Celtic/Mystic, part two
The always well-connected Mike Morrell, in response to what I wrote yesterday about Christian mysticism and Celtic spirituality, muses:
Popular consciousness … tends to lump Celtic Christians and Contemplative Christians in the same corner, whether as an admirer (like myself) or a detractor.
Mike, I certainly understand. Celtic spirituality, whether Christian, pre-Christian, or non-Christian, is often described by both its advocates and its critics as “mystical.” So for the longest time I conflated the two as well. (more…)
Celtic/Mystic
Wow. My short little notice of John O’Donohue’s death keeps getting the hits, a week after his passing. Welcome to everyone who has found my blog through that posting, and I hope you’ll stick around.
Lately I’ve really been writing a lot more about Christian mysticism in general rather than Celtic Christianity in particular, which is a reflection not only of where I’ve been spiritually in recent months, but also the fact that I’m currently writing a book on Christian mysticism. But I am convinced that the uniquely Celtic expression of the Christian faith remains a vitally important source for healthy and creative spiritual wisdom.
In many ways, “Christian mysticism” and “Celtic Christianity” are at odds. Mysticism is grounded in the encounter between Christianity and Greek philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. Celtic Christianity is grounded in the encounter between Christianity and indigenous Celtic wisdom: for lack of a better word, Druidism. (more…)
Philip Carr-Gomm
I have just discovered Philip Carr-Gomm’s blog.
Philip is a Druid, in fact he’s the chief of OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids). His writing is filled with gentle wisdom and clear insight into the philosophical dimensions of Celtic wisdom. I particularly recommend The Druid Way. Throughout his writings I’ve always found a deep hospitality and honoring of all positive wisdom traditions.
Delight
Here are two of my favorite verses in the Hebrew scriptures:
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
— Psalm 37:4
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.
— Zephaniah 3:17
I don’t know about you, but in all my experience growing up in a stick-in-the-mud Lutheran Church no one ever suggested to me that spirituality is all about God taking delight in us, and inviting us to do the same in response. How might our children’s experience of religion be different, if this were the central message they got when they went to church?
I’ve quoted these passages from the New International Version because in that translation they both use the English word “delight” — but other translations convey the same spirit, if not the exact same wording. Joy and rejoicing… favor…. jubilation… exulting. Wow. God exults over us, God rejoices in us, God is passionately into us. Which is, of course, what Julian of Norwich kept saying.
Now, if only I can remember this when I’m stuck in Atlanta traffic!
Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
When I was studying the cosmology of Wicca, one of the most fascinating concepts to me was that of the egregore, or “group mind.” When a group of people gathered for a common purpose, particularly if it were spiritual in nature, their collective psychic energy would begin to coalesce into an organic form of transpersonal consciousness that would remain silently present in the midst of the group’s activity. The egregore would be located in a particular place, typically where the group gathered for its ceremonial work. The more focussed and adept the group was at raising energy, the more powerful the egregore became. It was seen as a sort of psychic bank, into which those who are magically gifted could invest their energy for the benefit of the group as a whole. Eventually the egregore would exert its own influence on the group, shaping and directing the group’s ongoing sense of identity, purpose and mission.
Egregore comes from the Greek work ἐγρήγοροι (egrḗgoroi), which means “watchers.” If you love hymnody half as much as I do, you already see the fascinating thread I want to follow here; for in 1906 an Anglican layman named Athelstan Riley wrote Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, a lovely hymn that celebrates the communion of saints in glory (and which repeats the word “Alleluia” a whopping twenty-six times). The first stanza goes like this:
- Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
- Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,
- Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!
- Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,
- Virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs:
- Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
It’s basically a run-down of the nine celestial choirs of angels, as originally formulated by the greatest of the early mystics, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote around the year 500 CE. The idea basically is that the heavenly host is arranged hierarchically (yes, it was Pseudo-Dionysius who either coined or immortalized the word “hierarchy” both to describe the ranking of angels and the ranking of church authority) in nine choirs. But Riley calls the entire bunch of them “Watchers” and “Holy Ones.” So what is that all about? (more…)
Quote for the Day
Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so.
— The Rule of St Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, O.S.B.
Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny
Today is Sandy Denny’s 61st birthday. Well, she would have been 61 today. But this coming April will mark the thirtieth anniversary of her untimely death at age 31, from injuries sustained when she fell down a flight of stairs.
A British vocalist of singular elegance and beauty, Sandy sang with the Strawbs and, more famously, with Fairport Convention. But for those who are not familiar with British folk and progressive rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s, she is probably best known as the guest vocalist on the song “The Battle of Evermore” on Led Zeppelin’s “Zoso” album.
As lovely as her guest vox opposite Robert Plant may have been (and, yes, it was gorgeous), Sandy was at her best when singing either traditional tunes like “Tam Lin” or “Matty Groves” or her own compositions, such as “Listen, Listen,” “Fotheringay,” or her signature “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”
God bless Youtube, where so many videos of artists who are no longer with us have been archived. Here’s a glimpse of Sandy Denny (the technical quality is pretty marginal, but remember this is an archival recording from the 1970s):
Genesis/Galatians
One of my favorite coyotes, Phil Foster, has challenged me thusly:
Quick, Carl – a blog entry on the relationship of Christianity, agnosis and sexuality. Begin with Song of Songs. Or, to paraphrase Genesis, male and female – and God saw that it was good.
