07.13.08
Called to Question - a Mystic’s Musings About her Faith
I just finished reading “Called to Question” by Siser Joan Chittister, a true Mystic if ever there was one. Since she is a nun, she of course started out as a traditional believer. The whole book expounds on a personal journal she wrote during a phase when she was questioning her faith. There are no particular entries that describe a Rational stage of faith but the period of questioning would be typical of that stage.
Much of the book speaks of Joan’s wrestling with the line between the traditional religious institution into which she commited her life when still a young woman and the (Mystic) type of spirituality she has matured into as an older one. Joan’s criticism of her church is harsh at times, but cuts to some of the major weaknesses of the organized religions: “We (in churches) tie the soul down, we nail it to the canons, we snuff it in midflight…God save us from the smallness we practice in the name of religion.” (p. 13) ”When religion divides peoples on the basis of spirituality, rather than unites them as common creatures of a common God, it rends the garment of humanity.” (p . 14) “Would Jesus stay in the church today? In any of them? And if not, who would follow him out of it? Would I?” (p. 143) “The God we make in our own image is too small a God on which to waste our lives.” (p. 222)
Also hinted at is the agony of her decision to stay, to remain a nun in a church she now sees as dismissive of and unfair to women. “I spent my life supporting a church that wants nothing to do with women - and by staying in it, even to protest it, may be doing it yet…” (p. 135) She justifies her decision to remain a nun with “Unless we begin to be the church we want, that church will never come.” (p.134)
Of traditional prayer Joan writes: “When we turn God into a vending machine, when we pray to “get” things rather than to get God - there is no “enlightenment” in that.” (p. 45) “The purpose of prayer is simply to transform us to the mind of God….we go to prayer…to put on a heart of justice, of love and of compassion for others. We go to become new of soul.” (P. 146) It is really interesting to me how mystic language at first glance sounds so much like traditional faith. It is only when you stop and really think about what was said that you can tell this is a Mystic speaking.
But best of all is what this book can tell us about the Mystic type of faith. There is this good definition: “Mystics are people in whom the living God is a living reality, independent of denomination, irrespective of the brand of scriptures that underpin it.” (p 28) There are some other great quotes that explain the Mystic as well:
-”To awaken, to grow, we must be fully engaged in the process of living.” (p. 101) Here Joan was explaining that the most vital type of spirituality is not one of withdrawal from the world but one of full partcipation in life - its wins and its failures, its joys and its sorrows.
-”It is when we face God in one another, in creation, in the moment, that the real spiritual journey begins.” (p. 193) To Joan, God is not one who resides somewhere high above humanity; not someone “too other” to be sullied by it. On the next page she wrote: ” The very survival of the human race rests on our commitment to the spirit of God in human nature, in ourselves, in the other.” (another example of Mystic language sounding an awfully lot like tradtitional faith, until you think about it on a deeper level - here she is saying God is in us all!)
- “The spiritual life…is about love, not law: it is about grace and energy, the cosmos and creation.” (p. 226)
- Called to Question ends with the words “If we are created by God the Creator, then living creation well…is the ultimate spiritual life. Anything less than that, anything that divides life into opposing parts…may be religion, but how can it possibly be a healthy spirituality? That, without a doubt, must be questioned.” (p. 126)
A Mystic indeed!