Psalm 42
To the leader. A Maskil of the Korahites.
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
   so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
   the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’
4 These things I remember,
   as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
   and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
   a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise them,
   my help 6and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
   at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
   have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands steadfast love,
   and at night God’s song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock,
   ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’
10 As with a deadly wound in my body,
   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise them,
   my help and my God.

Here we begin our series on Christian Mystics and we’re highlighting the women in this tradition because their voices are too often missed and we miss something of the story of our people, of God’s presence and promise through them when they are absent. We’ll dive further into the identity and practices of particular mystics and how they might bless our own faith, but first, to be clear, let me say that this is not a lecture series and I’m not a history professor. As much as such details can enrich our understanding, during this time I hope and pray that we are shaped by a study WITH the mystics rather than a study OF the mystics. That said, one key practice across their stories is the practice of silence and stillness. And so, from time to time, I will leave moments of open space in our sermons that do not need to be filled, but invite you to practice sitting in those moments, allowing them to linger, and see what happens. I won’t throw you off the deep end without warning, but I invite you to go slowly, give yourself time for longer pauses, leave space for big questions for reflection to percolate. I want to give you the gift of stillness that often escapes us. Maybe you’ll want to keep a little journal or paper and pencil for writing by your side. But we always say we’re going slow down, we have apps to remind us to take deep breaths, and somehow we seem to keep blowing through those reminders.

These practices don’t come naturally to me either. One time I met up with this woman who works as a life coach, and she just listened to me for a while and asked me good questions. I really liked her and felt like we were getting to know one another better and then she remarked, “I noticed when you talk sometimes it seems you hardly stop to breath….Do you find it hard to stop in general?” Lady, I just met you. But also, like, who told you!?! Even and perhaps especially during this time of relative isolation, for me, it has been particularly difficult to find space for quiet, stillness, or solitude and I feel my soul struggling because of it.

So we’re going to try it and see how it goes. And if you, like me, have rambunctious kiddos or critters that might make these things harder to honor for a time…come back and engage this after they’ve gone to sleep. The truth is that sometimes navigating it all at once feels too distracting, but sometimes we lean into distraction because it helps us escape something hard or uncomfortable. I trust you know yourself best. So take a breath, be open to this being what it is with grace, and let’s see how God uses the space.

Our first big question for takes a note from the Psalmist. And so I wonder…

What do you long for? Not what you think you SHOULD long for, but what do you, right now, actually long for?

....

Push past the longings that lay on the surface, “I long for a world with fewer mosquitoes,” “I long for the final season of Schitt’s Creek to be released on Netflix”…

What do you long for? …

The past? With processions and festivals and singing with friends and worship in the ways we’ve known before? The future? With hoped-for stability and renewal. Sometimes I didn’t realize I was longing for something until the possibility is off the table. Going to school, sitting in a quiet café with a cup of coffee, hugging my favorite queens at the bar, getting that medical bill paid off, that birthday we had hoped we could celebrate differently. For rest, real rest for a weary soul.

Yes, we long for all these things, but what lies beneath them?

What does your SOUL really yearn for? …

Connection? Meaning? Purpose? Direction? Comfort? Justice? Wholeness? Belonging? Survival?

The Psalmist longs for the closeness of God’s very self. I’m not saying that “God” is the only or best answer to “what do you long for” as if this were a trick question, because I think these other things we name in our hearts as longings are also reflections, experiences, and signposts to God’s very self.

The psalmist gives voice to a yearning so deep, only the language of poetry will do.

In moments that are uncertain, overwhelming, confusing, draining…

When we see disturbing news from Portland of protesters being snatched by their own government, the loss of Civil Rights titans like Representative John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian, schools and staffs making their announcements and adjustments out of what seem like lose-lose predicaments…

I find myself drawn to the poets and artists and the art of nature itself, music and murals - those people and things that find ways to express what eludes capture, that speak to and through my senses when my mind feels inept. Perhaps you noticed this in the poetic words of liturgy we’re using this season – syllables and syntax that doesn’t fit into regular prose as these lines seek less to explain and more to evoke.

Similarly, a Christian Mystic is one who is opened to God in ways that elude easy retelling. After all, mystic is not far from mystery. They relay experiences and/or an awareness of God that envelope the sinews and senses with power and subtlety so that the finite tools of communication can only desperately point to something much bigger. They are often found next to the practices of simplicity, stillness, silence, solitude that aim to cultivate a divine awareness, but it is more than a practice or even a way of thinking, it is a way of being - one that brings us to know God, ourselves, and the world in intimate ways that defy quantifying, commodifying, or systematizing faith. A mystic faith is not its own brand of fundamentalism, nor is it a heady academic ideal. It defies categorization in its singular center on God and God’s movement.

