“Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist Mystic”
The sixth sermon in an occasional series
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
July 23, 2006
READINGS:
The first reading is from the 12th Century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen:
When I was forty-two years and seven months it happened that a light of great flashing poured down from the open sky, setting on fire my entire head, all my breast and my whole heart. Suddenly I was tasting a discerning of the meaning of books, of the psalter, the Gospels, of other …writers, of the Old and New Testaments. . . . Beaten down by many kinds of illness at the same time, I decided to put my hand to writing. Once I did this, a deep and profound exposition of books came over me. I received the strength to rise up from my sick bed, and under that power I continued to carry out the work to the end, using all of ten years to do it.
The second reading is by the late Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Jacob Trapp, who for part of his ministry served the nearby Unitarian Universalist congregation in Summit, NJ:
I like to think of mysticism as the art of meeting reality, or the art of richer and deeper awarenesses. ... It is an experience that comes unbidden ... [It is] a very special experience ... of that Oneness, a rare and wonderful realization of what always is but of which we are seldom aware, flooding in to overwhelm the illusion of aloneness, separateness. ... There are moments when life seems vivid and resplendent, when a more than mortal splendor breaks in, when there is a touch of grandeur and of glory in just being alive. ... In our experience ... of those moments when we're rapturously one with the wonder of all that is, we have some indication of what has been meant by the mystic experience.
SERMON:
My sermon this morning, "Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist Mystic," is the sixth in an occasional series which has been presented throughout the course of this past year.The earlier sermons were entitled, "Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist Buddhist," "...A UU Spiritual Humanist," "…A UU Christian,” “…A UU Pagan, and “…A UU Jew." Click on the sermon title links to read them online,
or look for them on the rack in the Church Narthex. My intention with this series has been to view life as a Unitarian Universalist, through a number of different theological perspectives, in ways that I hope will be of value to those of us who claim to be religious liberals embracing diversity and freedom of conscience in religious matters. Our faith tradition encourages us to look through different lenses with the hope of seeing larger glimpses of truth.
Since the title of each of these sermons begins with, "Why I am a Unitarian Universalist...," I'll start there by reviewing what I’ve said in the earlier installments. I am a Unitarian Universalist because here I am not told what to believe, but am asked what I do believe. And more, I am asked how that belief matters, not only in my own life, but in the world around me. I am asked here to accept things on faith, but on my faith-not anyone else's. I am a UU because I know my life's path is a journey and while I don't know just where it may lead or to what end, I do know that the content of my life consists of the experiences and choices that I make along the way. And I know that the quality of my life's journey is also closely related to the company I keep along the way. And so, I am a Unitarian Universalist because this faith tradition calls me into community – to make the most of, to do the best with, and to love the most fully I possibly can with this life I have been given. I am a Unitarian Universalist because I believe in the potential for human beings to learn and grow. And with that potential, I believe in the possibility of a better world, rooted more firmly in the ideals of truth, beauty, love and justice.
I had thought with the last installment in this series that I had completed my UU theological pedigree from the standpoint of saying all that I could from a first person singular perspective. I was convinced otherwise though, in a conversation with longtime Church member Nancy Brach. “I don’t know,” said Nancy, questioningly. “You’ve spoken over the years about a number of mystical kinds of experiences. Maybe you should add one on Mysticism.” She was right. And so here it is: Why I am a UU Mystic.
There is a considerable history of mysticism in our religious tradition, among both the Unitarians and Universalists. I don’t want to engage in a historical discourse this morning though, but rather a personal one. That’s where the mystical experience takes root – on the personal level.
Eco-Feminist Theologian, Charlene Spretnak wrote, “There are sacred moments in life when we experience in rational and very direct ways that separation – the boundary between ourselves and other people and between ourselves and Nature – is illusion. Oneness is reality.”
My recent sermon, “The Tree of Life,” was really an account of a very mystical experience. In it I gave an account of going out for a short walk on a pleasant autumn evening. In the midst of an encounter with a particularly lovely tree – presto – I became engaged in an experience of oneness with the entire universe. If you missed that one, copies of it are also available. This morning, I’ll relate three other stories of mystical experience. All of them are regarding ministry and one of them is specifically related to you.
Story I:
It was the spring of 1988. I’d been a stay-at-home dad for the previous eight years. It was a job I loved incredibly, but for months by this time I could feel that this phase of my life was drawing to a close. Over the years, I’d supplemented our family income by singing weekends in clubs and restaurants and by occasionally being very part-time employed as a counselor at local mental health centers.
I had actually begun to feel that a shift was underway several months earlier, in the fall of ’87. Shana, our youngest, would soon be of school age and I was ready for something new and different. I loved being with the kids. I enjoyed singing and the social work was rewarding. But the kids were growing up; singing was not something I could survive forever, and social work had its limitations. Something different was on its way; I could feel it.
