Why, when God’s world is so bigDid you fall asleep in a prisonof all places.

- Rumi

Primarily rational mindTraditional, institutional thinking“left brain” Need to control and categorize – to fully understandHelps for study and safety but traps and “kills” (i.e. no longer fully alive and free) what it seeks to understand

Immediate, unexplained experienceMysterious, hard-to-defineIntuitive and emotionalUncontrolled, unpredictable (a little or a lot dangerous)Fully and complexly alive

Zoo = the church (generally)= the Bible (generally) = creeds, dogma, doctrines= predictable, rational faith life= more word than spirit

Wild = mysticism= pre-interpreted spiritual experiences= more spirit than word

Conservative zoos tend to be built around rigidly (and conveniently) interpreted Biblical texts

Progressive zoos tend to be built around over-dependence on human rationality (in spite of all the evidence that we’re not all that rational – we see the irrationality of those we disagree with and ignore our own)They are also suspicious of mystical confidence (sometimes but always with good reason)

6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

“my ways are higher than your ways” (Is.55.9)Jesus and parables – “that they may look but not perceive” (Mk. 4.12)“Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words” (Ro. 8.26)Jesus seen as “insane or demonic” (Jn.10.20)

Is your faith too safe??

an intuition of truth (that one may or may not be able to put into words) that is emotionally tinged - especially emotions that make us feel like we’ve experienced God/meaning/life like…awe/wonder, love/connection/unity, peace, joy, trust/OKness, “Aha!” or “Ahh!”

I try to democratize mystical experience, that is, not to understand it as an elitist affair of a few select people, but – as Ernst Bloch puts it in the famous concluding sentence of The Principle of Hope – as “something that shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet been: homeland.” I want to remind us of the buried mysticism of childhood. There are for many of us – I almost want to say for every one of us – moments of heightened experience in childhood in which we are grasped by a remarkable, seemingly unshakable certainty.- Dorothy Soelle, The Silent Cry

“The trivialization of life is perhaps the strongest antimystical force among us…. One can try to think, feel, experience, and communicate everything, but the moment such expressions see the light of day, they are robbed of their significance and meaning and are thrown on the dump. They have no cash value in relation to the currency that dominates our culture.” – Dorothy Soelle

As a result we keep our experiences private and think of them as silly or unimportant

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.

Dead and packaged religionE.g. – televised religion Or religion exploited for selfish political ends