The Wounded Stag

388 Pages·1998·1.06 MB·English

by  William Johnston

title: The Wounded Stag
author: Johnston, William.
publisher: Fordham University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0823218406
print isbn13: 9780823218400
ebook isbn13: 9780585171203
language: English
subject Mysticism.
publication date: 1998
lcc: BV5082.2.J63 1998eb
ddc: 248.2/2
subject: Mysticism.
Page iii
The Wounded Stag
Christian Mysticism Today
William Johnston
"The Wounded Stag
Appears
On the Hill"
ST JOHN OF THE CROSS
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York 1998
Page iv
Copyright © 1998 by W J
ILLIAM OHNSTON
All rights reserved.
LC 97-39109
ISBN 0-8232-1839-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-8232-1840-6 (paperback)
Published by arrangement with HarperSanFrancisco,
a division of HarperCollins, Publishers, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnston, William, 1925-
[Christian mysticism today]
The wounded stag / William Johnston.
p. cm.
Originally published: Christian mysticism today. London :: W. Collins &
Sons: New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8232-1839-2. ISBN 0-8232-1840-6 (pbk.)
1. Mysticism. I. Title.
BV5082.2.J63 1998
248.2'2dc21 97-39109
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
Page v
Contents
Preface vii
1 1
The Desert
2 12
Christian Mysticism
3 24
Moses the Mystic
4 36
Presence and Absence (1)
5 45
Presence and Absence (2)
6 54
Conflict (1)
7 63
Conflict (2)
8 72
Covenant and Conversion
9 86
Jesus Mysticism
10 94
Eucharistic Mysticism (1)
11 105
Eucharistic Mysticism (2)
12 116
Mysticism and Life
13 127
Mysticism and Poverty
14 138
Mysticism and Peace
15 156
The Irish Conflict
16 182
The Woman
Epilogue 197
Index 199
Acknowledgments 204
Page vii
Preface
In the summer of 1996 I spent a month in my native Belfast. This was
a time when the cease-fire had broken down and the threat of renewed
violence was very real. Dublin and Downing Street were still making
efforts to bring peace to troubled Ulster.
On the day I left I hailed a cab and climbed into the front seat beside
the young taxi driver. He opened the conversation. "What do you
think of the peace-process?" he said in his broad Belfast accent. I did
not hesitate. "Dialogue is the only answer," I said. "We must get round
a table and talk. I would talk to anyone. I would talk to Gerry Adams.
I would talk to Ian Paisley. I would talk to John Major or to David
Trimble. I would talk to anyone." Then I turned to him and said,
"What do you think?" In his drawling Belfast accent he said, ''We
must pray to God.'' I was shocked. How much wiser he was than E
I think of the Dalai Lama, who has led his people in the path of non-
violence to the admiration of the whole world. It is not just that
violence would be counter-productive, though the Dalai Lama knows
well that it would be so. Rather than that, his conviction of the
rightness of non-violence stems from his religious faith, his silent
meditation, his compassion for all sentient be-
Page viii
ings. He speaks not only to Tibet and China but to the whole worldto
Ireland, to Israel, to Sri Lanka, to Latin America, and to wherever
there is strife.
And so the Dalai Lama and my young taxi driver remind us that there
is a spiritual and religious dimension to human life and to all our
problems. We will not build a peaceful world just by economic and
political reforms. We will not build a peaceful world just by creating
good laws. All this is necessary, but if we neglect the spiritual
dimension, we are lost.
Needless to say, I still believe in dialogue. We must talk and talk. We
must work for a just solution that will satisfy everyone. But we must
never neglect the spiritual dimension of the peace-process. For every
hour of dialogue we must have two hours of silencein which people
will meditate at the ground of being and pray to their God. In this way
we can hope to build a peaceful world. There is no other way.
We can learn from one of the great spiritual movements of the
twentieth century, Alcoholics Anonymous, with its twelve steps. In
the first step one admits one's powerlessness. "My life has become
unmanageable." Only then can one raise one's eyes to a Higher Power
and ask for help.
And the same twelve steps can be applied to the anguishing problem
of violence. History and bitter experience have taught us that we are
powerless, that violence is never the answer, that the one who takes
the sword perishes by the sword, that human effort alone will not
solve our problems. Let us, then, turn to a Higher Power that dwells in
Heaven above or in the depth of our being.
When I wrote The Wounded Stag almost twenty years ago, I was
asking myself about the relevance of mysticism in the modem world.
Now I see that the mystics are the key persons in the process of
building world peace.
WILLIAM JOHNSTON
SOPHIA UNIVERSITY
Page 1
1
The Desert
I
In the year of Our Lord 1981, when Menachem Begin was Prime
Minister in Israel and Anwar Sadat was President of Egypt, I had the
privilege of spending six months in Jerusalem. I lived at an institute
on the outskirts of the holy city with a motley group of scripture
scholars, each of whom pursued his or her biblical project with
admirable enthusiasm and devotion. My project (and what a project!)
was to study the roots of Christian mysticism. Having spent many
years comparing Christian mysticism with its Buddhist counterpart,
having searched for similarities and explored common ground, I felt
that the time had come to investigate the unique dimension of the
Christian experience and to look for its distinctive features. In doing
this I wanted to go beyond St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of
Avila, beyond Meister Eckhart and The Cloud of Unknowing, beyond
Augustine and Gregory, to the very origins of that mystical prayer
which assumes increasing significance in the lives of contemporary
men and women.
I suspected that I would find What I wanted in the desert. After all,
was it not in the desert that the people of Israel
Page 2
Sinai: The Great and Terrible Wilderness