Why I Call Myself A Christian Mystic

On several of my social media platforms, I describe myself as a Christian mystic. People sometimes ask me what this means. I always direct them to the nearest dictionary.

  

Christian 

noun 

1. A person who believes in Jesus Christ; adherent of Christianity. 

2. A person who exemplifies in his or her life the teachings of Christ.

Mystic

noun

1. A person who claims to attain, or believes in the possibility of attaining, insight into mysteries transcending ordinary human knowledge, as by direct communication with the divine or immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy.

2. A person initiated into religious mysteries.

So that's what the actual words Christian and mystic mean, but of course, I still haven't properly explained what I mean when I refer to myself as a Christian mystic. Here goes.

First of all, yes, I am a Christian, and when I say Christian, I mean simply that. I don't identify with one branch of Christianity over another; I feel like I am holistically Christian, rooted in the essence of the faith, but drawing inspiration from its many variations. Basically, at the end of the day, Jesus is important to me: his story, his power, his love. I honestly don’t know where I would be without him.

And secondly, yes, I do feel like mystic is a decent word to describe me, by the above definition. My experience of my faith tends to be marked by mystery, wonder, emotion, and a sense of direct connection to spiritual realities. This makes sense because it is, after all, the way I experience life in general. Of course, I also go through periods of dryness wherein I feel distant from these things. On the whole, though, I think I have an unusually high incidence of what could be termed "mystical experiences," moments where the unseen world seems to suddenly unfold before my eyes, or an intense, surreal feeling of love falls on me out of nowhere, or I hear a quiet, gentle, piercing voice deep within my heart telling me exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

My spiritual life is very important to me; I consider it the central aspect of my existence. It defines everything else I am, everything else I do. I draw tremendous energy from it. My prayer is that I will be able to share this faith of mine with the world, sometimes in words, and sometimes merely by my presence. I want the deep love and vibrant joy I have from Jesus, to spread to those around me, like an atmosphere of healing, peace, and power.

People who listen

I'll remember the eyes that looked at me in light,
those gentle eyes that took in the dimensions of my mind without remodeling its space,
the eyes that simply
saw
me.

I'll remember the arms that welcomed me in peace,
those open arms that wrapped me up in wordlessness and helped me breathe,
the arms that simply
held
me.

I'll remember the hearts that listened to my own,
those loving hearts that didn't bother with the imposition of another rhythm or pace,
the hearts that simply
heard
me.

I'll remember the people who listen. Everyone else will fade out,
their noise turning out to be silence,
while silence turns out to be song.

My Philosophy

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.
Do not let pain make you hate.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.

Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree,

you still believe it to be a beautiful place.

- Kurt Vonnegut

When people ask me if I'm a pessimist or an optimist, I always hesitate. Frankly, I don't identify with either label. I like to say that more than focusing on either positives or negatives, I aim for something I call emotional honesty. I very much value being aware of life in all its nuances, both happy and sad, good and bad, beautiful and frightening. I don't think of myself as an optimist because I feel like being cheerful about everything all the time is avoiding the reality of all the pain and suffering that exists in the world. In the same way, though, I can't be a pessimist, because if I am paying any attention at all, the world is also ridiculously chock full of beauty and joy. Ignoring either side of the spectrum would be like going half-blind. I'm not into that option.

At the end of the day, though, if someone put a gun to my head and required me to choose either pessimism or optimism as my personal philosophy (a freak occurrence which I am not expecting, but you never know), I would have to side with optimism. This is because, in my heart, I truly believe that the good of life outweighs the bad, that good is the dominant force in the world, and evil's attempts to corrupt that good will ultimately fail. So even at ground zero, with thousands of innocent people reduced to ashes, I see the beauty of life outweighing the ugliness. I see in those ashes a heartbreaking reality, but also an undeniable truth that these beautiful people did exist, and each one of their lives was an epic story all its own, and none of them were necessary, none of them even had to be born. But they were born, they were here among us, and their presence on this planet made infinite amounts of difference to all of us, whether we know it or not. And the glory of those lives, although cut tragically short, vastly outshines the ugliness of death that tried to extinguish their power.

I don't like the label, but in the last analysis, maybe I am an optimist. Because, in spite of all the pain, all the bitterness, all the world's clamoring attempts to convince me otherwise... I still believe it to be a beautiful place. Life, light, and love will triumph; in fact, they already have.

One Person's Yawn Is Another's Excited Squeal

INFJ and INFP Empathy by Scott Morgan

Here is something extremely boring that I find extremely interesting.

This past year, I've become really interested in a famous personality assessment called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This assessment decides whether a person tends toward: 

extraversion or introversion (E or I),

sensing or intuition (S or N),

thinking or feeling (T or F),

and judging or perceiving (J or P).

I, for example, tend toward introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), and perceiving (P), so my Myers-Briggs type is designated by those letters: I am an INFP. For the mathematically disinclined among us, I'll just tell you right now that there are sixteen different possible combinations of these letters, and, consequently, sixteen different possible personality types, according to this system.

