This is a place for inspiration–bold, naked, and unashamed. Thanks for joining me! In some lives at some times God has broken through. Your heart is pierced. Your mind is lifted to unforeseen heights. For those weighed down with baggage about the word “God,” then we can say someone or some things from a higher dimension have entered our third. Miraculous intervention, divine love, profundity made visible: All these have somehow been experienced on our planet by people of all races.
I hope to upload a new item daily, but my schedule and the length of some passages may intervene. You are welcome to submit your own, from your own experience or others’.
All these accounts are true, or at least alleged to be true by their authors. I do not write them. I copy and paste them. This is a service.
Most of these accounts are joyful. But some are terrifying. For God is holy, absolute and infinite goodness, and we are not. Since “inspire” originally meant “infused with Spirit,” and if the Spirit can motivate us to abandon the worst part of ourselves, then these readings are inspiring too. One thing you will find here is what the word “awesome” originally meant.
The site will eventually include wisdom about the nature of these experiences; I have a master’s degree in spiritual theology from a major, accredited Canadian institution of higher learning. Don’t make me string cliches like that together again or I will find you. But seriously, guidance can be useful. The wisest guidance of all is that we do not seek these experiences for themselves. That makes for a destiny of disappointment. We seek the One who makes them, who gives us a glimpse of reality more real than the everydayness we must live in here.
The experiences are like telescopes in this way. We use them to see beyond. We are not going to learn about the stars by admiring, collecting, and stroking the brass of the telescopes. And to keep perspective on the moral importance of mystical experience we might apply the mysticism of the poet William Blake:
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
So: Many things on our journey are more important than ecstasy and mystical experience: Seeing the image of God in your neighbor, loving her or him as yourself. Just keeping faith when you have to slog through another day of what seems like winter with no Christmas or a desert sans oases. But sometimes we need a cup of hot chocolate or a cool cup of water to keep on going. Sometimes we need what medieval writers called consolations. If we cannot have it ourselves at least we can be glad that others have, and we can be reminded that we live in a world of possibilities not impossibilities. Ask your nearest quantum mechanic.
That’s enough spiritual theology. For now, enjoy.
Mystical experiences are rare things, but we will begin with one of the most widely read, from a man who–many years later– had as large a spiritual impact on our modern age as any writer.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Mystical Wonder 