Mystic Musings: Easter Sunday
Off in the nether lands, I heard a sound
Like the beating of heavenly wings
And deep in my brain, I can hear a refrain
Of my soul as she rises and sings
Anthems to glory and anthems to love
And hymns filled with earthly delight
Like the songs that the darkness composes to worship the light
Dan Fogelberg, from Nether Lands
This “Mystic Musings” series has focused on various religious mystics including Rumi, St. Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart, Jesus, St. John of the Cross, Rabia, Tukaram, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, Hafiz, Kabir, and Mirabai. It has also included the contemporary mystics of Dan Fogelberg, Neil Diamond, Mary Oliver, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Norman Maclean, and Van Morrison.
What all of the mystics have in common is this deep desire to be in union with God or the Sacred. It is the experience of a visceral sensual desire to be in an intimate mystical union with God. While traditional Christians often speak of “loving God”, mystics often speak of having a love affair with the Divine.
Dan Fogelberg’s song Nether Landsso beautifully captures this desire, this visceral yearning. Nether Lands (meaning “low-lying country”) is Fogelberg’s way of saying, “Here in my ordinary world…” is this deep yearning for something deeper, something richer. “Off in the nether lands, I heard a sound like the beating of heavenly wings. And deep in my brain, I can hear a refrain of my soul as she rises and sings. Anthems to glory and anthems to love and hymns filled with earthly delight.”
That is the language of a mystic. Mystics don’t look for God in some far off place or in a distant future. They look for God in the here and now. They sense God in hearing the bird singing its morning song, breathing in the cool air after a summer rainstorm, feeling the sensual touch of their lover, seeing the subtle changes as summer shifts to autumn, feeling their glands scream with delight with that first bite of a farm fresh peach, holding the hand of their dying mother, and embracing that friend as she departs for new adventures.
Photo by Son of Sky @jden_c
In other words, the mystic longs to taste, touch, hear, see and feel God. They want to “know” God in the same way that Adam “knew” his wife, if you are a reader of the Bible. Knowing God is not about merely understanding God, but about falling headlong into a love affair with the Divine with all the joy and disappointment that come from such love affairs.
This is Easter Sunday. In my way of thinking Easter is not about promising life after death. Easter is about inviting us to the kind of life that death can’t stop. All of the mystics have this burning desire for the kind of life that death can’t stop.
So don’t just sit quietly and ponder. Live! Really live!
Open yourself up to joy and grief.
Take the risk to love and be loved.
Be bold enough to make mistakes.
Paint the world with compassion.
Allow your heart to break with grief.
Rejoice with those who rejoice and suffer with those who suffer.
Be present to what is in front of you right now no matter how marvelous, mundane or maddening.
The mystics believe that life is a dance between the human and divine.
What are you waiting for? The music is already playing!