“The Christian of the future will be a mystic or nothing at all.” – Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J.
Many bemoan the drop in participation in all mainline churches over the past several decades, including Catholics. In fact our “fallen-away” number is the biggest of the bunch. Many parents worry whether their children will ever “come back” or “make it to heaven.” Perhaps there might be another way of looking at things?
Back in the early 60’s Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ said “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or nothing at all” – a mystic being someone who has had an experience of spiritual union or direct communion with God. In 1962 pollsters found that 22% of Americans claimed to have had a “mystical experience” of God. In 1976 that number had risen to 31% of our U.S. population. The most recent poll reported a whopping 48% who said that they had this kind of encounter with the divine.
Diana Butler Bass believes that these numbers indicate that “American faith has undergone a profound and extensive reorientation away from externalized religion towards internalized spiritual experience.” Is this good? Bad? I don’t know.
What if the trend we are observing is “the first stirrings of a new spiritual awakening, a vast interreligious movement toward individual, social and cultural transformation? Have we lived the majority of our lives in the context of this awakening, struggling towards new understandings of God, how we should act ethically and politically, and who we are deep in our souls? What if we are playing a significant role in forming the contours of a new kind of faith beyond conventional religious boundaries? Is America living in the wake of a revival gone awry or a spiritual awakening that is finally taking concrete – albeit unexpected – shape?” (Butler Bass)
I certainly don’t know the answer, but I do know that I am solidly in that 48% and that my first “mystical experience” changed the course of my entire life.
I graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a negligible amount of talent. My portfolio was average at best. I had no idea what to do next. Moving back in with family was not an option, and, career wise, I felt no great desire or pull in any direction. So, I prayed the famous prayer “Help!”
Through a series of small miracles, I landed a job at Chrysler Motors in their photography department and arrived at 7AM sharp on my first day of work, eager to join the ranks of corporate America. I was promptly shown the completely darkroom (we’re talking pre-digital age here. I’m an old-timey Gen Xer.) where I was to spend the next two years – 8 hours a day, 5 days a week – alone, in the dark doing very repetitious, mind-numbing work.
By 7:05AM that first day I was thinking “I’m going to go mad!”
Those that know me, know I’m a bit of a “people person”; a talker from a long-line of talkers. So I always like to point out the great lengths God had to go to get me to shut up for a minute! To stay the insanity, I bought a Walkman (remember those? Apparently you’re a bit “old timey” too.) and borrowed a bunch of books on tape to listen to in the dark. One of those books was the New Testament and my life was never to be the same.
I was powerfully and profoundly wooed in that darkness by the great mystery that is God. More than all else, I pray my children have an experience of God’s love and acceptance such as this at some point in their lives. It changes everything.
Robert Michel, once said “You must try to pray so that, in your prayer, you open yourself in such a way that sometime – perhaps not today, but sometime – you are able to hear God say to you: `I love you!’ These words, addressed to you by God, are the most important words you will ever hear because, before you hear them, nothing is ever completely right with you, but, after you hear them, something will be right in your life at a very deep level.”
Mystics have the great joy of hearing that “I love you!” in the way the rain hits their face, or in their children’s laughter, in the green of spring, and a whole host of other innumerable ways.
So, maybe instead of wringing our hands nervously we can trust that God might be up to something with this 48%. It is entirely possible that we have NO idea how much is possible!