Metacentricities

Mystics of all times and all places have often had one thing in common: they have isolated themselves in some way or another from the world. Some, like Catholic cloistered orders, or Buddhist monks, depend on the community to provide them the basics. Sometimes, they do provide themselves the basics, by growing gardens or the like. But most mystics over time have lived apart in some ways or another from “regular” daily life.

This makes sense, of course. It’s a lot easier to go into the depths of life and spirit and one’s connection with God without worrying when the plumber is going to arrive, or when to schedule the car being fixed, or how the five gazillion work deadlines are going to get done.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I am a mystic, and my desire to enter into professional ministry was, at some level, a desire to find a way to live my life more fully as a mystic. I had even thought seriously about monastic life. But it appears that my life is going to be the life of a householder.

There are two threads that I’m thinking of relating to this. First is the life of the Hasidim, who I learned about in the Jewish Mysticism class I took last spring, and was reminded of again in a recent post by Rachel. She says:

Hasidism began as a spiritual movement that emphasized prayer, joy, and charity. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, wanted to make God accessible to everyone. He taught that “every day life could be sanctified. That God could be served through everything one did. Eating, working, raising children: even sex could become a spiritual act.”

One of the real takeaways I had from that course was that anything we can do in daily life can be a mitzvah if our intentions are toward serving God. Hasidim and Sufis, as Rachel reminds us in her post, both include involvement in the world doing specific kinds of humbling work.

The second thread that I’m thinking of is the relatively recent attempt by Western practitioners of Buddhism to focus on practices (meditation, primarily) that had been previously practiced only by monks. It is true that a daily meditation practice helps me, at least, to stay closer to the ground of what’s really important to me. Any daily spiritual practice that I engage in (prayer, singing, etc.) helps as well.

So this will be a journey, for sure. How do I live within a regular life at the same time as keep closely connected to my spirit, and heart? How do I serve good, and God while being a householder, and dealing with the practical issues of that life?

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