Wanting to be a Mystic
Jay McDaniel
I want to talk about the desire to be a mystic, even if you don't think you are one. You can have this desire as a parent, a grandparent, a teenager, or a small child. Many Christian mystics begin this way. They don't desire to be mystics; that's a more recent word. But they desire to be at one with God. In this very desire there is a certain kind of closeness to God. That's where mysticism begins: in the desire to be at one with something more than you, something that claims your heart. I call it the Field of Love.
I think this desire is a good thing for us as well as for traditional mystics, if we don't make a big thing of it. Because so much of what we say today is virtue-signaling, it's best to keep the desire to be close to God in a quiet place, in your heart, between you and God. Please forgive me for not being quiet below.
I've been learning about Christian mystics thanks to a wonderful podcast featuring a professor from Yale, Professor Carlos Eire. I'll list a few to give you a sense of the range:
Eire treats them all, plus more. What I find so interesting is that they are all so different, and yet they share a desire to be 'at one' with God in an experiential way. This is the prevailing aim of their lives. They follow Jesus' teachings that we should love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves. They take the loving God part very seriously. Most take the loving neighbors part seriously, too, but the loving God is, for them, the starting point for loving neighbors.
On Not Being a Mystic
By traditional Christian standards, I am not a mystic. I have had a small handful of direct experiences of the sacred — through friendships, music, rivers, dogs, landscapes, and other moments of unexpected grace. And I may have what some might call a mystic temperament, if that means being interested in how the world itself becomes a window to God in many ways.
But I do not live a life in which the desire to experience God is a prevailing aim. I believe in God and want to be faithful to God, but I do not live with a hunger to be 'at one' with God. Nor do I live a life of intentional prayer, often in community settings, which seems to be what many traditional Christian mystics in monasteries do, Like so many in a secularized world, my primary aim is to be richly connected with the world in ways that are healing, helpful, and deeply enjoyable. In that sense, I am like many others: grateful for beauty and connection, but not, in the traditional sense, a Christian mystic. If anything, I am, at best, an accidental mystic.
Longing to Long for God
And yet, learning about traditional Christian mystics invites me to reconsider. Perhaps there is another way I might be, after all, a mystic. Maybe a mystic is not just someone who desires to be at one with God, but who desires to desire to be at one with God.
I think this may fit me. I would like to live with the intention of being at one with God, because I sense it is a truthful way of living, close to the very heart of things. If a traditional mystic is one who longs for an intimate and transformative experience of God, and who sees fleeting moments of oneness as glimpses of that intimacy, then perhaps I qualify. Not because I desire God all the time, but because, at some level, I desire to desire God all of the time — and I believe that this longing to long for God matters, not only for me but for many. It would be good, I believe, if secular society became more mystical.
A Field of Love
I know that God can be understood in many ways. Influenced by open and relational theology, I think of God as a universal Field of Love — a presence in which we live and move, around us and within us at all times, though never an object we can grasp or reduce to an idea. Sometimes we know God best not when we think we have grasped God with our minds, but when we realize, at an emotional level, that our ideas about God fail to contain the Love we name “God.” We feel God by not "knowing" God.
This places me in a tradition often called “apophatic and affective mysticism,” in which feeling God and thinking about God are different but intertwined. I want to draw close to this Field of Love, and I sense that this “drawing close” can be — and probably should be — the primary aim of my life. I know this path requires a loosening of ego: letting go of attachments rooted in the hunger for approval and stepping into a willingness to be claimed by a Love greater than myself. I'm not there yet, but I'd like to be there.
The Initial Phase of the Subjective Aim
I can put the matter in Whiteheadian terms. Whitehead teaches that, at every moment of our lives, we are inwardly shaped by a desire for satisfaction in the moment at hand, and that the subjective aim we select for ourselves — our chosen path toward that satisfaction — is of our own making, though largely unconscious. Our subjective aim can be for recognition, or control, or power, or adventure, or simple survival. Yet he also says that, in the immediacy of each moment, we are graced with what he calls the initial phase of the subjective aim, or simply the initial aim: the ideal possibility for us in that situation, given the concrete contexts of our lives.
For most of us, most of the time, there is a gap between the subjective aim we choose for ourselves and the ideal aim we are given by God. This ideal aim is not merely an idea or abstraction within us; it is a fresh, living possibility for responding to our circumstances with creativity and love. It carries within it the very emotions of God — the Field of Love — so that it is, in a sense, charged with divine desire. It is like an inward calling, where the call itself bears the tone of the Caller’s voice, allowing us to feel what God feels in the moment.
