The time came and went with discussion this afternoon, on phone. Some questions were asked, and I elaborated but went off on what I can call "verbal riffs." Thoughts and ideas flooded through any filters or masking needed in most situations. However, when we talk again, I did request that he just cut me off when I get off on especially past incidents of this and that, such as explain some aspect of mysticism, and then go into example of past that has various prongs and a point--but that point gets lost in the abundance of mystical experiences that enter into temporal life.
However, some aspects are established, such as no writing regarding hermits and hermit life as such, for that is not the essential or what the Lord desires of His purpose of me and my mission which is a shared purpose with all souls. We are all seeking even if we do not realize this seeking--we are seeking our Creator and seeking His love for us, and our created purpose is to also seek to find God so that we can forever, fully love Him.
Part of what I mentioned, brought out by the question asked me of what aspects of mystics did Prof. Bernard McGinn's lectures on Christian mysticism did pertain to me specifically? What was it of the information on mystics that particularly made me fearful in a way, or stunned all over again, that this life has been and is my life? And the reality of the shock, I guess I could call it, although I've had to face this shock before, somehow has been brought into more clarity through the lectures and hearing example after example of the mystics lives that are what I experience and have going way back. It was even when young, comments made or a sense of reaction on my part to what was not so much spoken but known within, an instinct that there was a difference going on, that caused me to all the more as I got older to try to mask or to try harder to fit in with what I perceived were "normal" people who I so admired and still do.
So I told Dr. H. some of the ways and time periods of my going all out to be to my way of viewing self or as my parents socialized me or others through their positive feedback--that I'd put time, energy, and sometimes some expense into the effort; and this mostly after someone or other would make a comment regarding my being "different" in various ways that also affected me temporally. I mentioned even a letter left me by the spouse who was leaving, a mention of my "mysticism" that unnerved the other. I had not heard nor read the word before so looked it up in the dictionary.
Regardless of this aspect the spouse had noted as a a reason for leaving, there were obvious choices and life style that the other had made all along in the short time together in the full spectrum of the years before and after. But the word was out in the open, and my reading what it meant seemed very good in one sense, but the rejection involved provoked an insecurity of my self-hood and a time period of desire to be free in myself and how God created me, but also then to change somehow at least in outer effects, what was not seemingly acceptable or would fit in with the world of others.
Insecurity invites all kinds of others into one's life who try to help and have various suggestions and advice. The one who has opened self up to feeling as if not acceptable to the real world of all the "normal" people begins to experiment in being other than self. Yet, there is never success in that tact; there is only a prolonging of the inevitable finding what one is that God has created, and accepting His choice as to what He created, and then learning to grow in the security, learn, bud out, and eventually be fruitful in the purpose and mission of God's will for what He chose for us and finds special and dear to His Heart.
This is true of whatever God has chosen for any of us--the purpose, the mission, the circumstances and innate nature He bestows and allows in each soul He creates and brings into this world. This is not unique to those He choses to be mystics with more mystic than less mystic. As Dr. McGinn uses as example, all of us are on the continuum, the spectrum of mysticism. God desires all of us to come to union with and in Him.
McGinn mentions that of basketball--such as everyone can love the game of basketball, and most people can play basketball or if not actually play physically can enjoy watching from the bleachers or from television or listen on radio to games broadcast. But not all are going to be playing on the A-team, and even fewer will have exceptional talent and play on the pro-teams. He likens the mystics who are called to be the A-listers and pro's, to those whose lives are foremost as mystics, consumed with God and the union with God, the love of God, and the mission of showing others and writing of and talking of God and the spiritual life of the Three Persons of the Trinity and all else involved in God and the mysteries of God.
I commented to Dr. H. that in this period of major transition, I am all over again being shown by God my purpose and mission, but I also can see through some of what I wrote in past years, that I have not nearly kept focus on the purpose and particularly the mission. I am upset by that and ashamed at the ways I have yet gone about in avoidance, seeking distractions and also continuing my efforts to fit in, such as especially to fit into the temporal Catholic world of parishes--to be acceptable as "normal" so as to be included by Catholic parishioners and priests, and even utilizable--even in some way as a mystic. But the Lord kept having to allow circumstances in my life to prune me and prevent me from what is not His means and ways of His purpose and mission for me, which is not so tangible nor a fruit desired and edible to those who know me or in a parish situation or even diocese.
Dr. H. got that; he can see the phases of my life and the increasing pruning and to point of nearly truncated. I have perhaps--we can hope in God and pray--accepted these matters, once and for all. I am not going to know if I'm "doing" what God wills such as in writing, but he did laugh when one of the examples from Dr McGinn on a commonality of the Christian mystics is that they have a compulsion to write. Dr. H. says he sure knows someone like that! But there are other aspects that hit home with me in the past few days.
These creatures known as mystics (and of the more on-the-court types, the ones with more pronounced infusions of the category or "sport") generally go through the mystical derelictions, have episodes in their life of great suffering of various types, sometimes seemingly odd timing causing pivotal life changes. They are intensely focused on God and the Church and feel deeply, as if they have become so subsumed as to be deeply injured and concerned with angst when there are affronts and wrongs occurring even if not noticeably, in the Church or priesthood, or among the worshippers. There also are the many spiritual experiences--not a couple or so major events of God's reaching into a person's life in soul-altering ways--but many and varied examples of mystical graces that come unbidden, spontaneously, but mark the mystic.