All kinds of ideas passed through my mind. None of them was quite right. As the fall turned into winter, the feeling of change strengthened in clarity. The only thing was that the clarity wasn’t about what the change might be, but about when it would become evident. “In the spring,” I’d think to myself. “I’ll know what this is all about in March or April.” Judy thought I was crazy. I thought it was probably best not to tell too many others.
Then, one Sunday morning late in March, we got up to go the Unitarian Church, back in Davenport, Iowa, as we did nearly every Sunday. Even if we’d have wanted to miss, our kids wouldn’t have allowed it. So then, there we were at church. There was a guest minister preaching that morning, Pete Peterson. And smack in the middle of Pete’s sermon, quite seemingly out of the blue –wham – the clouds parted, the curtains were raised, the mists evaporated and the universe, in crystal clarity, appeared before me. Inside my head, I could hear my own voice say, “Ministry! The change I’ve been waiting for is about ministry. I’m going to become a minister.” I had many questions about what that might mean, but I didn’t have any questions whatever of the name of the path that had just been laid open before me. It Was Ministry!
I didn’t say anything to Judy about my experience then or after the service. About an hour later (I was never one to leave coffee hour before it was absolutely over), we were walking out to the car and Judy asked, “So, what are you going to do about it?”
“What am I going to do about what?”
“You know,” she said. “And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?”
“How did you know that I knew?” I asked.
“How could I not know,” she answered.
Within the next couple of weeks, I was approached by at least four of our friends from that congregation. “I’ve been thinking about you in the ministry,” each of them said. I was 37 years old and just in case I wasn’t bright enough to get the message, yet, it had somehow also been shared with some people I cared a lot about.
Story II:
Fast forward to just a year later. I was approaching the end of my first year of seminary and thought I’d go see my former minister, Alan Egly. Alan was now the executive director of a small, local, charitable foundation and he also served as a “Sunday Only” minister to the small Unitarian Universalist congregation down the river about 60 miles in Burlington, IA. I wanted to ask Alan if it might be possible sometime for me to go down to preach in Burlington, to get a little experience. So I gave him a call and he said he’d be more than glad to see me. So, we set up a time when I’d come to his office.
The day of our appointment, I drove to the address he’d given me. “Isn’t this odd,” I thought to myself. It was the same building that had housed my father’s life insurance office years before.
My father and I had always had something of a challenging relationship, and that’s putting the best face on it. He was a stubborn German, the father of ten children and someone who lived by rules, set rules and expected his children to unquestionably follow those rules. I, too, was a stubborn German; I was one of ten children and I found it necessary to question nearly everything. By my very nature with absolutely no effort at all, I drove my father crazy from as early as I can remember. Because of all the emotional baggage, there were times during my adult life, when several years would pass by without our communicating. Things were a bit better at this point though. He’d called on the phone only a few nights earlier to ask if I’d just seen my old high school play and win in the quarter final round of the State High School Basketball Tournament. I’d watched the game and we talked about it for a few minutes.
Now, I was riding up the elevator in his old office building and as I stepped out onto the floor of Alan’s office, I recognized that it was the same floor. I walked down the hall to the appropriate number and, sure enough, Alan’s office was in the very same suite that my father had occupied nearly two decades earlier. It felt very weird walking in.
Alan had been waiting for me, and not just that afternoon. He’d been waiting for months. He walked over to a cabinet, pulled out a big file and spread out a proposal for a program of student ministry with the Burlington Congregation – preaching and performing ministerial duties regularly. He had just been waiting for me to call. This was the beginning of a gift that would be disbursed over the next three years, but one whose dividends continue to enrich my life and my work, even now.
That night at supper I told Judy all about Alan’s plan and about how weird it had been to be back in my father’s old office. A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was Murray Osborn, my parents’ next door neighbor, someone I’d known most of my life. They had just taken my father to the hospital by ambulance. “You should come over, Charlie,” he said. “But don’t drive too fast. I know your father was gone, even before the ambulance got here.” Murray was right. My father was dead. There had been some kind of cosmic transfer in my paternal guidance that day.
Story III:
Fast forward now a couple dozen years. It’s now the evening of Wednesday, September 12, 2001. It was a rather numb day for most Americans, certainly for those of us in this area. I went to the Memorial Service that was held in the amphitheater over at the high school. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people from Montclair had gathered, mostly I think just to be together. Looking from my seat out into the crowd, I was able to catch the gazes of many of the members of our congregation who were there, including a number of our youth. What I observed was how their awareness of my presence made a discernable difference in their appearance. I watched the expressions on their faces brighten, even if only for a moment, because they had seen their minister there with them during that hour of need. Ministry is an extraordinary gift for everyone – it holds up for all of us the possibilities of love and goodness so that we can see them and from them draw hope and faith.
Ministry, when it is good, is never about just the minister. It’s a shared experience. It’s about everyone involved in it.
