Albert Haase / Haase / OFM Becoming an Ordinary Mystic

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8308-7057-8
Verlag: InterVarsity Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

I should be further along on the spiritual journey. Why don't I see any progress? What am I doing wrong? Do you ever feel like you are walking in spiritual circles? While we might think it would be different for a Franciscan priest, Father Albert Haase shares the same struggles. And yet he also affirms that we are all called to be ordinary mystics, who, in the words of his own spiritual director, are 'ordinary Christians who do what we are all called to do: respond to grace.'Learning to be a mystic is about cultivating a life with God in which we draw close, listen, and respond moment to moment. We know we will fail at times, but we can also be certain that we follow a God who never stops reaching out to us. This book offers a daily path to making the connection.

Albert Haase, O.F.M. (Ph.D., Fordham University), is adjunct professor of spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. He is also director of the School of Spirituality at Mayslake Ministries in Westmont, Illinois. A former missionary to mainland China for over a decade, he is the coauthor of Enkindled and the author of Instruments of Christ (both published by St. Anthony Messenger Press).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Albert Haase, Ofm

Haase, Albert

OFM,

Leseproben

Chapter 1

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

MINDFULNESS BREEDS MYSTICISM

I had just flown back to Texas the night before, and here I was again at the Dallas–Ft. Worth International Airport, preparing to fly to San Diego where I would preach for five days. Having been on the road preaching and teaching for three consecutive weeks, I was weary. Luckily, because I am a Premier 1K frequent flyer on United Airlines, I received a free upgrade to first class.

I boarded the plane, settled into my seat, and searched the free television shows on the screen in front of me. I also sipped some orange juice, stretched my legs, and looked forward to some rest during the three-hour flight to California.

Once we reached our cruising attitude of thirty-seven thousand feet, the pilot welcomed us and turned off the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign. By this time, I was thoroughly engrossed in a movie and enjoying myself. Suddenly a question came out of nowhere. Did I lock my car before leaving the airport parking lot? I became distracted and unsettled. The question niggled at the back of my mind. I shifted in my seat and asked myself again, Did I or didn’t I lock the car? I couldn’t remember hearing the car beep, indicating it had been locked. Before long, I was beating myself up. How could I have been so foolish and irresponsible? What if someone breaks into my car?

Though physically I was in the first-class cabin thirty-seven thousand feet in the sky, mentally I was still on the ground, stuck in the DFW airport parking lot with guilt from the past and worry about the future. I was again in two places at once.

STUCK IN THE AIRPORT PARKING LOT

Many of us experience this divisive bilocation. Some of us are here and yet we live in the past, beating ourselves up with guilt for something we did days, months, or even years ago. Kieran lives with the daily guilt that his drinking has destroyed his family. Jason bitterly regrets waiting a day before returning to his mother’s bedside; she died early that morning. Marge wishes she could erase last year’s act of infidelity. The Chinese say, “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today,” but some people allow it to do just that. Guilt drains us emotionally, keeping us morosely self-absorbed and unable to be present to the moment at hand.

Others are like Marc. “I’m a worry wart,” he confessed. “I fret over whether I’ll have enough money saved for my retirement. I lose sleep over my children and the choices they are making. I stew over tomorrow’s staff meeting and agonize, Do I have everything prepared that my boss wants?” People like Marc bite their fingernails and obsess over things they cannot control. A Chinese proverb says, “That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change; but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.”

A newborn baby, on the other hand, doesn’t know the past or future. An infant lives in the present moment. When she is hungry, she cries. When he sees something pleasurable, he smiles. An infant demonstrates that guilt, worry, and anxiety are not natural. These responses are learned as we grow up and mature: “Just wait until your father gets home!” teaches the young boy to feel guilty; overhearing a fretting parent saying, “I’m not sure how we are going to pay the bills this month” exposes a young girl to worry and anxiety. These learned responses keep us on the ground and stuck in the airport parking lot.

