The mystics slow us down enough to catch up with ourselves.
-Jim Finley
I first began reading the mystics in 2021 when I took my first solo retreat to Mt. Angel Abbey. I bought “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich and attempted to read it like any other book. Mind you, I was nearing the end of my Masters in Divinity and had been reading academically for the last five years. Yet, I was in the perfect place to slow down and read something drastically different from the mere intellectual fodder I’d been feasting on. But I couldn’t do it. I wanted to blaze past all the strange visions and poetry-type literature to get to the parts I already knew about. I only made it a quarter of the way in before I had to put it down to begin my research on Paul’s theology of suffering in 2 Corinthians for my colloquium project.
Now, a couple of years later, I found myself in the same predicament. I picked up St. Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle” at the same bookstore on Mt. Angel Abbey’s campus and began to read. Teresa by far was much easier to follow and yet, I continued to speed through it wanting to get to the next chapter to see what was in the next mansion. But I couldn’t do it. Instead, I got stuck. My comprehension level was being tested like never before and confusion set in. It wasn’t until I began taking a course on St. Teresa’s of Avila “Interior Castle” from the Center for Action and Contemplation that I understood the problem: I was moving too fast.
In the introduction of the course, Jim Finley addressed why the mystics are difficult to read and understand. First, he addressed cultural differences. They are writing from a context we need to understand a bit more in order to understand how or why they are writing the way they do. Secondly, the mystics are hard to understand because the writing is so intimate, they must be read like a prayer and not rushed. The mystics’ role is to slow us down and quiet our busy minds so that we can simply catch up with (or enter into, as St. Teresa would say) our own souls.
As an Enneagram 7w6, I naturally move at a fast pace: Onto the next thing, and the next thing, then the next (before the former things are even finished or ready). Slowing down feels counterintuitive when there is so much to do and read and learn! Yet, the further I move into this next half of life, I find myself longing for a slower pace. My soul seems to grow in spaces of quiet contemplation, feeling more rooted in sitting still than in rushing onward. I hold two degrees in Bible and Theology, and loved every minute of school and yet, I am in a season of unlearning. Not unlearning orthodoxy but orthopraxy, not right belief but right action.
The Center for Action and Contemplation’s vision says:
Contemplation is a way of listening with the heart while not relying entirely on the head. Contemplation is a prayerful letting go of our sense of control and choosing to cooperate with God and God’s work in the world. Prayer without action, as Father Richard says, can promote our tendency to self-preoccupation, and without contemplation, even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good.
Part of this right action for me is slowing down enough for inner transformation to take place and I feel like a beginner; entering my freshman year of rewiring my inner self in order to act from a deeper place. I have learned how to skim the surface of my faith well, believing that the only deep dives consisted of Biblical and Theological studies. This is not so because the depths don’t belong to us. They are not our intellectual playground to pencil down God with our tidy doctrines, they are the terrain of the Divine Mysteries, largely inaccessible to our thinking minds.
The other day, my good friend Debbie equated the mystics and contemplation to deep sea diving.
It’s like discovering the agonizing joy down at the bottom of the ocean and the training that must be done to experience the beauty of things in the underwater world. It’s natural and easy for us to be able to breathe on land, that is how we are made. For us to want to understand a God who made all the creatures on land as well as the creatures in the depth of the ocean, it’s a hard realization that his pinnacle of creation has very little access to the depths. So to experience the vast majority of God’s creatures, we must train our brains to use an apparatus to breathe underwater. Experiencing the slow painful descent as our lungs expand into the depths.
-D.S. Wilson
(A loose transcription from our discussion over Voxer. Find her Substack Soul Body Story)
The painful descent is the releasing of all that we know (read control) and depending on the apparatus of the Spirit to transform our inner selves. It’s the plunge into the unknown, experiencing the tension of pain and joy found in the descent and the relief of breath thereafter that moves us into right action. Yet, many will never take the journey and instead find solace in the things seen, accessing only what we can control. Rushing across the surface may get us to the next place, but who will we be when we get there? Even more, what will we do when our feet hit solid ground? Many of us will simply keep going but there is always a choice, as deep calls to deep, so the pull of the deep calls us all. Soul to soul. Divine to divine. Our lungs may be created for land but our souls belong to the depths.
The voice of the mystics today and ages ago remain in one accord: slow down, descend. Let your soul catch up. Leave the shallow waters of our ego; feel the restriction of Mystery and the expansion of Love.
This, my friends, is a lesson I will never master but I hope will master me.
❊ ❊ ❊
How this affects my writing
I need to slow down and spend more time with my writing. Cranking out a weekly newsletter has been fun and also challenging. I have discovered when I put all my energy here, I have little to no energy to write for other publishers. I have so many ideas for a new Mockingbird essay and even a pitch for Christianity Today but I simply do not have the capacity to write more words! With that said, I am pulling back on publishing a weekly newsletter to now a monthly (maybe bi-monthly) newsletter.
For my paid Subscribers, I will publish an extra essay each month still focusing on deeper dives into topics on spiritual practices.
I can’t tell you enough how much your support means to me! Thank you for reading my words and be assured, I’m not going anywhere. I just need to slow down, let my soul catch up, and go deeper!
Subscription Options
$0/Mo: Monthly personal essay on spiritual practices, community, and the occasional rant. (Out on the 1st Sunday of the month)
$5/Mo or $50/year: An extra monthly spiritual direction essay for those desiring to go deeper into spiritual formation. (Out on the 3rd Sunday of the month)
$ 150/year Courageous Patron: Receive all of the above, a gift in the mail, and my overflowing thankfulness for your support!
❊ ❊ ❊
May we all slow down for our souls to catch up, hear the call of the deep and take the plunge into the ocean of Divine Love.
Much love,
I've started trying to slow down more too, lately. Consume less and with more intention. It's tough work in this media-heavy world!
I absolutely LOVE deep sea diving into the mystical world of slowing and unknowing with you!!