One afternoon in March, I was in the library avoiding my homework. I was trying to think of a pseudonym or pen name to use for books and music I might publish in the future, one that referenced things that are important to me. I eventually settled on 'The Late Mystic'.
I've been at least a little late to nearly everything for as long as I can remember, a pattern that drives me more crazy than I can even say. "Why don't you just leave a little earlier?" Please.
Anyway, the word late is a pun that has at least four meanings:
(1) tardy
(2) recent
(3) dead (as in, "to self and alive in Christ"), and
(4) pregnant.
Yes, that last one warrants a little explanation. It's from the second Austin Powers movie when Frau tells Dr. Evil she is 'late'. More importantly, it's from Plato's Symposium, in which he says all people are pregnant and desire to give birth: some to babies and some to ideas. I like the idea of being pregnant in mind. That's meaning of the 'Late' part.
The 'Mystic' thing is about my desire to know God in terms of actual experience. I don't merely want to 'find the truth' or 'get to the bottom of things', etc. I'm convinced that life is really about knowing God closely, which is a mysterious thing. You don't get to know a friend by listening to people talk about him on Sunday mornings, but by spending time with him and asking questions and going where he goes and doing what he does. Of course, reading a friend's autobiography would probably benefit that friendship, but having read a book about someone's life doesn't, in itself, establish a friendship with that person. Neither does merely memorizing a few Bible verses and then thinking good thoughts.
So, I don't think knowing God is so much about acquiring data, but rather coming into mystical union with the Creator of the universe. It doesn't really involve the scientific method. It involves probing the eternal quality of your inner being. In St. Augustine's Confessions, he comes upon his own spiritual assent to knowledge of God by first descending into the silence of his own mind, and then, having left his physical senses behind, by ascending through the gateway of his own soul into the presence of the One. He said he believed in the theological truths about Jesus being the Son of God and Lord and Savior and so on long before he considered himself a convert to Christianity.
I affirm historical orthodox Christianity. I also believe that it is through mystical experiences of God's presence that people truly come to know God, often without even realizing it. Life is full of God's fragrance; His unmistakable character is everywhere in smiles and plants and human acts of compassion. Prayer itself is a mystical thing. To know God, not as a mind holding information, but as a whole person joined to another, that is great search of my life. And I think it's the deepest goal of every human heart, regardless of what the mind believes.
That's why I like the name "The Late Mystic".