A fascinating discussion. I’m glad it “just appeared” again in the last day or so.
Mysticism feels like dangerous waters to this member of the so-called “Frozen Chosen” [white, calvinistic Protestant]. I’ve read Willard’s “Celebration of the Disciplines” and Calvin Miller’s book on Christian spiritual disciplines which I no longer have and can’t name. While their vocabulary was familiar, my reaction to many of their concepts was extreme caution and the feeling of “Here be dragons.” Feeling at home in a fairly cerebral, outwardly non-demonstrative and doctrinally-guarded spiritual practice (rooted in Puritanism), the idea of mysticism feels dangerous to me, like the theological guardrails have been removed.
That being said, prayer (i.e. talking to God silently, out-loud, in song, in my words, in the read word of Scripture, in some other words like “The Valley of Vision”, etc.) and rumination on a texts of Scripture, hymns, written prayers and the like don’t strike me as mystical at all. It’s common Christian practice in my mind. However, they’re also practices I need to do more of and regularly.
Not long ago, @MarkD and I had been chatting about the use and development of intuition, which I had not thought of as fitting the category of mysticism. Apparently, the boundaries of the concept are somewhat different from my assumptions.
(Valley of Vision book: The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett | Banner of Truth USA
And web version:
The Valley of Vision Archives - Banner of Truth USA)