The Universal Experience--Part 4

According to Evelyn Underhill, the universal mystical experience across all cultures and religions is an encounter with the Holy, whatever Name is given to Him.  And that encounter imparts to those who experience it a sense of safety and security, a feeling that we have encountered not a "force" or "energy," but a Person, and finally, a sense of renewed energy and outgoing mission -- a "born again" experience. Without this encounter, our religion is just religion.  Once we meet the Lord as did Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Paul, we become missionaries and contemplatives.
 
All throughout the Old Testament, the Psalms proclaim YHWH as "my rock," "my stronghold," "my shelter," with Whom "I can scale a wall," or "conquer an army."  Those whom He sends are told to "Be Not Afraid," for "I am with you!"

 Although God is the Name that cannot be named, but only breathed in and breathed out again in worship and awe, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity attempts to "name" the experience as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  The Hindu religion has similar appellations for the experience, as I am sure all religions do.  But all the doctrines, all the rites, all the religions have at their core the one essential Truth:  the Presence of Divine Life among men --- the infinite, eternal, transcendent mystery "made flesh" and present in our midst. 

Even Greek mythology was aware that the gods dwell among us, ourselves unaware until the veil is pulled back and the gods reveal themselves to us in human form. In Christian doctrine, Love Itself manifests Himself to us in the Person of Jesus Christ.  But Isaiah tells us that there was nothing in Him to attract the senses -- not comely in form, not beautiful in appearance.  God still reveals Himself not to the senses, but only to the pure of heart:  Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!

If we stop at the doctrines, or the words used to describe the universal experience, we always remain outside of the Divine Life in our midst.  Richard Rohr is fond of saying, "God comes to us disguised as our life."  Some see only their life; others find God right where they are.  Our church rituals are designed to tell us what we are looking for, and bring us to the threshold, but they cannot bring us to the encounter with the Living God -- although He often meets us there because that is where we are. 

I have a friend whose father was an Episcopal priest.  She of course grew up with the doctrines and the rituals.  In fact, she had already met God -- or He had met her on the way, even as a child.  She tells me that her "Book of Common Prayer" was worn out from use.  As a teen, she read the Psalms over and over again, and she often experienced the Presence of God on Deer Island, sitting under a tree where the only sound was the wind in the trees, the lapping of waves, and the birds crying overhead.  One day, while riding her bike along the beach, she decided to enter St. Paul's church -- just to see what it looked like inside.  Once inside, all alone, she encountered the Presence of God in a way she had never done before.  She knew then that she would become Catholic.  Today, she is Director of Religious Education in our church. 

Bede Griffiths, who studied at Oxford under the tutelage of C.S.Lewis, eventually moved from England to India, where he lived for 35 years in an ashram-- a small community of people from different faiths, but one in their desire to know the truth.  "Our destiny," said Griffiths, "is to be one with God in a unity which transcends all distinctions."  As a Roman Catholic monk, he was firm in his dedication to Jesus Christ, but also in his belief that our search for truth should not be doctrinally confining. 

Here is the catch however:  we cannot attain unity in the flesh, by ecumenical dialog, for example, necessary as that might be for other reasons of understanding and tolerance.  Unity comes to people of prayer -- to those who already have experienced the mystery of oneness with God and who can recognize others who have had the same experience.  God unites and does not separate those who know Him.  Griffiths says this: To understand the mystery of the Trinity, it is necessary to participate in the experience of Jesus.  It is necessary to receive the Spirit of God, to share in the divine life and so to become the son of God, to be one with Jesus as He is one with the Father (Return to the Center, p. 113).

I have experienced oneness with many people outside of my own faith experience -- with Muslims, with Jews, with Baptists, Methodists, -- even with those of no religion at all.  We have different doctrines, but similar experiences, where we know ourselves to be children of God, in a personal relationship with Him, and energized by the Spirit.  This is the mystery of Christianity, this participation in the inner life of the Godhead, a mystery which cannot be expressed in words, but which is indicated by analogy by the words "Father," "Son," and "Spirit" (Griffiths, p. 113).

God still reveals Himself today to "men of good will."  The Old and New Testaments "name" the experience for us, shining light on what we but vaguely grasp with our minds, giving us the explanation for what our hearts have already apprehended.  The doctrines of our church formulate for us what men have experienced from the revelation of God.  Our rituals allow us the time and space to enter into this Divine Presence for ourselves.  And Jesus Christ comes running to meet us at the well, on the road to Emmaeus, as we are fishing in our boats.  He is near to us, if we can only believe!  And His greatest desire is to share with us His own participation in the Divine Life.