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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Mysticism, Underhill

Finished reading Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism: The Preeminent Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness.  Will provide a quote, but first to mention also that am feeling much better after plenty of bed rest for pain.

Monday was a busy day, getting the Da to the hospital and all that entailed.  He said to plant the Japanese Maple 'Irish Lace' on his grave.  I doubt where he is to be buried will allow that, but when the small tree arrives (probably in May), there will be some fitting spot to plant it, as a tribute.

Today am thankful to be up and carrying forth with peace and joy for all is a passage, and the temporal is always passing away.  Perhaps I view deaths differently than many, but having had a profound death experience 25 years ago this July 28, I appreciate death to a high degree, and find goodness in deaths along the path of life: spiritual deaths and physical deaths.  There is always a resurrection.

Now, for some words by Evelyn Underhill concluding her classic on mysticism:

According to the measure of their [mystics] strength and of their passion, these, the true lovers of the Absolute, have conformed here and now to the utmost tests of divine sonship, the final demands of life.  They have not shrunk from the sufferings of the cross.  They have faced the darkness of the tomb.  Beauty and agony alike have called them:  the time of the singing of birds is come.  From the deeps of the dewy garden, Life--new, unquenchable, and ever lovely--comes to meet them with the dawn.

Et hoc intellegere, quis hominum dabit homini?  Quis angelus angelo?  Quis angelus homini?  A te petatur, in te quaeratur, Ad te pulsetur, sic, sic accipietur, sic invenietur, sic aperietur.

3 comments:

  1. !! "There is always a resurrection" !! fits beautifully as an ending for my post tomorrow (a simple compilation of Scriptural excerpts and an author's excerpt.) May I use it? I'll check here before I do so.

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  2. Of course, dear KathY. Anything. The Word and our words are free gifts given by the Father through the Son by the Love of the Holy Spirit. What is Theirs is ours and given and shared freely.

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  3. Wie schön, ich kannte ja den "Irish Da" nicht... und dennoch war da eine stille compassion ... alle Eremiten lieben Bäume, lernen von Bäumen ... und möge sein Lieblingsbaum auf seinem Grab gepflanzt werden... zärtlich liebevoll durch die Hände seiner Seelenfreundin und Weggefährtin...
    ich werde bei euch sein ... in meinen Gebeten

    Friede sei mit uns
    Euere Bruder Seraphim

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