PANENTHISM, MYSTICS, AND PRAYER

There is an aspect of panentheism that is appealing and satisfying to me.  It harmonizes with the experience of Christian “mystics” throughout the centuries.

Definitions: Panentheism is not pantheism.  Pantheism, of which there are varieties, basically sees the whole of the universe monistically as “God,” all is One.  At the other end, so-called “classical theism” makes a sharp dualistic separation between God and the world – and, for that matter, between mind/soul and the body.  This leads, for example, to a child’s straightforward question, which generally receives simplistic answers, “How can God be everywhere and have come as Jesus?”  Or to an adult’s question, “Why, when my Christian mentor’s brain because diseased, did his mind/soul allow him to commit suicide?”
Christian panentheism rides between these two polaristic views.  Since it is the Breath/Spirit of that creatively brings order into chaos and maintains our cosmos (creation theology of Genesis 1), then somehow the universe is “of God” but not the whole of God.  The cosmos may be temporal, but God eternal.  God may know all, but the course of life may be open and not deterministically closed.  My existence is physically embodied in various ways within this cosmos – we are quite literally star dust -- but I can still have communion with God who is beyond that physicality.  Etc.  Important reflections abound, but I want to get back to prayer/communion with God.

Prayer:  Christian mystics seem intuitively to understand this kind of panentheism.  They close their eyes and are aware of the Presence of God.  They open their eyes and aware of the Presence of God.  They see the beauty of the natural world and of the people around them and they rejoice in the Presence of their Creator.  They see the ugliness of natural disasters and bitter people, and they rest in the Presence of the brokenness of Jesus.  This panentheistic vision of God allows them to serve and minister in all situations.  I am reminded of a devotional reading from last week that quoted a Christian “mystic” Mechthild of Magdeburg.  As she was dying, blind, physically helpless, and no longer feeling the Presence of God, she (dictating prayers) thanks God for her powerlessness and closes with a dialogue between soul and body:

Then we shall no longer complain.
Then everything that God has done with us
Will suit us just fine,
If you will now only stand fast
And keep hold of sweet hope.*

Lord, help me to grow in total communion with you, seeing your Presence within all things and all people so that I grow in thankfulness to you and service to all.  Amen.

*Mechthild, The Flowing Light of the Godhead 7.65, trans. Frank Tobin (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), 336.  Taken from Richard Rohr Daily Meditation, 10/27/23.