#mysticsim

aknowledging god

2017 improvisation painted one night live at google hangouts among friends for fun experimenting with colors

           Introducing the strange can be a wonderful lens to delve through. My journey took a strange turn down a rabbit hole of artful outlandish musical oddities, truly idiosyncratic and unforgettable. Interestingly, Altgeld Castle hosts an eccentric music festival that dissolves unconventional quadrilateral boundaries like a petty façade.

           Following a refreshing break and traveling on The Wheels of the Mellow Roll I returned to the Desert Castle of Altgeld. After my long journey my primary directive was to unsheathe my blade and begin training. A new element of strangeness that I have began introducing into my routine is aural dampening. This element of strangeness consists of muffling your ears in order to produce a stronger sound. I enjoy synthesizing strangeness in the practice room, so I created what I call blackout aural dampening when practicing lip slurs. This strangeness pairing forces myself to rely only on my ears which are handicapped and therefore requires me to play at higher volumes. Additionally, my eyes are closed too in order to combat they eyebrow habit I have. After completing a few standards sword techniques, I noticed a strange blue hue that seemed to be lingering in sandy halls of the desert castle halls.

Upon further inspection, the hue grew stronger as I got closer to Shyrock colosseum where I found the source of the strange blue light. BlueSHIFT was a fantastic introduction to the week of avant-garde music ringing throughout the castle grounds. “False Summit” was described as composition inspired by climbing mountains only to find that the peak you thought was the zenith is bogus and the true apex lies ahead. I thought about my own personal musical journey and how many times I hit certain echelons only to find that this point of the voyage is really only the beginning. In regards to music, it reminds me of the mathematical concept of an asymptote which is “a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance (dictionary).” No matter how far you climb the musical mountain there is always a false crown around the bend. Based on the opening of this festival I knew that I was going to be in a for something non-compos mentis.

The ninetieth started just like any normal school day where I wrestled myself from a dormant sleep to pick up right where I left off. The musical habits that have been established continued fluidly despite transitioning from break. Over break I noticed that I hit new bench marks with my aural skills surpassing any melodic and harmonic intervals and getting into intervals that are over an octave which is what is expected of me for the review class. With that in mind, I need to round out a few other areas of aural skills and I will be in good shape by the end of the semester. I was still riding the blue wavelengths of the concert the evening before and I was eager to get into a practice room.

Interestingly, I started refining a few of my warm-up routines by adding dynamics during the climaxes of my warm-up exercise. One important note that I wrote in my log is that my higher slurs have started to smooth out which means my flexibility has gotten better.  Over the break I managed to get into my normal household practice schedule which includes spending time on a piano, so without any hesitation I decided to try and incorporate it into my schedule. Normally, I choose a new key every week, review scales, root chords, jazz voicings, and noodle around a bit to have some fun for a change. I usually practice piano when my chops are exhausted or need of a buffer before I start another routine.  My day concluded with a Tonal and Aural Mastery exercises of 1-4-1-3-1-2-1 in all keys and ranges.

In Pedagogy that week we spent a good portion of class talking about practice/ performance techniques and with more strangeness synthesis occurred in the form of “shaken not slurred” which indicates the use of vibrato on certain notes in order to find the center of the note. Thus, I hope eventually I will learn the center of higher pitches because the length of my bell augments where certain notes lay. Additionally, in regards to performance practice the concept of variety seemed to have resonated well. When doing my normal buzzing routine, I came across some old 16-bit chip tunes from older Sega Genesis games that I use to play. It was fairly challenging to buzz some the intricate melodies, runs, and licks throughout the sound tracks.

Honestly, this week proved to be somewhat stressful on top of getting music ready for the final evening of the festival. I was also involved in some extra rehearsals because of the student recitals and our quartet had a church gig rehearsal to prepare for Easter. I must say that one of my personal goals of playing as much music as possible has certainly come true. I really enjoy getting exposed to a wide variety of repertoire leading to a diverse musical pallet.

Wednesday was a bit unorthodox because of the schedule shift that took place, however, because I had some extra time I could really refine my solo. I rarely ever take time to acknowledge my playing, but even I was impressed with how the first movement of Ghrondhal was sounding… HEROIC. When I play well an enormous surge of serotonin ripples through my body as I enter a heightened state of ecstasy. I remember being extremely content for the rest of the day and my only wish is that I can learn how to replicate this transcendent state more often.

