The Inner Pilgrimage of the Mystics

This blog is about both inner and outer spiritual journeys. Some of the most powerful pilgrimages we can take are ones that never involve leaving our driveways.

I learned that lesson during the years when my husband and I belonged to a Mystics Book Group. We were an odd assortment of seekers, cynics, and gadflies from a variety of faith traditions, and we read some wonderfully thought-provoking books.

What became clear after several years was that while there are real and substantive differences between religions, there is an underlying commonality between their mystical traditions. Put St. Theresa of Avila, Sri Ramakrishna, Isaiah, Hildegard of Bingen, and Hafiz in a room together and they’d find a lot of talk about.

One of the commonalities is their frequent use of the metaphor of the Beloved in relation to the divine. You can see that imagery in the Song of Solomon, for example, and in the poems of the Sufi poet Rumi. Through the centuries, in many places, eras, and cultures, these mystics have addressed God in passionate and erotic imagery, in a way that often scandalized their contemporaries.

One of the greatest mystics was the 16th-century Spanish friar St. John of the Cross. His life is a good example of why there should be a song entitled, “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Mystics.” Though he was eventually embraced by the church and named a saint, he was first accused of being a heretic, investigated by the Spanish Inquisition, thrown into prison, beaten, and nearly starved to death.

And what does he do while in prison? He creates one of the most exquisite love poems to God ever written, The Dark Night of the Soul, which has been an inspiration for countless artists and seekers ever since.

Here’s a modern rendition of that famous poem, sung by Loreena McKennitt. Through the song, the voice of St. John of the Cross still speaks to us across the centuries.