And while the mystical graces or experiences are signs, they are actually incidentals or ancillary to the mystic but cause problems often enough, among others. The mystics experience and endure many trials of spiritual and temporal forces and factors. the mystics of these more extreme types are put through the paces in order to learn what is necessary for the mission they are given, and in part, that mission is as fruit for others, for the Church. But mainly, I am realizing this evening as I write and have had thoughts come since the phone discussion--the mystic is to exemplify that of a love for God with intensity that other aspects of life will be set aside, even relationships that are not beneficial to the mission, or of what would be considered best regarding temporal Catholic world involvements.
I commented to Dr. H. that I feel as if I have been a bench-sitter, not willing to get out there on the court and give it my all. I've been a reluctant and passive mystic, despite the profundity of mystical graces. Even my writing has been off-track on hermit topic, or drawn off in reactionary writing with someone other whose purpose was not as a mystic but rather as something other equally chosen by God and desired and willed by God.
A mystic must stay in the position God created the mystic soul to live in this life and to play it with all its mind, heart, soul, and spirit--not be diverted or splinter off even if there are aspects given the hermit that can be misunderstood and distract. The hermit life for this mystic is the means of custody for this mystic to be able to better fulfill its mission, not to be this mystic's mission. Whereas other persons' mission might be the hermit life itself.
So when Dr. H. at the end of the conversation mentioned per my writing as part of my mission in what fruit I am to share and offer, he suggested I will need to learn to write in a way and with words that, as he put it, the everyday person in the world who does not even begin to think about such matters would relate with and understand--he might have even used the term the average duffer or something similar.
However, that got my inner to consider what keeps coming forth that is telling me, no, you must be congruous, real, yourself, as I created you. You do not have the energy now to expend on trying to write in some other style, or to use a vocabulary that is not given you through your temporal education, what does not come naturally to mind and out the fingertips on the laptop keys.
And more, I realized that perhaps what I write is for God, to please God, my whole self as fruit to Him and Him only? Solus Deus? I thought of a friend who enjoys fiction although also loves to read Scripture each day, has a prayer life of whatever level it does not matter, not for me to know, of course. But she mentioned the title of a book--and she reads as many do for entertainment. I looked up the book as is part of a trilogy of which two more books are being sent that are eagerly awaited. I read an excerpt, and all the more I understood the differences.
It has been years since I lost appetite for fiction. But these are best sellers, and a well-known author, but I was stunned by how I'd no more find interest or even structural artistry; the content seemed dumbed down somehow. I realize that what people read and enjoy would be great effort on my part to write. My bodily pain would not allow for that expenditure in that way. Thus the thought came, the realization, that what I write might not at all be as Dr. H. has in mind--not for a broad spectrum of people. What if the fruit God has for me to produce is a kumquat or gooseberry?
At this point, as I mentioned to Dr. H. in feeling I've been a bench-sitter on the basketball team to which he said he was going to have the role of pushing me off the bench and fully into the game, I'd better just get to writing of whatever the Holy Spirit brings up in everyday life but with my assenting to all that God wills for me as a mystic. I have shirked and shrunk for too many years. I am ashamed and even concerned that I have not cooperated with God Who has been so good, so patient, so generous in the gifts both temporal and mystical.
I have resisted passing through the mystic portal. Even now, or recently, I ordered doors, windows, and oodles of flooring cartons that I will have to impose upon others to help find places to store them in the stuffed and messy garage (needs organizing), on the back patio, and in the house wherever we can make space. We? Well, I am not physically able to do much of anything at this point. I'm not even that fit for writing, it seems when the pain is super high. But more so, I have shirked the praying--unless my writing becomes as prayer in itself. Perhaps sometimes.
I did read the poem to Dr. H. that I had forgotten having written in 2011. Nor did I recall the other aspects going on then in which God was asking of me to pass through, to accept fully and agree to being the person He chose to create and wants of me--loves of me even if what I am is not understood nor that acceptable or valued by the bulk of persons. That is all part of the plight of mystics in general. But usually in a mystic's life, the mission part becomes pronounced, and God allows the fruit to grow and be cultivated, picked, and offered for whomever desires. Mostly this is after the mystic has physically passed on from this temporal world.
Even then, such as if the mystic in the compulsion to write and write, what is written might be tossed in a dumpster by whomever clears out the mystic's belonging after death. But the fact is, the mystic must give its all to the purpose for which God chose to create such a woe-begotten type and to give its all to God to fulfill its mission. That mission continues to evolve here, now, with this mystic, but it must be authentically from within whatever this is of myself. And it must focus on Jesus, take care of Baby Jesus, just adore Him and yet share anonymously in writing what evolves and unfolds.
A mystic is to remind those who want to see the mystic spectrum and that we all are in a continuum of being on that spectrum, and that our purpose and innate yearning as souls is to seek God our Creator to love Him and be united in Him eternally. The fruit is as all else with a mystic--really, up to God as to if it is picked up and eaten and enjoyed by others. There is not just one mystic of the more extreme type at any given time on earth. And even the bench-sitter mystics might be called by the coach to become more fully engaged and on the court.
All is God's will and choosing. But I had better remove myself from distractions deceptively slight, and devote myself more to the practice of praise of God and prayer. Even a mystic on the bench must attend and participate all team practices and do the necessary bodily and mental regimens that lend to successful outcomes.
God Bless His Real Presence in us!
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