Now, to a lot of people, this may already sound hopelessly boring. If you're one of those people, you may not want to hang around my brain on a quiet Friday evening when I am lying facedown on my bed, chin in hands, lost in a world of super theoretical Myers-Briggs madness. Sorry, general populace, but for some reason, I cannot join you in your (perfectly understandable) boredom with this topic. I am low-key obsessed with it. I can literally think about it for hours on end and never grow weary of it. There are so many interesting applications of this theory, especially if you take the time to travel deep into its labyrinthine underbelly - which I have. I can tell you right now that there is a lot more to it than those four pairs of letters. It gets infinitely complicated... and, for me, infinitely fascinating.

Just as an example of the extent of my insanity: here is an incredibly dull video that I find incredibly anything but dull, on the topic of the types of empathy employed by two of the sixteen Myers-Briggs types: the INFJ and the INFP. I love this video, which is funny, because all that happens is a man with a rather monotonous voice sits in front of the camera and talks a bunch of uninteresting rubbish. But I am not kidding you - I get excited about this. Why? Because the gentleman describes me in this video. To a T. When he talks about the type of empathy employed by the INFP personality type, he is speaking the language of my soul, and it excites me. 

And I squeal. Excitedly. Over the most boring video on earth. But maybe you have some "boring" interests as well, things that excite you that would have someone else snoring within seconds. Which just goes to show you. [The title of this post.]

Music for the Triduum

 Miserere by Gregorio Allegri and Vladimir Ivanoff

The Triduum is what we call the three days before Easter Sunday: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. In traditional Christianity, these three days are meant to be a time of quiet reflection on the meaning of Easter, and are often marked by special church services commemorating the events of the last few days of the life of Jesus.

For me, the Triduum is very special. I always appreciate its dark, meditative mood, and the chance to focus on the sacrificial love of Jesus. To help me get in the right mindset, I like to listen to this album of sacred choral music by Gregorio Allegri and Vladimir Ivanoff. I find that the ethereal harmonies evoke the deep sense of mystery that pervades this season of the church calendar.

May this Easter weekend bring peace, joy, and hope to our hearts.

Secret Rooms

I don't know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public;

they forget that invisibility is a super power.

- Banksy

One of my all-time favorite books is The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, which tells the true story of Jews going into hiding from the Nazis in 1940s Amsterdam - all from the perspective of a highly normal teenage girl. I've read Anne's diary over and over. For some reason, I am obsessed with it. In fact, I am also in the process of collecting any and all related books and films about Anne's life.

When people ask me what I like about The Diary of a Young Girl, I tend to list Anne's personality first. Yes, she is one of those famous people, like Michael Jackson, who took a step toward me out of the annals of time and now feels like a friend. Secondly, I'll explain that I find myself attracted to the idea of ordinary people living under extraordinary circumstances. Stories like Anne's offer some semblance of an answer to the question, "What would I do if I had to face the unthinkable?"

Not much lower on the list of my personal pros for this book, though, is quite simply this: I love secret rooms. Anne herself, perhaps more than anyone else in the group in hiding, caught a glimpse of the mystery and magic of living in a secret annex. She was still young and romantic enough to see the fun in it, at least in the beginning, when the experience of going into hiding still seemed like a novel adventure.

Those rooms in the back of that Amsterdam office building, hidden behind a swinging bookcase, will forever hold a special place in the hearts of millions who cherish Anne's story. In my case, they also speak to a lifelong fascination with secret rooms. As a child I had recurring dreams about discovering secret rooms in the houses of family and friends. I'd open a special door and there it was, an ordinary space, full of ordinary things, and yet it was special because it was hidden. You could feel the mystery in the air.

Jews in 1940s Europe were hiding from a predator that sought nothing less than their lives. For them, hiding was about literal physical survival. But there are other reasons to hide, too. There are noble and beautiful reasons to want to go where no one can see you, to be hidden, to be alone. And there are other kinds of survival to be concerned about as well.

To me, it has always been important to keep some things in life a secret. There are parts of my heart that can be damaged by too much exposure to the outside world. Of course, openness and honesty are important, but there are times when flinging wide the doors to my soul is actually the opposite of honesty, because I have failed to be honest with myself. I know which things are too sacred, too painful, too beautiful to be shared. For a while, at least, they need to stay inside the secret rooms of my psyche, safe from the ceaseless pressure of being viewed and reviewed, judged and evaluated. Sometimes I find that I need to go into hiding, to be nourished and protected in the shadows of obscurity, that special space that only God and I can see. 

Things That Make Me Cry

The body of a seagull, wing splayed across the yellow line, blood splattered in its wake.
I tap the brakes, swerve around the carcass, and remember what seagulls look like when they walk, scuttling across parking lots for French fries. And I cry.

A crumpled scrap of paper I find on the library floor, scribbled with pencil: "I love you :) you can borrow my headphones and watch Netflix if you want."
I smile and think about people loving each other, in their imperfect, quirky little ways, and how they really do want to make each other happy, but sometimes they can't. And I cry.

A courtyard in the middle of a nursing home, a square plot of grass and cement, flanked by walls and windows and dying men watching game shows on television.
I discover the door and stare out at the sky, high heaven swirling in ice blue splendor, the almost imperceptible drift of the sun. And I cry.

Time passes. I see friends beside me, hear them laughing, hear myself laughing with them, and yet I know about calendars and clocks, and roads leading nowhere, and I know about space between, and cities fading in and out of focus along the freeway. And I know about cards in the mail, Christmas and birthdays and all that, fewer every year, and I know about ceremonies and certificates and everything that comes with it.

I know. Everyone knows. And most people laugh and turn up the radio. But I cry.