WHAT BEGINS IN THE MIST?

Recently Richard Rohr has written about MYSTICISM

Mysticism is a  controversial topic  and was even  ridiculed in the pre-Vatican 2  years of my Catholic  upbringing.  Those were stern and  unrewarding years with emphasis on doctrine rather than on direct experience of the Divine in our Human  lives on earth.

In recent years Richard Rohr has brought once again to the foreground the whole topic of mysticism.

"It’s not enough to have wonderful theories about God. Authentic mystical encounter radically changes us and our way of living—our politics, relationships, economics. Otherwise so-called mysticism is just metaphysical rumination. Beverly Lanzetta, a contemporary theologian and monk within universal spirituality, shares the practical implications of mysticism:

"We may imagine mysticism or contemplation to be the privilege of monks and mystics, saints and prophets, and of the cloistered and the devout. But, to this I add: you are made both of and for contemplation. It is the secret longing of your being. And because this is so, each and every one of you contains the seed consciousness and the archetypal reality of its hidden ways. . . . It is in the wilderness of your heart that you discover a reality beyond every religious form."

 Notice that wonderful phrase  --the wilderness of  your heart--

This is in sharp contrast to the ways that some of the nuns teaching us religion in the 50s  heaped scorn on the idea of MYSTICISM.

I  recall here one particularly harsh definition:

Mysticism  begins in the  mists.  It is

 centered on I and it often ends in

 schism. 

Where does a child who sees heaven in 

the clouds at sunset go with that?