The late Carmelite monk William McNamara describes the simple awe and perceptive appreciation that is at the core of the mystic way. He writes:

To engage in the natural art of contemplation is to look long and steadily, leisurely and lovingly at anything—a tree, a child, a pear, a kitten, a hippopotamus, and really “see” the whole of it; not to steal an idea of it, but to know it by experience, a pure intuition born of love. This is not an aggressive act but gratuitous. Being discloses its hidden secrets as we look, wait, wonder, and stand in awe of it—not inquisitively but receptively. The mystic—that is, the contemplative—is never utilitarian or Machiavellian, greedily trying to get something out of everything. He simply stands before being, before the world, before the universe, before another human being, a plant, an animal. He enjoys it and leaves himself wide open to its revelation, to its disclosures of mystery, of truth, of love.1

While seeing, feeling, and appreciating the isness of all reality, mystics experience everything—whether in its unique particularity or cosmic mystery—as an allusion to transcendental meaning and as a suggestiveness of a divine gratuitous presence. All things are vibrant with spiritual meaning and significance.2 The contemplative’s attitude toward all reality is one of wonder and reverence, aware of the spiritual value which even inanimate things possess and is alert to the sacred dignity of every human being.3 Mystics share in a passionate care for the marvel that is everywhere, have a sense of living in cosmic kinship with all beings, and enjoy a sense of the sacredness of life. The mystic

is alive to what is solemn in the simple, to what is sublime in the sensuous; but he is not aiming to penetrate into the sacred. Rather he is striving to be himself penetrated and actuated by the sacred, eager to yield to its force, to identify himself with every trend in the world which is toward the divine.4

Contemplatives, in other words, are willingly susceptible to be acted upon by reality, however simple or magnificent, whether divine, natural, or human. Poor in spirit, and passionate of heart, they have a unique capacity to be moved and to respond to that which moves them.

Mystics are characterized by existential humility, openness, reverence, wonder, and awe. The ineffable in them communes with the ineffable beyond them. Marked by radical amazement, radical receptivity, and radical responsiveness, mystics take nothing for granted but understand all, including their own lives, as a gift from God. For contemplatives, all is grace. Anything they own, they owe. They place their whole life at God’s disposal. They are marked by the ongoing practice of gratitude and praise, perceiving the world as a miracle, receiving life as a divine gratuity.

Especially conscious of the love of the giver and identifying and experiencing the source of divine gratuity as love, mystics are above all else great lovers: lovers of life, God, creation, oneself, and others. “Contemplation is both a direct experience itself and a habituated attitude.5” Contemplation, as a specific spiritual practice and as an interior act of faith is a way of experiencing oneness with God who is infinite love. As a way of life, as a way of going about one’s business and living in the everyday world, as a way of engaging in ordinary or difficult human situations, contemplation or mysticism is the extension into concrete daily existence of this intuitive awareness and experience of the intimate and infinite oneness with God who is love.

~ Daniel J. Miller, © 2007, from Radical Amazement and Prophetic Sympathy: A Mystical-Prophetic Approach to Pastoral Theology and Care Inspired by the Works of Abraham Joshua Heschel

 1 William McNamara, Christian Mysticism, 7.

2 Ibid., 41.

3 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, 286.

4 Ibid., 281.

5 James Finley, “The Contemplative Heart: A Conversation with James Finley,” in Pathways for Spiritual Living, April-June, Vol. 9, No. 2, 13.

Artwork: Ananda Kessler, Oil on Canvas 2009

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