Following the ceremony, I had several conversations with folks. The last one was with a group of our youth who were there. They told me that they, too, were struggling to make some sense of it all. As we were talking, I began once again to experience, very much like I had before, the parting of clouds and a clarity of vision.
As I walked away from the group and toward the growing darkness of the evening, I experienced a very deep and profound moment of clarity regarding my call to ministry, here in Montclair. I hadn't been thinking about the sabbatical that I’d been scheduled to take that year at all. But what occurred to me at that moment was the wholehearted sense that I belonged here with this congregation, throughout that difficult year. I could see it; I could feel it as clearly as I could feel the warm summer air around me. The idea of sabbatical, or of being anywhere else, was incongruous with my understanding of being where the universe wanted me and where I needed to be.
Charlene Spretnak wrote, “There are sacred moments in life when we experience in rational and very direct ways that separation – the boundary between ourselves and other people and between ourselves and Nature – is illusion. Oneness is reality.”
I suspect that the physical world is closely accompanied by a mystical realm, a spiritual reality, and that mystical experiences are one of our closest connections to that reality. I don’t think it necessarily has to be supernatural in character, but I do think it’s something that we are often ill-equipped to understand. Just because we don’t understand something though, doesn’t mean that we need to deem it as insubstantial. We might not fully understand how or why radio waves or electricity work at their very core, but we can surely observe and appreciate their outcome. There is considerable substance, I can assure you as well, to each of the stories I’ve just related. They are far too poignant for me to dismiss as merely random occurrences.
In each of the three experiences, everything that I knew about the world, everything I was learning about it, everything that I understood to be good and true came together in an unambiguous experience of oneness. Unitarian Process-Theologian, Henry Nelson Wieman (my favorite theologian), referred to such moments as occurrences of mystical revelation. Wieman defined revelation as the experience of clarity and surety that occurs when the obstacles which often hinder our vision – psychological, spiritual or other blockages – suddenly part, and we are able to see deeply into the actuality and nature of things. Everything that we know and experience abruptly converges to provide us with a keen sense of attention and awareness.
Jacob Trapp, in our reading earlier, saw things similarly. “I like to think of mysticism as the art of meeting reality, or the art of richer and deeper awarenesses. ... It is an experience that comes unbidden ... [It is] a very special experience ... of that Oneness, a rare and wonderful realization of what always is but of which we are seldom aware, flooding in to overwhelm the illusion of aloneness, separateness ...”
Trapp called it an art, indicating that some sort of discipline is involved. Wieman also taught that revelation alone does not yield truth or knowledge. The tests of truth, he said, come from scientific methods of observation, by agreement among observers, or by the application of reason. I would include any other ways in which we might observe that our lives and the world have somehow been transformed or enriched as a result of the revelation. The truths and teachings that one discovers are not absolute and final, according to Wieman, but can be changed with further experience.
We can't choose to have mystical experiences, but we can choose to pay attention to them. If the universe is constructed in such a way that over the course of billions of years plant and animal species, including ourselves, have evolved in response to physical realities in a manner that is consistent with the continuation of life, then why would it not also follow that spiritual development was a part of that same evolution.
Mystical experience occurs. The question is how can we know if it is authentic or delusional? Jacob Trapp would consider such discernment an art form. Henry Nelson Wieman would describe it as a scientific process. I would assert that it is a process of moral and ethical values clarification.
The kinds of questions we need to be asking ourselves are: Does the mystical experience encourage us to do harm to ourselves, to others or to the planet? Or, does the experience encourage us to promote healing and wholeness on each of these levels? Does the mystical experience encourage us to feel that we are in a private relationship with the divine, or Nature, or All-That-Is? Or does it encourage us to the public conversation in which we are accountable for relationships from personal to global, to All-That-Is? I cannot help but to think that the escalating war in the Middle East is considerably fueled by and driven by what we might consider most unsatisfactory answers to these questions.
I don't just believe in mysticism. I am a Unitarian Universalist Mystic. That means I must always bring my reason to bear upon the meaning I make or find in my experience. It means that even my mystical experience must affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. It means that even my mystical experience must affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part.
I do not choose to be a Unitarian Universalist Mystic. Instead, the reality of my experience calls me. It calls me to accept things that I do not and cannot fully understand. I can do that. To be authentic I have to be able to accept what I experience as real. And yet, the way that I incorporate these experiences, the way that I process them, these are the things that I can choose. And more, it is the way in which I incorporate them into my life for which I am responsible, for which I am accountable.
We are all physical and mystical beings. We are all given glimpses from time to time of a larger picture that connects us to each other and to the planet. We are all given occasional glimpses of the very real ties that bind each of us within the web of existence, within the unity of all things. And then it is up to us to serve that unity.
I thank my lucky stars that I have found a religious community that allows us – encourages us – to integrate such experiences in ways that can permit us to feel sane and even, perhaps, productive. Can you imagine a world in which that was a common religious response? Now that would be a vision! The fulfillment of such a vision as that is in no small way in our hands. |