Unconventional quadrilateral boundaries were unhinged on Friday when I experienced renown guest artist and saxophonist Randall Hall.  Hall’s recital was grounded in Neoplatonism “this brand of Platonism, which is often described as ‘mystical’ or religious in nature, developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism (New-Platonism).” He created a program about tapping into the gateways of visiting with higher transcendental entities via music. Hall opened with a piece about Orfeo’s descent into the underworld to meet with Hades. He also utilized soprano sax for one of his pieces because it resembles the Greek aulos. Hall utilized many extended saxophone techniques including slap tonging which he seemed to do effortlessly in his playing. Another aspect of Halls recital was to invoke this idea of trances in order to meet with transcendental entities. The fixed media he used throughout his recital helped to articulate his program concept. Overall, it was an outlandish trip into the spiritual realm of mysticism with Randall Hall as a shaman and spirit guide….

A virtue is a positive trait deemed morally good. A christian virtue is a trait of the person of Jesus exemplified in a person. The lives of many saints through history have revealed certain godly traits that we can look back on as an example. A modern example is how we think of the compassion of Heidi Baker or Mother Theresa. We might read of the great faith of John G. Lake or the spiritual power of Smith Wigglesworth. Throughout all history there have been those men and women who show us Jesus and provide an example. 

In recent years the lives and practices of Catholic mystics have been more and more embraced by protestant Christians. Many charismatics are just now discovering the lives of our forerunners in the things of the Spirit. Why we may not agree 100% on key doctrines or understanding of scripture the lives and teachings of the many mystics offer to us insight and truth. 

Sometimes we we read of the unusual manifestations and spiritual experiences of the mystics we forget their larger teaching on "perfection" or "grace" or "union". The mystics believed that through meditations and good acts they could receive a spiritual state of oneness with God. In this state the soul would be swallowed up by Christ and the seeker would become like Jesus. As evangelicals we believe that this spiritual state of union with Christ was given to us as a gift through the cross and that we accept that gift by faith. We are not living toward union but living from union. Where we can agree is on the fruit of this condition. The mystics teach that as the soul comes closer to God it begins to take on His attributes or "virtues". The lives of most of the mystics actually took on certain key characteristics.  We find a great evidence of faith, hope, and love. We find the mystics to be humble people who lived out the fruit of the Spirit effortlessly. Most were exceptionally lighthearted and playful in their daily lives.

The point I'm trying to make is that healthy "mysticism" or experiential knowledge of God makes us more like Jesus and easier to get along with. Healthy spiritual maturity looks like the personality of Jesus being formed and manifesting in us by the Spirit. If someone claims to have had incredible spiritual revelation but is still bitter, lazy, rude, discontent, complaining, angry, push, sour, or spiteful we have to wonder what type of experience they've had. 

While I'm not suggesting we all adopt vows of poverty and silence and move into an abbey I am suggesting that perhaps we take a broader look at the teachings of the saints. Some of the core values and goals of the spiritual exercises of the saints dealt with forming virtue. The seekers were looking to becoming more like Jesus in compassion, gentleness, self control, contentment, peace, and joy. The sought spiritual maturity because that meant they would be more aware of Jesus all the time and more like him all the time as well.

If we go searching for visions, trances, and angels we may very well find them but we may not find what we really need to see. The apostle Paul was brilliant at living in ecstatic experience based knowledge of God and scripture. He was a master of boiling down the cosmological into what it meant for household relationships and chores. He taught as much about being quiet and being a good employee as he did the "end times". To Paul Jesus mattered more than anything and his quest was to "know Him". 

"There is nothing new under the sun."

Almost every idea in our "modern" world can be traced in some fashion back to the "ancient" one. Almost all of philosophy has existed since recorded history. Certain ideas take on a new following of evolve but they remain closely linked to their origins no matter the era they come in vogue. As of late I've been in an internal struggle. The struggle inside me is for truth. More accurately, I am longing for pure truth. I'm tired of the philosophies and values of the world informing my view of Christ. The longing is really simple. I desire to know what the scripture means and to live by it even if it stands in opposition to what I currently think or live.

The lies i keep bumping into are as old, if not older, than the church. I'm not exactly sure if I'm at the place to write them all out and pin point them as wrong. However, I want to deal with them in a more generalized fashion. I'm not doing this because I want to become some egotistical heresy hunter. I'm not doing this to gain some sense of intellectual pride because my view are right. I do however want to confront deception in my heart and mind. As Tozer stated, how we think about God dictates the god we worship (paraphrase). So let's start unpacking in a very general sense some lies I've come into constant contact with. 1. Greek/Gnostic Dualism: This one has crept into the church at large. It is the prevailing worldview of the western world. Both cessationists and Charismatics by into this.

