Living in the Mystic Now

Mysticism confuses people. When they hear the word, they often think of wild visions or ecstatic trances or whirling dervishes. And sometimes that comes with the territory, or so mystic writers (like St. Teresa of Avila) testify.

I’m experiencing something different.

Lately, I have felt driven not into ecstasy, but deep into real, everyday life. Just by paying attention to what’s happening around me, I’ve learned some essential lessons. For instance, as I’ve dealt with the people who cross my path every day, I’ve run up against my capacity to hurt and be hurt. I’ve seen that I’m just as fallible and occasionally noble as anyone else: no more, no less. I’ve noted how God weaves himself sublimely, almost invisibly, through the day.

None of this is earth-shattering, of course, and much of it seems pathetically obvious. But maybe that is a key practice of mysticism: to draw simple yet life-changing lessons from the reality around us.

Many spiritual traditions look at it that way. Zen calls its practitioners to be present to the moment. Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle exhorts us to “be here now.”

I believe that quiet, constant attention, that “being here now,” works its magic in us. Not only do we learn about reality, we start to align our lives around it. When we see what is, we see our own feelings and prejudices for what they are—and can reach beyond them to what is beyond us. Our compassion for others expands. Most miraculously, we begin to sense the presence of the Divine like a constant hum throughout the day.

The beauty of Christianity, I think, lies right there: in the constant presence of a loving God permeating this everyday life, working with the messes we often make—and the good we sometimes do—to weave the human cosmos together in ways far beyond our imagining. This God, I think, is our hope that, as we live purposefully in the here and now, our lives take purpose well beyond.