The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.
Interpretation
True mystics possess humility and compassion due to their awareness of the limits of their knowledge.
This quote emphasizes the essence of a mystic's character, which is rooted in humility and compassion. Understanding that true knowledge is unending leads the mystic to approach life with an open heart, fostering empathy towards others while recognizing their own limitations in understanding the vast mysteries of existence.
In practice
In a meditation group, during discussions about spirituality and the nature of knowledge.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
I'm for democracy, but imposing democracy is an oxymoron. People have to choose democracy, and it has to come up from below.
I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
I tell my children what I think myself: That religion is not necessarily convincing, but it is still interesting and not to be laughed at or denigrated.
The resurrection is the keystone of the arch on which our faith is supported. If Christ has not risen, we must impeach all those witnesses for lying. If Christ has not risen, we have no proof that the crucifixion of Jesus differed from that of the two thieves who suffered with him. If Christ has not risen, it is impossible to believe his atoning death was accepted.
How shall a man escape from that which is written; How shall he flee from his destiny?
It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.
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