Why Care About Mystics?

One of the four breakout creative figures is the mystic. The other three are artist, prophet and leader.

A sincere and insightful reader of my early drafts on mystics asked me, "Why should we care about mystics?" "Personally", he told me, "I do care, but what about others? Why should everyday folks. people making a living and going to the mall care about mystics?"

My answer is this this: Mystics are living proof that FAITH is alive and well.

I don't mean "faith" in something that exists: faith in a religious idea or in an institution or an another person.

I mean faith, all by itself, just living in a way that gives, puts something out there that is more expansive and more encompassing, more vital and worthy than anything that exists.

Mystics don't just put ideas out there. They actually live in ways that give those ideas body and soul. They set an example of a life of giving breath and space to notions that enliven the human endeavor. They live in a way that can't be possessed or owned by anyone. If you want to get what the mystic is doing, you have to live it yourself.

Name such a person, you might say. Okay. Try Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health. You can read about him in Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains. Or maybe Barak Obama, who is giving his young and vital life toward a new, more expansive and more encompassing vision of American life. Agree with his policies or not, but the point is he is living a faith toward something great and beyond himself, or what most of us can even conceive.

What makes these people mystics? They can't sit still. These are wanderers, who are not lost, and whose field of action is a whole world in need. They first and foremost have their "dream thing," as one mystic I know called it, and then do everything and anything they can to inch the world toward that dream. They deeply study and master a field of endeavor, a field that is totally compelling to them, so as to be able to bring their faith towards the dream into fruition. They are not afraid to fail; and they give their assistance without reservation, fee or expectations of a return on investment. They make a demand of you: that you break out of what you had thought was impossible (because it was uncomfortable to think it was possible), and realize the decisions you make either make life better for others, or just meet your own needs.

Why care about mystics? Because their faith toward what we, as awake, alive, creative and courageous humans, can open on to makes us feel more alive, gives us, we who are not mystics, tangible evidence of hope, and how to turn it into realities.

My book Among the Mystics: Into the Open will soon be available for download, upon request. For a limited time it will be free, in exchange for comments.

Come back to this site for updates on our progress.