FOLLOWING THE MYSTICS

The final word for mysticism, after the optimistic explosion that we usually call hope and the ensuing sense of safety, is an experience of deep rest. It’s the verb I’m told that is most used by the mystics: “resting in God.” All this striving and this need to perform, climb, and achieve becomes, on some very real level, unnecessary. It’s already here, now. I can stop all this overproduction and over-proving of myself. That’s Western and American culture. It’s not the Gospel at all.

Many of us have imbibed the culture of unrest so deeply. What got me into men’s work is that I found that males are especially driven in that direction. We males just cannot believe that we could be respected, admired, received or loved without some level of performance. So many of us are performers and overachievers to some degree, and we think “when we do that” we will finally be lovable. Even when we “achieve” a good day of “performing,” it will never be enough, because it is inherently self-advancing and therefore self-defeating. We might call it “spiritual capitalism.”