For years, I’ve stumbled across quotes and concepts attributed to “the mystics”. Much of the time, these findings have come like flecks of gold brightening and en-valuing the stream in which they sit.

I confess that this discovery has evolved into a minor obsession with mysticism. In a recent post, I acknowledged that blogging was being bumped backward in my priority list to free up time and energy for larger writing projects. One of those revolves around mysticism.

At one point, I had started a second blog aimed with the intent of focusing all of its content on mysticism. Would you believe maintaining two blogs was more work than maintaining one? So I will now proceed to move those posts over to this site one at a time. Here is the first post, originally written on May 30, 2011, as introduction to soon-to-be-extinct site: Meandering Mystic.

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A meandering mystic.

That might describe me.  At the least, it speaks of someone I hope to be.

The word “mysticism” planted itself in my mind years ago.  Each day, I see a few more sprigs of what has been growing ever since.

The term itself can cause confusion; the mere sound of the word sets off connections with “mystery”, translated internally as “weird” or “nutty” or “cuckoo”.

However, at its heart, mysticism speaks of experience with God, of tasting of His presence in a tangible way.  Pressed further, it can even allude to a sensed union of human with Divine.

Perhaps the phrasing of that last sentence does border on “out there”, but my soul feels a real need for more of God.  And if it isn’t real on an experiential level, then it feels like little more than intellectual consideration of concepts such as God.

And that type of spiritual life has nothing to offer this fellow, who has lived on that level for too many days already.

So I meander, with the word “mystic” to guide me.  Perhaps I’ll arrive there yet.