ALL SAINTS 4 November Evelyn Underhill

Transcription

1 ALL SAINTS 4 November 2018 Evelyn Underhill Introduction Grant Bullen We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. Craving, clutching and fussing we are kept in perpetual unrest: forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb to be: and that being, (not wanting, having, and doing) is the essence of a spiritual life. 1 This teaching, focusing on being not doing, surfaced in the church of my experience in the 1970 s. It came as a radical challenge to the sort of church and society we were busy, activist, lots of programs and it had a huge influence on me, forming the sort of priest I became. But these words were written by Evelyn Underhill in 1937 way ahead of its time. Being (not wanting, having, doing) is the essence of a spiritual life. Evelyn Underhill ( ) was a prolific writer 2 and the acknowledged expert on Mysticism of her time. She was highly regarded as a speaker, lecturer, retreat conductor and spiritual director and as a regular presenter on BBC radio. She was a prominent figure in the Church of England the first woman to be allowed to teach clergy 3 and indeed in English society itself. A holy person of our time and our church and yet, often dismissed in latter years. (Not only forgotten, but dismissed ) Why? Here s a story I found while researching this sermon The man was a high-ranking cleric in the Episcopal Church; he had just led a day of reflection for the parish where I worship. I thanked him for his presentation and, 1 Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life (1937) p She published over 30 books. 3 She had lots of firsts the first woman to lead an official church retreat; one of the first women to lecture regularly in English universities 1

2 referring to something he had said about the spiritual life, asked him if he were familiar with the works of Evelyn Underhill. He laughed briefly, waved a well-manicured hand dismissively, and said that he had tried to read her, but couldn t get beyond the rattle of teacups in the background. Since the reverend father was drinking a rather good sherry at the time, it might have behoved him not to mock the clichés of genteel Anglicanism, but this irony did not occur to me at the time: I was too astounded by the depth of ignorance and prejudice revealed by his remark. 4 That names it There s the dismissive prejudice - I couldn t get beyond the rattle of teacups in the background because Evelyn Underhill lived what in many ways was a conventional domestic life. She was devoted to the care of her parents she was loyally supportive of her husband, a prosperous London barrister, with all the entertaining and socialising that entailed and she was willing to spend time (often as spiritual director) with women like herself, women whose primary role was in the home. Underhill was her maiden and professional name but many people knew her only as Mrs Moore her husband s name. 5 To read her life purely through a conventional domestic lens ignores so much Not just her prodigious publishing output and her active professional life but also her foundations as a young woman, in the psychic, esoteric, mystical and psychological 6 excitement of the Edwardian era (turn of the 20 th century), with its rediscovery of sensuality and the place of the feminine. There was an edge of wildness in her work that never left her. And her adventurous travel whenever she could get away 7 her work with the London poor her public stance on pacifism that lead to significant reputational damage in the years prior to WW2 and her trail-breaking work in ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue. Nonetheless, it is true that she lived in a conventional domestic world a world which she didn t reject or sneer at, but saw as a place just as accessible to the life of faith as any other. Indeed, part of her legacy is her articulated conviction that the call to holiness (or the spiritual life), can be responded to in the ordinary life. 4 Deborah Smith Douglas Evelyn Underhill and the Rattle of Teacups 5 She married Hubert Stuart Moore when she was 32. He himself was not interested in spirituality, and it was probably his opposition to Roman Catholicism that kept her as Anglican when her leanings were very much in that direction but he was entirely supportive of her professional and public life. They had no children. 6 And much of the emerging new science of the time. 7 Walking and climbing in the Swiss Alps as well as arduous pilgrimages in Italy and France. 2

