Mysticism

If ever there was a time for mysticism, Advent is it. This is a time of waiting for something that many people believe to be nonsense. A time of waiting for ancient prophecies to be fulfilled and for humanity to be saved.

Frederick Buechner has written in numerous works about mysticism within Christianity, affirming that “we are all more mystics than we think.” He writes,

In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment (Buechner, Frederick, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith. Harper Collins, 2004).

That moment, that breathless, heart-stopping moment, is the world of the mystics. While some mystics claim they never again felt distant from God after realizing mystical union, others acknowledge that they have found themselves passing through periods of greater or lesser awareness of that union, and sometimes painfully so. One of the most frustrating things about this pattern is that there is nothing that can be done about it. No amount of prayer or other spiritual disciplines provides a magical formula that restores the greatest awareness of God’s presence.

So how can we be mindful in the midst of Advent’s many activities? How can we practice a daily awareness of God’s presence and love in our lives?

Advent gives us the answer. Advent holds the key. We do it by waiting. We do it by simply keeping watch. We make ourselves ready with the prayer of stillness and silence. We tend our house by loving God, our neighbors, and ourselves, remembering that God is love. We try not to deny our feelings when God seems distant, and we avoid masking them with the vanity and arrogance of false spiritual powers. We may suffer, but we do so with faith, hope, and generosity of spirit.

And those are the lessons, and the gifts, of Advent.

Jeannette de Beauvoir