Category Archives: About the Author
Being a Mystic
“The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion.” – Albert Einstein
January, 2012 will be the beginning of my 35th year of experiencing being captured by the God of my understanding. The first year, I didn’t have any labels for it. If you are a mystic, you generally have to be told by someone else that you are a mystic and find out for yourself what that means. It was only after I read William James’s book, The Varieties of Religious Experience that I had a label of “radical conversion”. Soon after this, someone asked me if I knew what mysticism was and I was able to add another label. I am a Christian but have gained much insight from studying all religions and incorporating other practices into my spiritual experiences.
Mystics are found in all faiths and/or religions. Beginning the mystic journey, each pilgrim has an individual journey yet all will have some common ground with other mystics. For my 35th-year journey, I have let go of most of my earthly ties to family and friends. I felt an extreme urgency to experience and study my inner experience. So, although God’s gift is free, it isn’t cheap. I have lived without most of my family for most of the 35 year experience. I have never made a lot of money or taken the time to climb the ladder. I have driven cheap cars and owned very little materially. But I did what I wanted to do–follow the God of my understanding as best I could. My reward has been Heaven on earth–the peace, love, joy, contentment, fun is amazing. And I look forward to life’s greatest adventure–giving up this bodily burden.
Some of the spiritual techniques that my help for your spiritual journey are:
(1) centering prepares us for the Presence of God;
(2) deep breathing helps us to quiet our mind because we can only think one thought at a time–when we are counting our breaths in and out, our mind is focused on one thought relieving our anxiety;
(3) meditation and prayer;
(4) mindfulness.
According to Carl McColman, who writes The Website of Unknowing, a soul friend is a friend who provides others with coaching, support and guidance as they progress along the path toward fulfilling their spiritual and mystical potential.
“Of Mystics and Activists” by Peter J. Leithart
‘The Challenge of Understanding Mysticism” by Richard D. Engle
“Understanding Mysticism” by Matthew Bingley
Don’t Make a Permanent Decision About a Temporary Emotion
Because I am a person who during two years of clinical depression thought about suicide, I now deeply believe that the decision to kill yourself could be averted by the right positive stimulus. In other words, in fifteen minutes, the person contemplating suicide might be able to make another decision. The act of suicide reminds us that there are those around us who are struggling with being able to cope with self-hatred so overwhelming that it truly feels like a stone along your neck. Letting go of these thoughts is my main coping skill. They are just thoughts. I feel no guilt for them but I quickly release them. I think of Robert Frost’s poem, a man acquainted with negative emotions:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
One of my favorite, favorite writers in the field of addiction recovery is Syd whose blog I’m Just F.I.N.E.—Recovery in AlAnon, includes this excerpt from his entry entitled, “The view from the bridge”:
“It is warm today, nearly 75 F. It still feels like fall to me. But I will take it over the long days of cold weather that would permeate whatever I put on in Virginia. Yesterday at the marina was picture perfect–blue sky, light winds, warm temperatures. I watched the boats going past looking for the body of a young woman who jumped from the bridge over the weekend. Her body has not been found.”
”She was described as her room mates as cheerful, vivacious, beautiful, athletic, and from a loving family. Yet, for some reason, she decided to scramble over the barricade that separates the walkers and runners from the precipitous edge of the bridge and jump over 160 feet into the water below. A passerby said that she saw the young woman standing there, and she turned to smile. A smile of resignation? A smile of happiness at her decision? I don’t know, but I wonder what can be so awful at 20 years of age that makes you end your life.”
”The view from the top of that bridge is spectacular. The harbor is before you, the church steeples in the city, the masts of sailboats at the marina–all of it makes a breath taking panorama. Maybe she was so caught in pain that she didn’t really see. But somehow I hope that she did ultimately see all of it rushing by as she took that plunge. And maybe it made her feel peaceful for a split second.”
My Recovery Journey
By eye of einstein
In 1976, when I came to AA, there were few female members. In my 3rd month of recovery, I had a profound spiritual experience which I have related in other posts. I quickly learned to shut up about God as many members wanted to talk about alcohol only. Being female and a God person almost insured that I wouldn’t have a lot of group acceptance.
The focus for my recovery took a profound change in direction when I discovered ACOA. I have never “forgot” that I am first and foremost an alcoholic and am deeply grateful to be in recovery. Nor have I ever considered myself as recovered. Why change something that works for me? But ACOA gave me permission to not only feel my feelings but also to talk about them.
ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) has gone through several name changes. In 1977, (one year after the beginning of my recovery in 1976), a group of Al-Anon members realized that they were all children of alcoholics. In later years, ACOA became ACA and/or COA.
Up until 1983, any Al-Anon meeting I attended was to help heal that child inside me who grew up in a very troubled family. But when I shared at Al-Anon meetings about my alcoholism, I felt a subtle change in the group of some members feeling that I didn’t belong in an Al-Anon meeting.
In ACOA or ACA meetings, I immediately knew that I belonged because they talked about feelings. I continued to be completely committed to my recovery with AA groups. But the AA groups were male-dominated groups whose members seemed to be proud of how far they had fallen to their bottoms. So I started attending ACOA and Codependents Anonymous as well as AA.I probably didn’t win any friends by reminding everyone in AA that you don’t have to be hit by a train to hear the whistle blowing.
I can’t find any CODEP meetings here in Ft. Lauderdale but I notice that several of the AA meetings include AFL (affliated with family) so maybe some CODEP went there. CODEP meetings were the most fun because the had many counselors who were there to lead the rest of us. They, of course, were well.
Right!
