You Are A Social Mystic

Really... you are.

In a bustling neighborhood café you find yourself noticing. Your eyes slowly scan the room, absorbing not only the action and the characters. You sense the whole plot.

Lives in motion. Encounters filled with affection. Work being produced. Time ticking and hearts beating. Meetings, studying, serving, reuniting, doing. But more than those things. Much more.

This story has layers of which you are suddenly starkly aware.

It’s all there in front of you, amidst the whir of the espresso machine, the names being called, the chatter, the headphones, the smell of caramel and chocolate and coffee and mint. You can sense it beneath it all.

There is something happening. Something connecting. Something drawing people together. Something between them.

The true story playing out is not one of daily task list checking or caffeination for maximized professional production. It’s not a story of hustling and ordering and paying and typing and texting and chatting.

The story you are noticing is not on the surface. It is in the air. It is like a deep fluid they’re all unknowingly swimming in. It is a story you can feel. You can almost touch it. And all these strangers are in that story, unaware.

You head to work.

The office is dull, dusty, and fluorescent as always. The whir now comes from the server room or the printer or the light fixtures. Co-workers file in. Nodding. Half smiles. Some chit. Some chat.

But your eyes and your heart shockingly refocus again. You’re tuned into something else. You see the expression in one co-worker’s eyes and know they’re hurting. You notice the flow in another’s cheeks. You hear exhaustion in the tone surrounding the comments of another. You see people leaning against doors and peeking over cubicles to share little moments with each other.

There’s something here.

Even at the office. The interactions seem blessed from your point of view. The encounters seem to sparkle. The conversations are surrounded by a sacred fluidity. Your soul just seems to know there’s something beneath or around or within all that’s happening.

At dinner that night, you can feel it too. God is there (if that’s the right way to say it).

God is accessible and knowable in the space between people. You’re pretty sure that you’re encountering God directly there—in the fluidity, in the connection, in the space, in the togetherness.

You don’t always notice it. Most of the time, you’re too busy rushing to the next thing or worrying about the last thing. But you bump against it every once in a while, and a part of you—your spirit—lights up.

This glimmer that shows up sometimes… this noticing… this tuning into an uncommon divine frequency in the commonplace interactions around you… is not really that novel in the scope of history, even if it is somewhat rare among people today. For thousands of years, people have described these quiet moments of divine presence as holy.

“…the kingdom of God is in your midst,” is how Jesus puts it in Luke’s gospel. (Luke 17:21)

“…among you stands one you do not know,” the mystical John The Baptist announces—pointing to the potent invisible presence we sometimes feel. (John 1:26)

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.” Julian of Norwich taught in the 1300s as she quietly observed people living in a bustling city and struggling through a horrendous plague.

And Thomas Merton, much more recently, wrote beautifully of his ability to sense this sacred presence among the people we encounter every day, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

You are a social mystic, just like these luminaries. You are a social mystic.

You feel that love that surrounds us, embraces us, pulls us together. You are tapped into that holy current that illuminates the infinite goodness in every face. You can hear God’s heartbeat steadily and patiently beckoning us toward each other.

This isn’t some wacky, out there, nonsense idea. In fact, it’s rooted so deeply it doesn’t require some esoteric ritual, or overly-spiritualized language, or an ascetic life of sacrifice and study. This truth you sense is revealed in every interaction. In normal life. On buses and trains. With baristas and bosses. At lunch counters and baby showers. In bars and on street corners. With family, friends, neighbors, and enemies. With no barriers built around religion or language or culture, or life experience. The sacred truth, the holy presence, the blessed embrace is always there, and when you’re trying to, you can notice it.

You are a social mystic.

You have given yourself permission to encounter God in your next interaction. To bring God out in the breath expressed and the energy exchanged. To reflect God’s light out upon all you pass by.

You are a social mystic.

May you know you are blessed.

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A BLESSING FOR YOUR WEEK

Loving God who surrounds us and draws us toward each other, continue to reveal yourself in the hugs and smiles and squints and laughs and cries and requests of the people around us. You are there, God, always. And we can sense you. We can feel your magnetic draw, lovingly bringing us toward each other. We can hear your continual whisper, reminding us to fill the space between us with a reverberation of your boundless love. Amen.

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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION & CONTEMPLATION

1. When was the last time you felt aware of something sacred in an everyday setting?
What was different in that moment that helped you notice?

2. What does the phrase “you are a social mystic” awaken in you?
Does it feel like affirmation, curiosity, resistance, or something else?

3. How does thinking of God as present “in the space between people” change your view of community or relationships?
How might that shift your posture in your next interaction?

4. Which voice—Jesus, John the Baptist, Julian of Norwich, or Merton—resonates most with your own spirituality?
Why do you think that is, and what might it be inviting you into?