3 She had little formal education amazingly she was self-taught with no university credentials 8 and she was (of course) a lay woman in an age of clericalism and elitism in gender, status and class that dominated the Church of England and society as a whole. She was often criticised for advocating that the mystical life was accessible to the average person. Here she is defending herself from criticism that came when she wrote that the suffering of Christ could be seen in the ordinary hardships of domestic life (The pattern of the Paschal Mystery, Christ s suffering, death and resurrection, can indeed be applied to) very humble and ordinary things. For most of us don t get (the chance to experience) anything BUT the humble and ordinary: and Christ came that WE might have (this) life more abundantly. Her own writing on prayer, moved from sophisticated academic study of the medieval mystics 9 (her early works), to much earthier exploration and description of how the call to holiness spoke to people like us. Here s a contemporary review of her 1937 BBC radio broadcasts 10, The Spiritual Life 11 She was not there to display her knowledge of German metaphysics nor to impress anyone with her grasp of psychological theories involved in spiritual exercises and systems of meditation. She was there to bring (ordinary) people in touch with their Creator, and please God, she would do it, if she could. 12 She stopped using the word mysticism because it sounded too esoteric, foreign and inaccessible to many and instead used the term the spiritual life. (Indeed, scholars argue that it was Evelyn Underhill who popularised the word spirituality, as a shorthand way to describe the journey of Christian holiness.) She was spiritual director to hundreds of ordinary people, often by letter Kensington housewives included telling them repeatedly You CAN live a holy life. There is no excuse. The counsel was homely and practical Here s a couple of typical quotations from her collected Letters Try to arrange things so you can have a reasonable bit of quiet every day, and do not think it selfish You are obeying God s call and giving (God) the opportunity to teach you what He wants you to know, and so make you useful to (others) 8 Honorary degrees and fellowships came later in life. 9 And how that legacy lived in the 20 th century 10 That became the book The Spiritual Life from which the opening quotation came. 11 That were amongst her last public presentations. 12 AA Tillyard, review in Theology 34 (1937) 3

4 and Take the present situation as it is and deal with what it brings you, in a spirit of generosity and love. God is as much in the difficult home problems as in the times of quiet and prayer. Try especially to do God s will there, deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy and patience. She persistently taught that contemplation always led to practical and loving action. Part of her own weekly discipline was to visit poverty-stricken families in a poor area of London, two afternoons each week an activity she considered part of her spiritual practice. 13 Although at first glance she sounds genteel in her counsel, many of her letters were challenging Where has your sense of proportion got to, when you think you have not time for your morning prayers? And she modelled what she preached keeping a daily discipline of worship, prayer and meditation as well as her research and writing all of this while living as Mrs Moore, the faithful wife of a London barrister. Why? Why, am I talking about Evelyn Underhill today? Because on ALL Saints Day I like to remind us of the holy men and women who never get the official status of sainthood, and who so easily slip from view. Because Evelyn Underhill lived in many ways a conventional life and says to you and me, the way of holiness, the spiritual life is entirely accessible to ordinary people like us. (There is no excuse ) And because I think she is a prophet for our times for where we find ourselves as a church. Karl Rahner, the great 20 th century Jesuit theologian, said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all. 14 By mystic, Rahner didn t mean someone pursuing strange parapsychological phenomena, but one who knows a genuine experience of God personal 13 She started this work on the recommendation of her spiritual director, Baron Friedrich von Hugel. 14 Karl Rahner SJ, Theological Investigations, Volume XX Concern for the Church, trans. Edward Quinn (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981), p

5 encounter as distinct from second-hand or propositional belief, and deeper than the kind of spiritual high reliant on passing emotional states Evelyn Underhill was writing in the church of 1930 s not knowing she d be read by a church in 2018, still besotted with activism still focused on wanting, having, doing still afraid to explore what it means to be. Conclusion Evelyn Underhill was way ahead of her time in her rediscovery of the mystical tradition, that there is no separation between divinity and humanity, because the Spirit is always fresh and alive in the present moment Incarnation is always and forever here and now. What is around us, often looks at the first sight of our illusory perception dull, domestic, commonplace, ordinary but when the Christ-consciousness awakens in us, we see that all life is sacred indeed that all life is infused with light, grandeur and radiance. Here s how the opening quotation finishes But now, with this widening of the horizon, our personal ups and downs, desires, cravings, efforts, are seen in scale; as small and transitory within a vast, abiding spiritual world And at once a new coherence comes into our existence, a new tranquillity and release. Like a chalet in the alps, that homely existence gains atmosphere, dignity, significance from the greatness of the sky above it, and the background of the everlasting hills. (A recommended biography is by Dana Greene, Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life ) 15 Rahner, Theological Investigations, XX, p This reflection is lifted from Sarah Bachelard s lecture, Running on Empty: Contemplation and Ecclesial Possibility 5