Mystical longings?

Amid the revelations by Mother Teresa that her communion with the Lord was not what she’d hoped, and questions from a friend about whether or not it is appropriate to ask for a “religious experience” to be granted, I’ve been pondering the role of, the request for, and the desire for mystical elements in our spiritual lives. This is one of those contentious points where I’m not sure that I fully agree with the Reformed cessationist stance, but I’m also not at a point (or in any position) to formulate a new theological perspective. In fact, my thoughts on the matter are quite conflicting and incomplete. I’m not even sure that the termination of tongues and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit are of the same element as mystical experiences. That said, the following thoughts are very raw, and something I hope to flesh out more in the next few months.

I was asked the other day – advised, I should say, to try visualizing handing Jesus my heart, full of its anxiety, troubles, fears; broken and bruised, etc., and to imagine my Lord handing it back to me whole and healed.

I was turned off by this suggestion. It felt too modern psychology, additional, even extra-biblical. Was this an appropriate method to interact with G-d? I’ve done exercises like this before. Tacking my “sins” on a piece of paper to a giant wooden cross, or burning them in a campfire at some retreat or camp. These never seemed like fruitful endeavors, but I thought that perhaps I’m just not a visual learner and that others gain from this experience when for me it was almost irritating.

Did the Lord ever ask us to visualize, I wondered? Certainly there are visions throughout the Bible, and Jesus frequently used parables as illustrations. But they were concrete, at least to the extent that their formulation was governed and distributed by G-d. And, generally speaking, these experiences were given, not sought. This holds true in my experience as well. The images that I do have in my mind’s eye are those that I did not conjure up at will, but that came to me in times of prayer, reflection, or dreams. They have brought great peace in times of loneliness or sorrow, unlike the superficial actions mentioned above.

Yet, we are visual people who need visual experiences. We are even spiritual people who need mystical or religious experiences. I do not mean to suggest we must all have Revelations of Divine Love, or be moved to write mystical poetry. But we are given – very intentionally – visual and tangible symbols of the covenant as means of grace in baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

What I find wrapped in these symbols are mystical elements that the Church likes to simply call “mysteries” rather than flirt with the notions of mysticism. Webster’s highlights mystery as “a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand,” and mysticism is defined as “the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight).” The slight difference I see is that of subjective experience on the mystical side. One could argue that partaking in communion is objective, in that its purpose is stated, even if mysterious. But do we not each connect differently during that time of private reflection? Isn’t that the great mystery that this same means of grace – one Grace for all – touches us each uniquely and transforms each person differently?

It seems to me, and not just with communion, but with many of the mysteries of our faith – the virgin birth, fulfilled prophecy, Jesus as both fully human and fully divine, etc., that if they were not wrapped in the cloak of Christian history, if they did not carry the weight of the human-touched Church through the centuries, if we could be so bold as to imagine them as new ideas – would they not strike us as mystical and strange? Is their familiarity a tarnish to what should be our very own mystical experience, fulfilling our mystical longings?