Perhaps this is a kind of faith we long for, but it is hard to even imagine let alone prioritize and pursue when modern culture and even our own animal instincts drives us toward the very opposite – consistency, certainty, security. Perhaps a mystic can be understood as someone who makes their faith home IN uncertainty and instead of striving to escape it, embraces its unique gifts.

Amma Syncletica lived in the 4th century in Egypt, not long after Christian persecution shifted into state religion, and the idea of church as a building was only just emerging. She was a well-educated woman from a family with some means, but ultimately she left the city and wealth of Alexandria, along with her sister who was blind, and together they set out to live in the wilderness with the quiet and solitude and uncertainty of the desert and dedicated her life to a drawing closer to God. Sometimes such seismic shifts come out of a longing to know God more fully, sometimes they arrive as a response to God, and sometimes the longing surprises us entirely.

“Amma”, by the way, is actually not her name. It’s a title that means “mother.” Author Mary C.Earle writes that “the ammas, or spiritual mothers, were women who offered wise counsel to others and who that counsel, became ‘lovers of souls.’” So while this way of being includes a degree of separation, it always returns in balance to connection, community, and generosity. Mother Syncletica’s wrote down the wisdom revealed to her to share in community and some of these writings have been passed down throughout the generations.

She writes: “In the beginning there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God. But after that there is indescribable joy. It is just like building a fire: at first it is smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result. Thus we must kindle the divine fire within ourselves with tears and effort.”

This sounds much like the kind of “good trouble” Rep. John Lewis so often pointed to, a way toward true communion which will certainly be disruptive and even dangerous, but is grounded in divine promise. The Psalmist speaks of tears and disquiet, woundedness and mourning as they call for God’s closeness, but also proclaims the refrain: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise them, my help and my God.”

The desert is a dangerous place, people don’t go into the desert unless they have to. And yet, many wonderful and important things also happen in the desert. Leaving the known and the established and the expectations is troubling. And yet, holy wisdom dwells here too. It is that wisdom and intimacy from, in, and with God….not only in remote wilderness but throughout daily life…that seems so mystical. Jesus had some pretty mystical experiences from doves appearing and a voice from the heavens calling them beloved, then into the desert to wrestle with some big questions that would shape the calling to come.

After I graduated seminary, I found myself with an extended period of unemployment to await my first call as a Pastor. I won’t romanticize it, it sucked, and I was not happy with a system that seems to require this. I took both my anger and my longing for God’s will into the wilderness on a solo pilgrimage. I knew that whatever my first call would be, it would be a whirlwind. And so I set my intention to use this time of solitude and silence (whether I had truly chosen it or not) to listen for God’s voice so that I might know it better, and be better attuned to its sounds in the midst of ministry. Now, some days I definitely chose to listen to Beyonce rather than silence, but on the whole there was ample space to hear, to feel, and to sit with whatever that brought.

Amma Syncletica wrote, “we must direct our souls with discernment.”

Mary C. Earle speaks of Syncletica’s intention not as escapism but discerning wisdom, to “avoid a life crowded with so many cares and concerns that the capacity to choose well is forgotten or weakened.”

So rather than seeking discernment in reflection after the fact, we mark it now as our beginning place.

Discernment is more than making a decision; it is the means by which we approach decision-making. Discernment is less about knowing and more about navigating; it’s about trajectory rather than a target.

What is before you that needs discernment, that you seek God’s will for in your life and that of those you love? I invite you to hold that in your heart, practice a minute of silence and stillness, and await God’s presence in this space. Get comfortable, stretch, relax your forehead, feel your heart pumping in rhythm, slowing down. Listen for the voice that speaks every particle of creation into being.

……

What did you hear? What did you notice? What did you feel?

…….

This brief moment is certainly not where discernment ends or where God stops. Continue in your longing, in your yearning for God’s presence and wisdom. I invite you to practice and connect with others. Practice stillness, silence and solitude each day this week. Start with 5 minutes and see if you can add a minute each day. And remember that Syncletica was not alone either. Invite someone to join you in this practice, and commit to sharing with one another what the experience is like for you. Who is someone you trust to think and pray and wonder faithfully with you? Maybe from +KINDRED, maybe someone else. You can also join me for midweek prayer which I’ll lead this week on Facebook Live at 5PM on Wednesday, where I’ll be reading more from Mary C. Earle’s reflections on Amma Syncletica and discernment.

As you listen and lean into this mystical way, do so with Hope in God; for we shall again praise them, our help and our God. Amen.

On Longing + Discernment