Member-only story
Union, Intimacy, and Love: the Dynamics of Christian Mysticism
The best way to understand Christian mysticism (if “understanding” is even a possibility, given the mysterious nature of mysticism) is to approach it as a process: a developmental journey of how one relates to God.
Process, Development, Journey, Relationship. Mysticism is dynamic, not static. More verb than noun. It’s something we do — in response to the love of God.
Christian Mysticism begins with God. In this dance, God is Fred Astaire and the human being(s) — whether a single, individual, or the collective “Body of Christ” — is Ginger Rogers. God leads, we follow. God asks, we answer. God initiates, we respond.
And what is at stake is more than just a dance. We are offered a relationship — there’s a reason why marriage is a metaphor that shows up again and again in the writings of the mystics. Mysticism is a process of entering into an ever-deepening relationship with God: from an initial experience of longing or desire, to a gradual growth of friendship, intimacy, and love, to the consummating bliss of nondual union.
In her masterpiece The Interior Castle, the Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila suggests that there are seven “mansions” or stages in the mystical life. A few centuries before her, the Dutch mystic Beatrice of Nazareth wrote a short treatise called…