Knowing God by Feeling
Do we experience this inner calling? At some level we do, though typically in the dim recesses of our hearts and minds. Through what Whitehead calls hybrid prehensions — mind-to-mind connections not bound by time and space — we feel God's feelings. We know God in this affective way, even if we do not know we know God in an intellectual way. Imagine two people in a room, and one is completely in love with the other, but the other doesn't know it. God is the One who is in love and who calls us, within our hearts, to return the love, that we might be whole.
Toward what are we called? The traditional Christian mystics propose that at every moment of our lives, the ideal aim within us — God’s desire — is for us to become one with God, not for God's sake alone but also for our sake and the world's sake. We love God so that we can love the world.
Desiring to Make Oneness with God an Initial Aim
We can respond to this, even if imperfectly, not simply by making “oneness with God” our primary aim but also by desiring to make it our aim. Our longing to long for God — even when we fall short of sustained closeness — is itself a form of faithfulness, a sign of grace at work in our becoming. This longing to long, this flicker of desire to grow closer to the Love that permeates all things, our inner mystical impulse.
It is also a form of intimacy with God. Longing to long to be intimate with the Field of Love is itself a form of intimacy, and it can be woven into our finite loves as well. The Field of Love is never absent from our love of friends, family, neighbors, strangers, animals, plants, hills, rivers, mountains, music, or color. When we love these — not as idols to be clung to, but as icons of the Field itself, through which divine Light shines — we are already tasting the Field. Whenever we experience any modicum of truth or goodness or beauty, of wisdom or compassion or freedom, we are experiencing God.
The Fruits are most Important
The next step, for most of us, is to be more intentional about this — to let our desire to desire intimacy with God become woven into the fabric of our lives: through prayer and service, hospitality and play, sadness and joy, spontaneity and persistence. This is to let our subjective aims grow closer to the ideal aim within us. Strangely, the more we do this, the freer we become. In being a vessel for divine Love, we are free from the burden of living only for ourselves. We feel more connected with the whole of things.
To whatever degree we become intentional in this way, combing our desire with prayer service, and moments of play and wonder as well, we are “mystics” in a traditional sense — though, in the end, that label doesn’t really matter. What matters far more is to live from the intimacy of the Field, however imperfectly, rather than to think of ourselves as living from it. We are not judged by our self-designations but by our fruits — by the love, kindness, and beauty our lives release into the world.
I think this desire is a good thing for us as well as for traditional mystics, if we don't make a big thing of it. Because so much of what we say today is virtue-signaling, it's best to keep the desire to be close to God in a quiet place, in your heart, between you and God. Please forgive me for not being quiet below.
I've been learning about Christian mystics thanks to a wonderful podcast featuring a professor from Yale, Professor Carlos Eire. I'll list a few to give you a sense of the range:
- Anthony of the Desert (251–356)
- Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–c. 395)
- Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
- Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)
- Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
- Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)
- Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1328)
- Julian of Norwich (1343–after 1416)
- Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
- Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471)
- Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510)
- Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)
- Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
- John of the Cross (1542–1591)
Eire treats them all, plus more. What I find so interesting is that they are all so different, and yet they share a desire to be 'at one' with God in an experiential way. This is the prevailing aim of their lives. They follow Jesus' teachings that we should love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves. They take the loving God part very seriously. Most take the loving neighbors part seriously, too, but the loving God is, for them, the starting point for loving neighbors.
On Not Being a Mystic
By traditional Christian standards, I am not a mystic. I have had a small handful of direct experiences of the sacred — through friendships, music, rivers, dogs, landscapes, and other moments of unexpected grace. And I may have what some might call a mystic temperament, if that means being interested in how the world itself becomes a window to God in many ways.
But I do not live a life in which the desire to experience God is a prevailing aim. I believe in God and want to be faithful to God, but I do not live with a hunger to be 'at one' with God. Nor do I live a life of intentional prayer, often in community settings, which seems to be what many traditional Christian mystics in monasteries do, Like so many in a secularized world, my primary aim is to be richly connected with the world in ways that are healing, helpful, and deeply enjoyable. In that sense, I am like many others: grateful for beauty and connection, but not, in the traditional sense, a Christian mystic. If anything, I am, at best, an accidental mystic.
Longing to Long for God
And yet, learning about traditional Christian mystics invites me to reconsider. Perhaps there is another way I might be, after all, a mystic. Maybe a mystic is not just someone who desires to be at one with God, but who desires to desire to be at one with God.
