Retreat reading

I'm just back from my annual cell group retreat (with fellow bloggers Sam Norton and Paul Trathen, among others) which this year took place at the Carmelite Priory at Boars Hill. Here are some of the highlights from my retreat reading which reflect our Carmelite setting:

"Applying the practice of the Übersichtliche Darstellung, then, to our 'mystical investigations', here we observe a process of watching or seeing the 'Form of Life' (Lebensform) through the 'language games' (Sprachspiele) that are employed. Our job is not to make mystical interpretations of certain Weltanschauungen but to present 'everything as it is'. The ontological questions no longer concern us. When Wittgenstein's approach is applied to the spiritual realm, its application is neatly summarized by Drury's remarks concerning The Tractatus:

For me, from the very first, and ever since, and still now, certain sentences from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus stuck in my mind like arrows, and have determined the direction of my thinking. They are these:

1. 'Everything that can be put into words can be put clearly'
2. 'Philosophy will signify what cannot be said by presenting clearly what can be said'
3. 'There are, indeed, things which cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are mystical'.
(Drury 1973:iv)

... Drury ... delineated the relationship between (1) the need to speak clearly - the Übersichtliche Blick of the philosopher, and (2) how this relates to the 'unsayable' and the 'mystical'. By delineating what can be said clearly we also delineate what cannot be said but can be shown. This ... is the role of the philosopher who investigates 'the mystical' ... 

the Wittgensteinian approach advocated here concentrates the mystic 'speech act' in it's overall communicative intent; that is, through showing as well as saying. This leads to the notion ... of the 'performative discourse of mystical speech'."

"... the Wittgensteinian move from Weltanschauungen to Weltbild under the Übersichtliche Darstellung - from mind/body Cartesian dualism to a post-enlightenment suspicion of the Cartesian 'I' - mirrors the strategies of 'mystical discourse'. The mystical strategies ... of unknowing and affectivity ... are held alike by the contemporary post-enlightenment discourse of Wittgenstein and the pre-enlightenment discourse of theologia mystica. That is, with the 'postmodern' critique of Cartesian dualism we return to a 'pre-modern' notion of self. Both discourses share similar strategies and ... for both 'style' is as important as 'content'.

Both Teresa and Wittgenstein ... are in their own ways inviting their readers to move 'out of the head' into embodied practices. This ... is the key 'transformational strategy' of both Ludwig Wittgenstein and the writers of the Christian tradition of theologia mystica:

A religious question is either a 'life question' or (empty) chatter. This language game, we could say, only deals with 'life questions'.
(Wittgenstein BEE 183:202)"

Peter Tyler, The Return To The Mystical

"Mysticism is a protean term used to signify a variety of disparate phenomena from the sublime to the trivial, from the effusions of the God-intoxicated saint to the babblings of the hallucinogen-intoxicated addict. It runs the gamut from St Teresa's mansions of the soul to Timothy Leary's neural cocoon ... Although mysticism is a puzzle it should be kept in mind that its often exotic language and the bizarre phenomenon associated with it hinge on a single point: If God exists - and the consensus of the Mystics of the Book (that is, the followers of Judaism, Christianity, Islam) believe that He does - then God is the ultimate goal of human life. Moreover, He is a goal which humankind cannot attain by its efforts alone. Divine aid is necessary. The conviction that the beatific vision is grounded on God, the lumen gloriae of the theologians, delivered Christianity from becoming no more than another priggish intellectual sect or esoteric mystery religion ... It can be said that the mystic claims to be able to penetrate the carapace of the external world, view the beauty within, and ascend to its source, the "all-beautiful One" of St Augustine. That the mystic is directed towards this vision is often lost in the horrifying penances and bizarre exotica that glut their accounts." R. A. Herrera, Silent Music: The Life, Work, and Thought of St John of the Cross  

“I would still argue that everyone, no matter how confused or ill-situated in life, can have at least modest mystical experiences. They may be as simple as the beautiful stillness that settles at the sight of a sunset or a brief period of wonder at the birth of a child. Mysticism doesn’t have to be a life profession. Further, I think that much of our depression, anxiety, and addiction has to do with what John writes about: the soul’s need and longing for transcendence. This need is instinctual and unavoidable.” Thomas Moore, Foreword to M. Starr trans., St John of the Cross: Dark Night of the Soul

“God stripped Job naked and left him on a dunghill, vulnerable and persecuted by his friends. The ground was teeming with worms. Job was filled with anguish and bitterness. This was exactly when God Most High, he who lifts the poor man from the dunghill, was pleased to come down and speak with him face-to-face. This is when God revealed to Job the depths and heights of his wisdom, which he had never done in the time of Job’s prosperity.” St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

"Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?" 

 "Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God." 

"The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament." 

Brother Lawrence, Practising the Presence of God 

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Steve Bell - Kindness.