[Dialogue] JWM as mystic

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

I've been thinking of John Cock and Darrel Walker's exchange (below) ever 
since it appeared, and haven't had time to comment, but want to now.  In my 
memory, there is no doubt that Joseph Wesley Mathews was a mystic.  How else could 
he have experienced The Other World, and led us to also experience it?  Do you 
remember his lecture on the fire at the center of being?  The wonder of 
living that he evoked with those ridiculous TWEEU birds?  Remember the story of his 
ecstasy at spending a whole day in a cuckoo clock shop in Switzerland?  If he 
hunts me down, I'll assure him not only was he a mystic, he also enabled 
others to be mystics.

My 2 cents

  Darrel, I did a double-take on your saying JWM was a revolutionary mystic. 
Beware, he may hunt you down.


      God, what a terrifying thought!

      Actually, I heard a tape of Marcus Borg's talk that he gave to the 
Progressive Christians Uniting in Pasadena recently, and at the end of his talk he 
used two terms--ecstatic mysticism and non-ecstatic mysticism.  He didn't 
expand on them much but inferred the latter to be a base that empowers us to 
combat injustice (or some such).  I'm not sure what Borg means by the terms, but 
somehow non-ecstatic mystic seems to describe JWM for me.  

      Something to think about in reflecting on Matthews.

          Darrell<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> See 
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