizabeth Tarbox. Her two meditation manuals, Life Tides and Evening Tide, were inspired by solitary walks at a place called Shipyard Lane in Duxbury.  Listening to her speak over the years allowed me to develop a picture of Shipyard Lane in my mind. When I finally made a pilgrimage to Shipyard Lane, I was surprised to find that, as area beaches go, it wasn't even particularly attractive.  After some initial shock I felt humbled that Elizabeth was able to find such beauty and mystery, not by seeking out some Garden of Eden out of reach of all of us but on the humble path of everyday life.

I was humbled because I found Shipyard Lane to be sort of ugly, but after walking there Elizabeth wrote:

The calm soul of all things calls to me from the place where the ocean meets the land.  I see creation misted over the gentle water, moving along the snow-flecked shore.

I hear creation from the throat of the sea gull and the crow.  I see God in the light-bright extravagance of sunrise and the movement of buffleheads rearranging their feathers and watching for the warmth, and I hear God in the gently falling clumps of snow as the winter-wrapped trees give up their gloves for spring.

God crashes over frozen rocks spraying ideas above my head, glinting with morning, too fleeting to catch.  God plays at my feet, nudging and hinting and inviting my participation.  God is restless and free, moving to the call of the wind.  God is that moment when I lose myself to something which is beyond and within me.  And somewhere, along the soft edges of the morning, it comes to me that God is a feeling prompted by love.

Elizabeth, in a moment of mystical insight suggests that God is a feeling prompted by love.   Fellow mystics across traditions testify to this love, and there are stories that seek to explain it. My colleague the Reverend Michael McGee shares a creation story from the Jewish mystical tradition called the Kabala that is quite different from the Genesis story.  The story tells of a time before creation where there was God and nothing else.

"God desired to create something to relate to, but even the All- Powerful could not create a world out of nothingness. So the only thing God could use for the stuff of creation was God. And so this divine Oneness fragmented itself, breaking into millions and millions of tiny pieces that rained down upon the earth. Each of these fragments became a living being: a plant, an animal, a human. And the purpose of each fragment of God now is to, by using our compassion and love, connect with one another and unite, knowing unconsciously that with each union God is re-created a little more."

Elizabeth, when looking at Shipyard Lane, was able to see God in all the various pieces mentioned in this ancient story. The story explains why we are so motivated to seek an outlet for our love and why we carry this longing within us throughout the course of our lives.  We seek God, Truth, the Tao, Brahman, Love, Nature.  The names matter little.  Universally, from the day we are born to the day we die, this is why we seek a relationship with something beyond ourselves.

Rumi,  the Sufi  mystical poet, wrote:

Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.                                                                                                        Oh Beloved…

Rumi's poems, though they sound like they have been written to an earthly lover, were written to the Beloved, to that which encompasses all life and all love.  He believed that no matter how deep and true our earthly love,  a Beloved at the heart of existence will still tug at our soul.

Within the Islamic, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Jewish traditions there have been individuals who have methodically cultivated mysticism.  Many, perhaps most are suspect within their own traditions -it has been said that mystics have more in common with each other across traditions than they do with the core dogmas of their own faiths.

One conviction found in all mystics of all faiths is that an essential step toward enlightenment and for purity of mystic insight, one has to be a moral individual, free of fear, self-interest, greed and falsehood.  For this reason, across the centuries there have been mystics who have withdrawn from society in order to remove themselves from the distractions of living in the world. But some modern mystics, such as  Thich Naht Hanh, Matthew Fox and Mohandas Ghandi have believed that to be mystical is to be fully aware of the sacred spark within each life, and that once we are aware of that sanctity then we have no choice but to do everything possible to make peace and justice in the world.

The belief in mysticism does not mean that one will be instantly enlightened and at one with all.  There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." That's reality.

When we become a true mystic, we accept our relationship not only with the Great Mystery, with the Beloved, but with all life.  And we accept our responsibility to join in the struggle for human dignity and planetary peace - to chop wood, to carry water.

Let us welcome the mystic into our congregation and into our hearts.  May love be the ultimate enchantment for us, and may we allow the sense of peace and unity that tugs at each of our souls to guide and inform us on the journey.