So often people say that we should look to the elderly, learn from their wisdom, their many years. I disagree, I say we should look to the young: untarnished, without stereotypes implanted in their minds, no poison, no hatred in their hearts. When we learn to see life through the eyes of a child, that is when we become truly wise.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Jesus insisted we unlearn a lot. He did not want us to be imprisoned in the past with guilt and regret. So much of his ministry was focused on forgiving and freeing sinners from their past (Matthew 9:6; Luke 7:47; 23:34). Because Jesus did not want us stumbling into tomorrow with worry and anxiety, he urged followers to live in the present moment (Matthew 6:34). His teaching was simple and direct: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

There’s a lot of contemporary chatter on the web, social media, and television about being mindful and living in the present moment. International bestsellers such as Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment cause us to wonder: “What’s the big deal? How can this practice be helpful to the Christian disciple?”

The practice of mindfulness is traditionally associated with Buddhism. In that tradition, it refers to the intentional, nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment. It includes attending to the here-and-now and monitoring the thoughts that float down the stream of consciousness. We don’t judge those thoughts—we just notice them and let them go. The focus is on ourselves and how our thoughts, sometimes judgmental, shape our understanding and reaction to the present moment. By monitoring our thoughts and their interpretations of different situations, we discover how the mind is a source of so much suffering.

For the past fifty years, many medical doctors and psychologists have promoted mindfulness as a technique to achieve a healthy lifestyle. It has been proven to help reduce depression, stress, and addiction. It can increase inner peace.

And it’s not just beneficial to our mental and physical health—it’s also useful for efficiency and productivity in the workplace. In 2007, Google started offering its employees a seven-week mindfulness meditation course called Search Inside Yourself. Those who have gone through the course speak of being calmer, clear-headed, and more focused.

I’m not a Buddhist. I’m not a medical doctor. I don’t work for Google. I’m a committed Christian and a Franciscan priest. I won’t argue with the benefits of mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition or according to medical science and the Harvard Business Review. Our thoughts and inner dialogue do, in fact, enslave us at times. Mindfulness techniques do, in fact, help many people live a fuller, more productive life. However, our Christian tradition offers a richer, deeper understanding of the present moment that goes far beyond a cessation of mental suffering, physical ailments, and work distractions. Indeed, it fosters a mystical spirituality that leads to being reborn as a child.

Abandonment to Divine Providence, traditionally ascribed to the late seventeenth, mid-eighteenth century Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade, gives us some insight into the Christian mysticism of the here-and-now. De Caussade calls the present moment a “sacrament.” It is holy because it is the portal through which God and angels walk into our lives. Think of the Lord visiting Abraham and receiving hospitality at Abraham’s tent in Mamre (Genesis 18:1-33) or Gabriel’s visit and invitation to Mary (Luke 1:26-38). To live with attention to the present moment is to be open to a divine visitation.

The story of elderly Simeon also alerts us to this (Luke 2:25-35). Though the elderly are often stereotyped as living in the past with sentimentality, the devout Simeon eagerly lives in the present and waits for a divine promise to be fulfilled: to see the Lord’s Messiah. His eyes are wide open and his heart is tight with expectation. When Joseph and Mary bring the newborn Jesus into the temple to perform the customary rituals of the Mosaic law, Spirit-led Simeon’s heart breaks wide open and flowers, his eyes twinkle, and he betrays his mindfulness of the present moment with the first words out of his mouth: “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word” (Luke 2:29). With a mystical vision rooted in the present moment, this righteous man gazes upon the divine.

The prophetess Anna reveals to us another kind of mindfulness, born not of a Spirit-impulse like Simeon’s, but from seventy-seven years of grieving in continual temple prayers and fasting (Luke 2:36-38). In a flash, the veil of the ordinary is momentarily lifted and she beholds the Word made flesh in an infant. This moment moves her to break forth in praise as she witnesses the beginning of salvation history’s conclusion.

But the present moment is a sacrament for another reason. In de Caussade’s words, “Every moment we live through is like an ambassador who declares the will of God.” The here-and-now should not be dismissed or ignored because it reveals the divine longings and yearnings in the most ordinary of situations: the outstretched hand of the poor, the cry of the infant, the twinge of conscience to forgive a neighbor, or the Alzheimer’s patient needing to be fed. This moment’s unmet need or required duty, as Abraham and Mary remind us, affirms and proclaims God’s ardent longing and enthusiastic invitation to a deeper relationship with each one of us. If a familial relationship with Jesus is determined by doing the will of God (Matthew 12:50), ordinary mystics are those who attentively respond with childlike wonder to the simple, tedious details of everyday living....