God in my cup of coffee

This past Saturday we were treated at St. Paul's to a talk by Bonnie Thurston about Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941). Bonnie is a scholar and writer about religion, the Bible, theology and mysticism. And she is a good deal more than that. We were blessed to have Bonnie with us on Saturday to lead us into a prayerful place.

Her topic, Evelyn Underhill, was among the most influential theological writers of the 20th century because she wrote about finding the divine in ordinary life and ordinary things.

After her first talk, Bonnie asked us to spend time in silence and try one of Underhill's spiritual exercises. The exercise was this: Focus on a thought. It doesn't matter what the thought is. Focus on the thought and keep all other distractions away. See where it goes.

So I found a quiet place and thought for a moment. I was holding a warm coffee cup, and so began the focus of my thought: my coffee.

This is going to sound very odd, but I spent 30 minutes thinking about the coffee in my cup and how it got there, and I went on a wonderful journey that brought me face-to-face with God's creation, God's compassion and our deepest connections with each other.

An image came into my mind of the mountains in Costa Rica where the coffee beans are grown, and I thought about the farmer who grows those beans. I thought about his hands and how rough they must be from years of tending coffee trees, pruning, cutting, harvesting. I thought about his family, and how they pack the beans in sacks bring those beans to port to be loaded on a ship. I thought about all those who bring these beans to a roaster and how those beans get to a coffee pot to be brewed for my cup.

What became clear to me is how many people are connected through my cup of coffee. We are each connected by the God who creates us and creates these delightful beans we enjoy, brought to us by the labor of human hands. This is not about economic competition or national borders, but about a very human connection through God's creation: coffee.

I cannot but help have compassion based on this connection with all of those who brought me this warm cup of coffee. True compassion is not based on pity, for pity comes from an unequal relationship based on power. True compassion is based on connection -- the deepest connection of all, our connection through our creator and the divine thread that courses through each of us and all of the universe. It is how Julian of Norwich (1314-1462) was able to say that all of the creation -- "all that is made" -- could be found in a hazelnut in the palm of her hand and God's love within it.

"In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought 'What may this be?' And it was generally answered thus: 'It is all that is made.' I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: 'It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it.' "

We sometimes joke in the Episcopal Church that coffee is a sacrament, and that may be truer than we think. God gave us senses to enjoy each other and to enjoy God's creation. God gave us a soul to experience creation and to express our enjoyment. The divine really can be found in ordinary things, even in a cup of coffee.

Painting "Cup of Coffee," by Wayne Thiebaud.

Welcome back Bonnie Thurston: An Advent Day focused on Evelyn Underhill

Some years ago when I was in seminary, I had the eye-opening experience of reading Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), an English writer and mystic of the early 20th century. Her work focused on the presence of the Holy in a very cynical and broken age, and her writing is still very readable, relevant and alive in our own age.

Today at St. Paul's we welcome back scholar and writer Bonnie Thurston who will give a talk on Underhill to usher in our Advent observance beginning at 9 am. Please let me urge you to attend, especially if you have a difficult time with the idea of the Holy being present in everyday life. Bonnie has a way of presenting that thought-provoking and faithful to her subjext.

Evelyn Underhill (her first name is pronounced "Eve-linn") came to the faith later in life, first becoming a Roman Catholic and eventually an Anglican.

Underhill is one of the giants of 20th century Christian theology and spirituality. She brought back into the conversation a recognition of mysticism as a valid expression of the religious experience. She was the first woman to give a series of lectures at Oxford on theology. At her height, she spent the mornings writing and the afternoons serving the poor and providing spiritual direction to those she mentored.

Underhill's most important book is Mysticism, published in 1911, and it is still quite readable, though long (my copy is 519 pages). She wrote at a time when modernism had dismissed religious experience as psychologically irrational, and there was more than a whiff of class prejudice in that. Underhill was able to explain the mystical experience as an exploration of the self and God's presence deep within us and outside us:

"To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainity of being being found." [Mysticism, p. 238]

Without Underhill, we might not have an appreciation of such medieval giants as Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) or Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179. Underhill's approach is to see God in both the light and the darkness, in beauty and ugliness, seeing God as permeating all of existence. She concludes her great book on almost a poetic note:

"According to the measure of their strength and of their passion, these, the true lovers of the Absolute, have conformed here and now to the utmost tests of divine sonship, the final demands of life. They have not shrunk from the sufferings of the cross. They have faced the darkness of the tomb. Beauty and agony alike have called them: the time of the singing of birds is come. From the deeps of the dewy garden, Life - new, unquenchable, and ever lovely - comes to meet them with the dawn." [Mysticism, pgs. 45-451]

I hope you can join us today.

The Saints of Summer: Evelyn Underhill

I cannot let the week pass without mentioning one of the saints of summer, whose day we remembered yesterday: Evelyn Underhill (pronounced "Eve-linn"). Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) came to the faith later in life, first becoming a Roman Catholic and eventually an Anglican. 

Born and educated in England, Underhill is one of the giants of 20th century Christian theology and spirituality. She brought back into the conversation a recognition of mysticism as a valid expression of the religious experience.  She was the first woman to give a series of lectures at Oxford on theology. At her height, she spent the mornings writing and the afternoons serving the poor and providing spiritual direction to those she mentored.

Underhill's most important book was Mysticism, published in 1911, and it is still quite readable, though long (my copy is 519 pages). She wrote at a time when modernism had dismissed religious experience as psychologically irrational, and there was more than a whiff of class prejudice in that. Underhill was able to explain the mystical experience as an exploration of the self and God's presence deep within us and outside us:

To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainity of being being found. [Mysticism, p. 238]

Without Underhill, we might not have an appreciation of such medieval giants as Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) or Hildegard of Bingen. Underhill's influence extends to this day, and among those she exerted a crucial influence upon is L. William Countryman, the now retired professor of New Testament studies at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific; he, in turn, influenced a generation of scholars and priests with an approach to biblical studies that plumbed the underlying mysticism of the Bible. You may detect Underhill's strong influence in my preaching, for example a recent sermon I did on the Trinity and my sermons in Lent. 

Underhill's approach is to see God in both the light and the darkness, in beauty and ugliness, seeing God as permeating all of existence. She concludes her great book on almost a poetic note:

According to the measure of their strength and of their passion, these, the true lovers of the Absolute, have conformed here and now to the utmost tests of divine sonship, the final demands of life. They have not shrunk from the sufferings of the cross. They have faced the darkness of the tomb. Beauty and agony alike have called them: the time of the singing of birds is come. From the deeps of the dewy garden, Life - new, unquenchable, and ever lovely - comes to meet them with the dawn. [Mysticism, pgs. 45-451]