Good Morning Mystic

The mystical life is a process.  It’s a journey. 

I know.  You’re probably yawning.  And your eyes have glazed over.  

This kind of language is admittedly airy-fairy and overused.   Trust me.  I tried really hard to come up with a more creative way to describe the mystical life but I kept coming back to process…and journey…because, well, that’s what it is.

Physically and spiritually, everyone starts in one place and ends in another.  If you’re not growing, you’re not living.  Sadly, a lot of people don’t experience much in their spiritual lives.  I think this is because they’re just not looking for the spiritual.  They are blind to the inner life that manifests itself in the experience of living.  All they have to do is open their eyes (yet another tired cliché) and connect the inner with the outer and – voila! – a mystic is born.

Case in point.    

A couple of days ago my 16 yr old grandson, Jack, told me that he had had yet another taste of what we call the “Job” effect – the “why does God let bad things happen to good people” dilemma.  *His first taste of the “Job” effect was when his mother, my daughter, died three years ago. 

Jack recounted that his close friends decided to drink at a party the night before.  They then proceeded to get in their car to drive to another party.  My grandson called them out on the drinking and driving danger and apparently a very large argument ensued, after which the group left the party.  My grandson got a ride home with someone who hadn’t been drinking.   

While I was sitting there quietly trying very, very hard not to freak out, Jack said that while he had been humiliated in front of a large group of his peers, and most likely lost his friends, he didn’t feel like it was the end of the world.

I calmed down enough to listen to what he had to say.

Jack told me that he felt broken and bruised.  Like Job.  And like Job, he believed in God but now his faith had been tested.  Jack said he didn’t know why this bad thing had happened to him when he had done the right thing but he would “go deep,” he said.  He would wait for God until it was time for him to understand.  Like Job, he would continue to have faith in God.  Even when it was hard. 

I sat there.  Speechless.  Which is really strange as my nickname at home is “two cent” as I can’t let much pass without a comment.  My bad.

So Jack turned to me and said, “what do you think?” because he fully expected I’d say something.  Of course.

I said, “you’re on a journey.  It’s all a process.”

He smiled and said, “thanks.”

I’m happy to know he’s a budding mystic.  Life will be just a little easier for him and far richer for the understanding.   I hope he’ll continue to share his journey with me.  I hope I get to see the process unfold in him.

Sometimes the best word is the right word.  And vice-versa.

How do you know God’s will?  Is it the same as your will?  What if God’s will is not your will?  So, who’s in charge?  Are you in command of your life or is God a puppet master pulling your strings?  And can you make a deal with God to change things in your life?  Can you give God an ultimatum?

When these types of questions wedge themselves in your mind, I encourage you to read the Book of Judith.  It offers one of the best lessons in the Bible on how to view the will of God in the context of our individual lives and in course of salvation history.

So, who was Judith?  Was she a real person?  Did a Jewess (the meaning of the name Judith) really decapitate the fierce Assyrian General Holofernes and bring peace to the Israelite people for one hundred years? 

Scholars have concluded that the story of Judith is not historical.  Rather, it serves as a spiritual teaching to remind the Jewish people that God had not forgotten them and that He would continue to intervene in salvation history for the preservation of Jerusalem. 

The story takes place during the post-Babylonian Exile period.  Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon (605 BC to 562 BC), had conquered Jerusalem.  He took many Jews captive.  Some Jews stayed behind in Jerusalem.  These Jews rebelled and did not support the Babylonian King in his war against the King of Media (ancient Iran).  Nebuchadnezzar decided to punish the Jews for their infidelity to him by sending the powerful and fierce Assyrian General Holofernes to crush them. 

Holofernes surrounded the town of Bethulia and cut off their water supply.  The people lost their faith that God would save them and demanded that the Jewish rulers, led by Uzziah, surrender to Holofernes.  Uzziah told the people that he would give God five days to help them, and if God didn’t step up , Uzziah would do as the people ask; Israel would surrender to the enemy.

Enter Judith, devout widow, whose fidelity to God makes her a greater warrior against the Assyrians than any Jewish man in Bethulia.  Judith tells Uzziah that it is wrong to “put God to the test, setting yourselves in the place of God in human affairs.”  Read Judith 8: 12-27 and she will teach you what it means to trust in God and remain faithful.  “It is not for you to make the Lord our God give surety for his plans.  God is not man that he should be moved by threats, … that he may be given an ultimatum,” she says in verse 16.  “He will hear our cry if it is his good pleasure,” she says in verse 17.  If it is His good pleasure…if it is His will.

The rest of the story shows us what it takes to participate in salvation history.  We need to recognize what needs to be done.  And if the job requires sacrifice, then so be it.  Brave Judith (and her faithful maid) walked into the enemy camp.  They were captured and then, after just a few days, the beautiful Judith tricked General Holofernes into a drunken stupor.  She cut off his head and brought it back to the people of Bethulia.  They hung the head of Holofernes on the wall of the town.  The Assyrian army were overcome with fear and trembling.  They scattered in all directions.  The Israelite warriors overwhelmed them and defeated their enemy. 

Judith lived to be 105 years of age.  The book ends with this verse.  “During the life of Judith and for a long time after her death, no one again disturbed the Israelites.”   

Judith’s spiritual lesson: employ unswerving trust in God and remain faithful to His holy will.  What is His holy will? 

It’s what happens.  And if you don’t like it or if it hurts, understand that it’s not personal.  It’s salvation history and you are a part of it.   

*Note:  You’ll need a Catholic Bible to read Judith.  Protestant Bibles do not include the Book of Judith (or Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach, Tobit and Wisdom).  

Naomi lost everything; her husband and then her two sons. She knows that she must also suffer the loss of her two daughters-in-law.

She tells Orpha (not Oprah) and Ruth to return to their families.  They are young and they can marry, they can have children, sons of their own.  They protest.  They don’t want to leave.   Naomi tells them that she is too old to marry and bear children. As such, she cannot provide these women with sons to marry.  She cannot be a mother to them any longer.  She blesses her beloved daughters and kisses them.  They “lift up their voices” together and weep.  Naomi tearfully sends them on their way.

Orpha leaves.  Ruth stays. 

Naomi counsels Ruth to look after herself, to go and have a life.  Ruth refuses.  She says,

“Do not press me to leave you
    or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
    where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
    and your God my God.
 Where you die, I will die—
    there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
    and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

I am moved to my core every time I read these two verses (Ruth 1:16,17).  To be so loved…

In the midst of Naomi’s unfathomable loss, God blessed her with Ruth, a woman who would not live her life without Naomi or her people or her God.  Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David, not a Jew but a Moabitess, clung fast to Naomi.  There was no place else for her to be…in life and in death. 

The story of Ruth is one of true love, of commitment, dedication, and loyalty.  I am humbled to be reminded that God’s love is this love as well.  He is with me all my days, in all ways, unto death and beyond.

*Historical Note:  The Moabite were a tribe of people descended from Moab, one of two sons of Lot, the nephew of Abraham.  Lot’s daughters helped their father to become drunk and then had children through him, seeing him as their only option to bear children.

My dear friend, Ladine Householder, will soon “birth” a book titled The Well Women, Crossing the Boundaries.

I’m always looking for examples of women who’ve fought the good fight.  Ladine’s book contains the fictionalized stories of nine contemporary women whose lives reflect the pain of loss and the possibility of healing via an honest spiritual life.  As Ladine says, all we need do is respond to the healing power of Living Water from Jesus.

The publication due date for this project is sometime in December.   Please go to her website at http://www.copperteapotpub.com/ and take a look.  I’m sure you will be inspired to become one of the Well Women, too!