I think this may fit me. I would like to live with the intention of being at one with God, because I sense it is a truthful way of living, close to the very heart of things. If a traditional mystic is one who longs for an intimate and transformative experience of God, and who sees fleeting moments of oneness as glimpses of that intimacy, then perhaps I qualify. Not because I desire God all the time, but because, at some level, I desire to desire God all of the time — and I believe that this longing to long for God matters, not only for me but for many. It would be good, I believe, if secular society became more mystical.
A Field of Love
I know that God can be understood in many ways. Influenced by open and relational theology, I think of God as a universal Field of Love — a presence in which we live and move, around us and within us at all times, though never an object we can grasp or reduce to an idea. Sometimes we know God best not when we think we have grasped God with our minds, but when we realize, at an emotional level, that our ideas about God fail to contain the Love we name “God.” We feel God by not "knowing" God.
This places me in a tradition often called “apophatic and affective mysticism,” in which feeling God and thinking about God are different but intertwined. I want to draw close to this Field of Love, and I sense that this “drawing close” can be — and probably should be — the primary aim of my life. I know this path requires a loosening of ego: letting go of attachments rooted in the hunger for approval and stepping into a willingness to be claimed by a Love greater than myself. I'm not there yet, but I'd like to be there.
The Initial Phase of the Subjective Aim
I can put the matter in Whiteheadian terms. Whitehead teaches that, at every moment of our lives, we are inwardly shaped by a desire for satisfaction in the moment at hand, and that the subjective aim we select for ourselves — our chosen path toward that satisfaction — is of our own making, though largely unconscious. Our subjective aim can be for recognition, or control, or power, or adventure, or simple survival. Yet he also says that, in the immediacy of each moment, we are graced with what he calls the initial phase of the subjective aim, or simply the initial aim: the ideal possibility for us in that situation, given the concrete contexts of our lives.
For most of us, most of the time, there is a gap between the subjective aim we choose for ourselves and the ideal aim we are given by God. This ideal aim is not merely an idea or abstraction within us; it is a fresh, living possibility for responding to our circumstances with creativity and love. It carries within it the very emotions of God — the Field of Love — so that it is, in a sense, charged with divine desire. It is like an inward calling, where the call itself bears the tone of the Caller’s voice, allowing us to feel what God feels in the moment.
Knowing God by Feeling
Do we experience this inner calling? At some level we do, though typically in the dim recesses of our hearts and minds. Through what Whitehead calls hybrid prehensions — mind-to-mind connections not bound by time and space — we feel God's feelings. We know God in this affective way, even if we do not know we know God in an intellectual way. Imagine two people in a room, and one is completely in love with the other, but the other doesn't know it. God is the One who is in love and who calls us, within our hearts, to return the love, that we might be whole.
Toward what are we called? The traditional Christian mystics propose that at every moment of our lives, the ideal aim within us — God’s desire — is for us to become one with God, not for God's sake alone but also for our sake and the world's sake. We love God so that we can love the world.
Desiring to Make Oneness with God an Initial Aim
We can respond to this, even if imperfectly, not simply by making “oneness with God” our primary aim but also by desiring to make it our aim. Our longing to long for God — even when we fall short of sustained closeness — is itself a form of faithfulness, a sign of grace at work in our becoming. This longing to long, this flicker of desire to grow closer to the Love that permeates all things, our inner mystical impulse.
It is also a form of intimacy with God. Longing to long to be intimate with the Field of Love is itself a form of intimacy, and it can be woven into our finite loves as well. The Field of Love is never absent from our love of friends, family, neighbors, strangers, animals, plants, hills, rivers, mountains, music, or color. When we love these — not as idols to be clung to, but as icons of the Field itself, through which divine Light shines — we are already tasting the Field. Whenever we experience any modicum of truth or goodness or beauty, of wisdom or compassion or freedom, we are experiencing God.
The Fruits are most Important
The next step, for most of us, is to be more intentional about this — to let our desire to desire intimacy with God become woven into the fabric of our lives: through prayer and service, hospitality and play, sadness and joy, spontaneity and persistence. This is to let our subjective aims grow closer to the ideal aim within us. Strangely, the more we do this, the freer we become. In being a vessel for divine Love, we are free from the burden of living only for ourselves. We feel more connected with the whole of things.
To whatever degree we become intentional in this way, combing our desire with prayer service, and moments of play and wonder as well, we are “mystics” in a traditional sense — though, in the end, that label doesn’t really matter. What matters far more is to live from the intimacy of the Field, however imperfectly, rather than to think of ourselves as living from it. We are not judged by our self-designations but by our fruits — by the love, kindness, and beauty our lives release into the world.
