Mystical Renaissance

The Mystics’ time has come again. This second great mystical renaissance has been brewing for decades, as we’ve been asking the questions that bring the divine in direct contact with our souls: “For what purpose have I been born?” and “What is my spiritual path?” and “How can I receive guidance?” These are not ordinary questions. They are spiritual invocations, invitations for God to come closer. And when God hears them, God does exactly that. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 19

Some say that since Jesus walked the earth people have been trying to enter into a spiritual union with God. There have been enhanced waves of mysticism from time to time, such as the time when hermits flocked to the desert in the early years of Christianity; and the time of the medieval mysticism of the Beguines, of those within monasteries and convents, as well as those walled up in anchorages, such as Julian of Norwich.

Today, we are living in a time of another wave of mysticism, not a time when people necessarily leave the world in order to follow their desire to have a spiritual union with God, though some do, but a time of mystics living and working in the world, among their families, their co-workers, and their friends, while practicing a daily spiritual life of prayer and contemplation in order to find God’s guidance, purpose and spiritual path for them.

These people may not be found in our houses of worship, they are not always “religious” people who go to church services on Sunday, but they are people who are trying to find a way of living their lives in and through God in all aspects of their daily lives.  

Many have been disappointed and let down by the Church but that has only made them search for another way to be in spiritual union with God. They have no quarrel with God only with church hierarchy that remembers only those who have money to give their aging and needy buildings but do not think of those who can no longer get to church by themselves though they may have served the church long and faithfully throughout their days.

God does not forget them; God leaves the ninety and nine to search for the one who is lost and, when the lost is found, carries him on his shoulder and takes him back home.

© Judith Lawrence

Requesting God’s Grace

Some mystics wait just for the pure experience of grace and the divine. Grace is the word we give to the power of God that we recognize in our lives. We long to make this power so real that we can hold it in our hands, or feel it like heat running through our bodies. We want to know that this divine substance is real and that it protects us and heals us and flows down from heaven when we request it. Caroline Myss, Entering the Castle Page 17

We have the ability to recognize that God gives us his grace—his power to heal us in body and spirit. Personally, I have never felt God’s grace in a tangible way, such as a sensation of holding his power in my hands or feeling the heat of God’s grace running through my body, though some do have this ability, I believe.

However, I do believe that God’s grace is real and can heal us from our bodily ailments and our spiritual ills and does so if it is the right thing for us in a particular moment of time.

I believe this and know this because I have experienced God’s healing grace in my life. We do not have to be mystics in order to know and believe in God’s grace and the power of his healing love; but the more we spend time in God’s presence the more we will be aware of God’s grace in our lives.

© Judith Lawrence

Being a Mystic in an Everyday Life

Caroline Myss says, "We don't want to renounce family or friends. In short, we want to be mystics without monasteries." (Entering the Castle P. 14)

We want to pray; we want to be contemplatives; we want to be united with God, each in our own unique way, while still living in the world.

"They (contemplatives) are here," says Eckhart Tolle, "to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through 'just being'. . . . Their task is to bring spacious stillness into the world by being absolutely present in whatever they do. There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task. Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner." (A New Earth P. 307)

What I write here in this blog is for the purpose of sharing with readers a way of living and praying the contemplative Christian life without it being necessary to enter a convent or leave your everyday life.

I will also expand on what I have written in my newest spiritual book, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey.