“MYSTICISM IS WHERE RELIGIONS START. Moses with his flocks in Midian, Jesus up to his knees in the waters of Jordan – each of them is responding to Something of which words like Shalom, God even, are only pallid souvenirs. . .Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat – to put it mildly – or with the bush going up in flames, a rain of flowers, a dove coming down out of the sky. ‘I have seen things,” Aquinas told a friend, “that makes all my writings seem like straw.’”
“Most people have also seen such things. Through some moment of beauty, of pain, some sudden turning of their lives, most of them have caught glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by. Only then, unlike the saints, they tend to go on as though nothing happened.”
Wishful Thinking Frederick Buechner
Do you do that? After that coincidence? Following the surprise phone call? Upon seeing a rainbow?
OMG. . .that’s me. . .In So Many Ways.
Where are you God? Give me a sign God. I mean really. . . are you even listening to me?
And then I’m walking Molly and I spot them – actually it’s hard not to. Yellow wildflowers. Everywhere. On the side of the road. Fields. Yards (well it’s a certain kind of “yard” here in Santa Fe, but the wildflowers are there!)
It’s the glimmer of what the saints are blinded by. The lump in my throat.
Out of nowhere these flowers are springing forth. God is calling. Shouting. “I’m here. I'm listening”
And now it is up to me. Do I go on as though nothing has happened? Or do I become a Mystic.
“I have seen things,” Aquinas told a friend, “that made all my writings seem like straw.”
I have seen yellow wildflowers. They make all my writings seem like straw.
OMG. . .In So Many Ways
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