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SPIRITUALITY: A BRILLIANT INTRODUCTION…

Review: Hedley Beare’s Dolphin’s Leap, Hind’s Feet: Becoming a Mystic – Journey, Discipline and Practice (Morning Star Publishing 2014). \

hinds high places

Friends ask: ‘Rowland you’re a retired pastor: what are you doing these days?’

‘Oh, what I’ve always done, but without committees or an office.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I walk the nearby forest trails with people, and we “rearrange their universe” together’.

‘How do you do that?’

‘As a hopefully empathetic and gentle prompter. Like: “How are you and God these days?” Those brought up Evangelical might say “I’m not reading the Bible much any more”. Catholics: “I pray the Daily Office, but it’s a pretty boring routine”.

‘Where do you go from there?’

‘I might recommend a book like this one’…

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Professor Hedley Beare (1932-2010) was a high-profile professional educator. At national and international conferences he was invariably introduced as an expert on how to improve schools and run them effectively. He set up two educational systems – in Australia’s Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory – and authored, co-authored or edited 18 books, 40 book chapters and hundreds of journal articles. When Cyclone Tracy struck the NT he coordinated the evacuation from Darwin – the largest civilian airlift to that time, moving 28,000 people in eight days…

Busy man. And a very well-put-together Christian. As one person who knew him well eulogized: ‘A life masterpiece loved by all.’ Another: ‘A man of fire and grace’. And another: ‘He was disciplined in Bible reading, following the Lectionary, studying the lives of ‘saints, seers and mystics’ and drawing on other religious traditions.’

How does someone get to be like that?

In terms of Spirituality this book is his magnum opus. Its title honors two remarkable creatures. dolphins 1Dolphins, according to New Zealand Maori folklore, are ‘the human beings of the sea’. They are the most transparently friendly of all the wild animals. And also sure-footed ‘hinds’. The last verse in the Old Testament prophecy of Habakkuk reads: ‘God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer: I feel like I’m king of the mountain’ (NRSV, MSG).  

The book has four sections:

 

Part One: Recognizing the Mystical: A Memoir. Mystics aren’t a select few ‘odd-bods’ living in caves, cells or monasteries with nothing else to do but enjoy surreal and supernatural experiences. Anyone can explore reality in the way saints, seers and mystics do. The journey inward and the journey outward – ‘interiority and the ordinary’ – co-exist in all of life’s events.

 

Part Two: Getting Ready to Receive: the Four Essentials. Four daily disciplines characterize the lives of saints, seers and mystics:

# detachment: tossing out the baggage which hinders our spiritual freedom

# poverty: living simply, rather than accumulating possessions 

# silence and solitude: praying without any distractions

# the discipline of prayer: aided by routines of ‘quieting’, the daily office etc. 

In this chapter, and throughout the book, are many very helpful exercises for application and self-reflection.

dolphins

Part Three: Varieties of Mystical Experience. In these seven chapters we meet some of Hedley Beare’s key ancient and modern spiritual friends: Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, Evelyn Underhill, Thomas Merton, St Catherine of Sienna, St Teresa of Avila, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Teilhard de Chardin, Matthew Fox, St Cuthbert, St Patrick; and poets (eg. Gerard Manley Hopkins); painters (William Blake); musicians (Hildegaard of Bingen) and many others.

Some of their wisdom:

Evelyn Underhill: ‘the great mystics are unanimous in warning their disciples against attributing too much importance to “visions” and “voices” and accepting them at face value as messages from God’

Thich Nhat Hanh: Buddhism teaches us to be wakeful and attentive about the present moment: ‘the only moment to be alive is the present moment’.

John V Taylor (The Go-Between God) : Images describing God in terms of potter or clockmaker aren’t the most appropriate: ‘we now conceive of him [as] on the inside and found in the processes, not in the gaps’. Karen Armstrong (A History of God) is helpful here too.

St Cuthbert, St Godric, St Francis and others help us discern God in relationships with all of God’s creatures.

 

Part Four: A Summation and Conclusion. Evelyn Underhill’s book Practical Mysticism encourages us all to follow the mystics’ path. She was the first woman to be given the title ‘Spiritual Director’ in the Anglican Church. Jung, Joseph Campbell, Bruno Bettelheim and Glenn Clark (I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes) introduce us to archetypal stories with layered meanings.

~~

The book is a very rich mine of spiritual and devotional wealth: derived from the lives and teachings of saints, seers and mystics in all ages; as well as (occasionally) from the wisdom of other traditions (like Buddhism, and Sufism); ancient and modern theologians; and also from secular wisdom Hedley gleans from the social sciences. He obviously believes that ‘all truth is God’s truth’. Another valuable resource: his own personal, daily practice of the spiritual disciplines.

And the list of 200-plus cited references in the Bibliography may be worth the price of the book.

Morning Star Publishing has done an excellent job producing this book – one of their first. (This former English teacher found only one typo: the chapter 13 ‘Chapter Titles’ are missing from pp. 173 ff.)

(If it’s not too late: an excellent Christmas present for someone you love and who wants to love God more).

 

 

Rowland Croucher        jmm.org.au

December 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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