As with any religion, there are two types found within Christianity. The first is the tribal member. He or she favors a literal, concrete reading of Christianity, asserting that God is a judge with a rule book. Those who don’t play for “our team” are damned to eternity, and it can be our job to help them along the way to that end.
The second person is concerned not with knowing the rules and dogma, but with knowing the Mystery itself, which is to say living from within the experience of that Mystery. This is the search for and experience of that connection to and affirmation of God’s Presence on an ongoing basis. Here, the ideal is to live life from the very center of the Mystery, and to manifest into this world God’s compassion, love and mercy. It is to this group that Jesus of Nazareth belonged, and it is why, beneath the centuries of overlays in the name of scripture and tradition, we can still find at the heart Jesus to be of such central importance to our particular spiritual path.
God is not limited to our own prejudices, hatred, fear and projections. In fact, those very things keep us from experiencing the Mystery, as we are to celebrate God wherever that Presence may be glimpsed.
For a number of us, the clearest window on God is Jesus of Nazareth, which is why we are based in Christianity. The symbols and language of Christianity is such a part of our tradition, that they form the basis for our path. To be a Christian mystic is an active life of faith — to meet what we might call “popular” Christianity with great faith, yes, but also great skepticism. The spirituality OF Jesus has become the religion ABOUT Jesus, and a Christian mystic seeks a return to the origins of what it was to hear Jesus and to move beyond Jesus, as he asked us to do, to that to which he was pointing with his stories, teachings, words and life.
