Brigid’s Well
I’ve created a new page for this website that I’m calling the Holy Well. Eventually I’d like it to be a page devoted to Celtic Spirituality, in much the same way as my Mystics page is devoted to the great contemplatives of the western tradition and the Spiritual Formation page is devoted to the practice of Christian spirituality. But for now, I needed some content just to get the page going, so I resurrected a page from the old “Brigid’s Well” website I had set up in my druid days. Basically it consists of photographs taken at the Holy Well dedicated to Brigid just about a mile away from the town center of Kildare.
To this day I consider Brigid’s Well the epicenter of my spiritual quest that found in the riches of indigenous Irish spirituality a lovely doorway into the Christian mysteries. I hope you’ll enjoy these pictures and that they can give you at least a glimpse of the natural loveliness and prayerful spirituality to be found in this peaceful place.
Visit the Holy Well page.
Mystics and Contemplatives
The ever-perceptive Phil Foster asks in a recent comment on this blog:
Is there a difference between a mystic and a contemplative type? I’m certainly the latter but not the former.
Phil, I think your second sentence in this quotation goes a long way toward answering the question. A “mystic” as I see it, is one who has been ushered into the mysteries — and it is God who does the ushering. So, while on one level we are all mystics (as William McNamara puts it in his book Earthy Mysticism, “A mystic is not a special type of person; each person is a special type of mystic”), it’s also important to bear in mind that “becoming a mystic” is not so much something we do as something we receive. Meanwhile, a “contemplative” as I see it is one who watches or observes (it comes from a Latin root that means something along the lines of “observing the auguries”). Thus, in terms of Christian spirituality, the contemplative is one who watches for the gift of mystical union. We cannot choose to be mystics, but we can choose to be contemplatives. Contemplation is essentially what we do in order to be prepared to receive the mystical gift, kind of like the bridesmaids who kept their lamps trimmed and burning.
Now, having said all this, I should note that my definition of contemplation is not the same as what you’ll find in the classic writings of mystics like Teresa of Avila or John of the Cross. They speak of “infused contemplation” which is, again, a gift from God, not something of our own doing. So in their language, contemplation belongs to the same category in which I have placed mysticism.
Does that clear things up a bit? 
