150 Pathways to God: #21 Mystics View

Recently, as the priest of a small parish, I did a burial service at an old countryside cemetery. The drive to the burial was through a beautiful slice of mountainous upstate Pennsylvania. The scenery is spectacular in all seasons, but most especially in Spring when new growth has come upon trees and emerged as a flowered and carpet covering the fields and open spaces. The misty low clouds of the night linger among the mountain ranges even into mid-morning before ascending. The locals don't call this "God's Country" for nothing.

As I drove through the rural landscape I came upon a street sign called "Mystics View." In the span of a nano-second I readied myself for the beautiful view that was surely to follow down the lane of any street so named. But what I saw was jarring; it was the entrance into a very poorly kept trailer home park. Now I have seen quite a number of lower income neighborhoods whose upkeep and landscaping rival the gated communities of Hilton Head Island. But this was not one of them. Not one of the trailers appeared cared for. I wasn't even sure anyone even lived in them anymore. It was  collection of plastic and metal; antithetical to the specter of beauty I was anticipating. Mystic's view? Hardly. It seemed that there was an ironic twist at work here.

It later occurred to me that this was not irony but rather a righting of my ideas about mysticism. Apparently, the ethereal ideals I had placed upon mystical writing was in need of grounding. I had placed the work of the mystic within the angelic realm, limited it to the earth's many and varied displays of beauty in every season. Therein lies the evidence of God in the created world... the end. But the true tradition of the mystic is seeing the divine in all manner and conditions of life. The mystic sees not what appears to be there, where there is raw beauty or raw dilapidation, but sees through what is, to expose another place that coexists along side it; "Out beyond right doing and wrong doing there is a field...." (Rumi). The mystic does not judge what is in front of them, but sees with different eyes, employing sight that transcends human understanding to reveal what is hidden.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a kind of mystic tale. The armoire is more then it appears; it is a portal to another place and time. In Harry Potter the children board a train that appears to be like any other to go off to school. But the train, moving at full steam, disappears through a solid wall and emerges in another world, another dimension, the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When Dorothy is caught in a tornado she is transported to a place that was as real as her own bed where at the very same time she lay unconscious. Perhaps the dilapidated trailer park too is more then it appears. Perhaps it is a thin place that can only be seen from the mystic's view. Perhaps it is the home of things unseen by those who are blinded by their lack of imagination. The mystic has regained the full faculty of their imagination and from that vantage point translates to us what is just out of sight; what is just beyond our understanding.

Mystics do not place signposts in places where the divine is obvious but rather post signs as to where to view the divine in the unexpected.

150 Pathways to God: #21 Blessings from the Earth Garden

Thank you to Nancy Dart, guest blogger, who submitted this post.

Recently, at a local, busy store while I was shopping for some ‘ideal’ soil to amend my ‘not-so-ideal’ soil to grow vegetables in my home Victory Garden I noticed an intent young mother.  She pushed a very large cart with two little girls in the seats, and another younger lass surrounded with young plants.  Little girls with freckles and smiles, the youngest, perhaps about three years old, with lovely bright strawberry hair in an untidy braid and a halo of frizz around her sweet, freckled face. They chattered to each other and to their mother, holding their own little plants in their hands. 

I held my breath at such beauty!  What gifts we have been given by God!  I have been in that mother’s shoes, as many of us have, intent on the quotidian demands of our lives, a long list of things to get done before we can get to the rest of the items on our lists; and totally unaware of the face of God shining in the ordinary.

It was evident that the mother was teaching her little ones some things about gardening — about how to plant, care for, and nurture other beings. They were with her as she shopped, they held little plants in their hands that they chose for their own. 

The Victory of this Earth Garden is in the love of a parent, who works hard and doesn’t often see the blessings; the Victory is the presence of children and nature in the cycle of life; the Victory is in the learning that will occur as these little ones tend to their own little plants today, gardens tomorrow, families and communities in the future. Amidst the backdrop of the appearance of a sometimes hopeless world (if one listens to the news too much) was the reminder of faith and grace in the unassuming activities of a sweet little family. 

This mother and her children were unaware of the holiness of their activities but I want to thank them for their blessing from the Earth Garden. I bought a bag of dirt but received a gift that was priceless.