Children
of Abraham
Richard L. Shafer[1]
Happy New Year! This year, I want to take a slightly
different approach in this column. Last
year, we looked at a few of the holidays in Judaism, Islam and Christianity,
and how they differ from one another, or how they resemble one another. But this year, I hope to explore the
similarities among the faiths by looking at “spirituality” and “mysticism,”
confusing terms at best.
What do we mean by “spirituality?” My Webster’s dictionary[2]
gives “something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a
cleric as such,” and “sensitivity or attachment to religious values.”
In her book CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC SPIRITUALITY: SHARING A JOURNEY [3], Maria Jaoudi reviews spirituality. She writes, “I have endeavored to base the
chapters on the spiritual journey itself, the
classical mystical stages of purification, transformation, and finally union
with God. [emphasis mine] “Mystical stages?
What is “mysticism?” Again, Webster: “the experience of mystical union or direct
communication with the ultimate reality reported by the mystics;” and, “the
belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality, can
be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight).” My Webster’s NEW WORLD THESAURUS gives
synonyms “occult,” “transcendental,” and “spiritual” for “mystic.” We’ll try to avoid what looks now as a
circular path.
Jaoudi claims a “spiritual
affinity between the traditions of Christianity and Islam.” She often quotes from the New Testament, from
the Qur’an (Koran), and from famous and important writers in both Christian and
Muslim tradition: St. Theresa of
Lest the reader think this
discussion will be only about Islam and Christianity, I’ll quickly point out
that, very early in its history, Judaism gave rise to Kabbalah, a form of
mysticism based on direct teaching, and unique to Judaism. Perle Besserman writes that mysticism aims to
realize “no-thingness” of all things.[4] “Like its Christian and Islamic mystical counterparts,
Kabbalah’s emphasis on individual experience proved threatening to the
religious institutional hierarchy…”[5]
Why should we even consider
mysticism? To quote Andrew Harvey[6] “…the West [needs]…an unstoppable force of
Divine-human love [which]…must be routed in the habits of fervent meditation,
adoration of the Divine, and prayer…,” all components of the mystics’
approaches to worship.
“A Talmudic adage says that
there are as many ways to Truth as there are human faces.”[7] “…There are hundreds of ways to kiss the
ground.”[8] Over the next few months, we’ll be looking
for a few of those ways. Welcome to the
search!
[1] This is one
of a series of occasional columns in which the author, raised in the Christian
tradition, searches for common ground and common history among the teachings,
beliefs and practices of the Abrahamic faiths -- Islam, Christianity and Judaism
[2] WEBSTER’S NINTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY.
[3] Jaoudi, Maria, CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC
SPIRITUALITY: SHARING A JOURNEY.
[4] Besserman, Perle: THE SHAMBHALA GUIDE TO KABBALAH AND
JEWISH MYSTICISM.
[5] ibid.
[6] TEACHINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTICS, ed. Andrew
Harvey.
[7] ibid.
[8] attributed to Jalil-ad-Din al-Rumi by Huston Smith in
the Forward to ESSENTIAL SUFISM, edited by James Fadiman & Robert Frager.
Copyright Richard L. Shafer 2005