Cessationists: The entire doctrine of cessationsim is a form of gnostic dualism. Dualism states that there are two separate worlds. The physical world is the result of an evil force and is therefore evil and to be avoided. The spiritual world is one of good an perfection and can only be obtained through gnosis or knowledge. How many sermons have you heard in cessationists churches claiming that this physical world is evil and to be avoided. We call it "secular". Cessationists will say that God doesn't heal anymore because the physical world is temporary and the only thing that matters is saving souls (gnosis) and getting people into heaven (spiritual realm). This sort of Christianity retreats from the world around it rather than obeying Jesus by being "in the world". God created the physical world and said it was good. The hebraic understanding of creation is not that creation is bad but that sin has perverted everything and that God is at work to restore His Shalom (the Hebrew equivalent of SOZO) in society and creation. God isn't going to destroy everything He made. He is going to restore it by destroying sin.

Charismatic: The fascination with the "glory realm" and "third heaven" becomes escapist fantasies. Like cessationists who only want to go to heaven in the sweet by and by Charismatic obsess over getting there now. Ultimately we reject God's created order that we live in human bodies on earth. God created a material universe and called it good. He created a physical body for us and he created a community of humans (Adam and Eve) and called that very good! The obsession with the realm of the Spirit is actually antithetical to God's order and perfect will. We are called to live connected to His Spirit in the midst of normal life. Think about this, God created Adam in perfect communion with himself (paradise) and yet still gave him work to do and physical food to eat. Adam never spent all His time in a mystical trance worshipping God or going to the third heaven. He had a real life with real tasks to complete. 

A. Prayer Closet Addiction: God said it was not good for man to be alone. Not only does this create the foundation for marriage it also creates the order of community. God did not think it was good for Adam to exist without community even though they had perfect fellowship. This means that one's personal devotion to God does not excuse them from fellowship with others. It actually Goes against our created intent to live your whole life in a "prayer closet". Jesus rose earlier and then spent the rest of His time with people "doing My Father's work". While the desire to live all day hidden away in God's presence is appealing to many and seems noble it actually doesn't fit into the biblical understanding of following Jesus. Neither Jesus nor His disciples lived this way. They lived a wholistic life because they did not view the world dualistically. The OT had established that every detail of your life belonged to God and was connected to God. From what you ate, when you ate it, how your worked, when you worked, what you made, what you were named, how you spent your money, your sex life, all of it was physical and spiritual. There was no separation. By separating them we negate the Lordship of Christ and live compartmentalized (nominal) lives. Only when we view the physical as evil can we wish to live in our "prayer closet" never to carry fellowship with Jesus into the rest of the world.  

B. Possessed by the Holy Spirit: While I understand this cry and pursuit it is not inline with scripture. The idea of course is that if being filled with the Spirit is ideal than being possessed by the Spirit is even better. This idea has its roots in early Church mystical heresy. The belief was that after one experienced "union with God" they would only will as God willed and would only be capable of doing what God would do because possessed them by the Spirit. This was denounced as heresy because it was not found in any Apostolic teaching or the life and teaching of Jesus. Jesus had the Holy Spirit "without measure" and still had to pray, "not my will but yours". The apostle Paul confirms this in His letter to the churches in Galatia when He orders them to, "Stay in step with the Spirit" and "If we live by the Spirit let us also keep in step with the Spirit". Possession actually means to domineer and control against the will. Our will was created by God and even though it has the capacity to choose disobedience (Adam) it has not been "annihilated" by Jesus or the new birth. There is not measure to which a person can be filled that they will be possessed by the Spirit. This is against is His nature and is the nature of demons. The Holy Spirit does overshadow and overtake at times but he never forces Himself without the consent of the person. He created the will and respects its power to choose. This is why even as Christians we must choose to follow the Spirit. Nothing is automatic.   

C. God Alone: I've often been told and often thought to myself that my devotional life with God was so rich that the church failed to have anything for me. The mistake is in thinking that the preaching is the main objective of the body life. While teaching is the area we place the most importance it is not so in the NT. The church is the prototype and seed of the regenerated community. The church is a shadow of what the New Creation will be when Christ return and it is the colonizing force of heaven. It is the vehicle by which Christ builds his kingdom people into maturity, spreads the announcement of His victory and mercy, and displays His manifold wisdom to all creation. The body of Christ is the will of God for all Christians and for all people. To deny the body is to deny the authority of the Head (Christ). In the NT the greatest act of discipline a believer could receive was separation from the local church. We are not called to love God alone. We are called to love God, ourselves, and others. Half of the moral law of Moses dealt with how we live in community and much of the extended law was given so that Israel would live in community peaceable.