My first thought is that this big topic could go in all sorts of directions. (more…)
John O’Donohue (1956-2008)
I am saddened to have learned of the passing of John O’Donohue, author of Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, this past Thursday. He died peacefully in his sleep while on holiday in France. Read the announcement on his website.
In 1999 I had the privilege to interview him for a book industry trade publication; you can read the interview here.
He was not only one of the most articulate voices of living Celtic Christianity and Celtic wisdom, but he also had a clear grasp of the beauty of Christian mysticism as well. He was a trained philosopher with a prodigious intellect. He was the only person I’ve ever met who could effortlessly and lyrically weave together allusions to Martin Heidegger, Meister Eckhart, and the Tuatha Dé Danann in a single sentence.
Rest in peace, John O’Donohue. Walk gladly in the light of Tir na n’Og.
Holy Agnosis
Something that I keep mulling over is the relationship between gnosticism and agnosticism and how both of these categories relate to contemporary Christian mysticism and Christian spiritual practice.
We know that Gnosticism was the first great Christian “heresy.” But we also know that early mystics like Clement of Alexandria and Origen spoke of a holy gnosis as an essential part of the Christian experience. In our day, Christian wisdom teachers like Cynthia Bourgeault and the late Valentin Tomberg advocate for the pursuit of Christian gnosis.
What is the difference between Christian and heretical gnosis? I’m not sure if we can really speak definitively about the spirituality of late antiquity, but for our time, let me hazard a guess. Gnosis is holy insofar as it refers to an experiential encounter with Divine Grace; it becomes heretical when it functions as a wedge that separates the “haves” from the “have nots,” thereby creating a spiritual elite, marked by a strong dualism (rejection of the body = rejection of matter = rejection of the ‘unsaved’).
Put another way, profane gnosis deals in certainties and absolutes, while holy gnosis deals in relationship and experience.
So now: what is the relationship between gnosis and agnosis? To many people, agnosticism is seen as an enemy of faith, closer to atheism than to Christian spirituality. I see it differently. I think true Christian spirituality is deeply agnostic, in the sense that it celebrates both the knowability and the unknowability of God: God is both immanent and transcendent. Anything we say or think about God is, ultimately, not-God. Even our experience of God represents something “other” than the fullness of the Divine plenitude. Granted, Christian agnosticism is profoundly different from secular agnosticism: the Christian agnostic says “I love what I do not know” unlike the secular agnostic who says “I disbelieve what I do not know.” But both of these forms of agnosticism need to be distinguished from atheism and religious dogmatism/fundamentalism, which as I have suggested before, are really each other’s shadow.
So ironically, it seems that for the aspiring mystic, both holy gnosis and holy agnosis are necessary. We seek the knowledge of experience, and in doing so, we remain humbly aware that no knowledge, no experience, can ever capture God in God’s fullness.
Magic and Miracles
Recently I was bemused by a review of one of my Neopagan books in which the critic, in panning the book, accused me of “not believing in magic.” I thought, “Well, if she means I don’t believe in magic the way a 6-year-old believes in Santa Claus, I guess she’s right.” Still, it was interesting for me to ponder about how I think about magic, both now (almost three years after entering the Catholic faith) and then (the book in question, Before You Cast a Spell, was written in 2003).
I first was drawn to Neopaganism — particularly the spiritualities of Wicca, Druidry, and Asatru — because I was interested in an earth-centered and post-patriarchal way of expressing myself spiritually. That’s what I thought Paganism was all about, thanks to reading books by folks like Starhawk, Margot Adler, and Philip Carr-Gomm. Alas, once I got into the Pagan world, what I mostly found were a lot of folks wrapped up in the chase for secret knowledge and spiritual power, both of which categories were rolled together under the umbrella term of “magic” (or “magick,” to use Crowley’s rather pompous revisioning of the word). Hindsight is 20/20, and I realize that, given my unwillingness to buy into the fantasy/superstition of Pagan magic, I was ill-suited to be a Pagan from day one. But I’m nothing if not stubborn, and so I stubbornly tried to make it work — to find some way I could reconcile my naturally skeptical mind with what seemed to me to be the mostly naive if not childlike approach to this notion of magic that I encountered at every turn in the Pagan world.
The question I kept pondering about magic was simply this: “How does it work?” No one — none of the books I read, none of the websites I visited, none of the teachers I studied under — could provide me with a satisfactory answer. (more…)
Teresa
I’ve just uploaded the newest entry to my Mystics page, on Teresa of Ávila.
Quote for the Day
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few sources of information left that is served up without the silent black noise of a headline, the doomy hullabaloo of a commercial. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.
— Edward P. Morgan, Clearing the Air (1963)
