A mysticism of resistance

After the events of the past week, remembering Mary Swenson and remembering
Archbishop Romero, I was ready this morning to encounter the words of Paul Knitter
of CRISPAZ.

CRISPAZ – Christians for Peace in El Salvador – has spent 20 years
working for peace and justice in El Salvador. Its current focus areas are high-risk
youth, rural communities, economics for people, and south-north solidarity.
Looking back on his own twenty years with CRISPAZ, Knitter characterizes this
time as a "long haul" and a "good way." His analysis is
as relevant to Colombia and the United States as to El Salvador.

Like the compañera who shared with Teresa and Irma and me after Mary’s
funeral, he recognizes that "so many dreams for El Salvador have not been
realized; so much pain is still with us. … poverty due to injustice is
still as murderous as ever; political corruption and intrigue abound; the "powers
that be" are even more staunchly entrenched…. What Jon Sobrino calls
"the anti-kingdom" is stronger …"

Looking back and looking ahead, Knitter talks about mysticism as a basis for
action.

"[Mysticism] is a slippery, often sugary, word, I admit. As used among
theologians and scholars of religion, it’s a blanket term that covers the
many different ways people come to feel (yes, feel) that they are connected
with, part of, or a vehicle for Something More. I use the expression "Something
More" not as a description but as a pointer to that mysterious Reality
that stirs, in different ways and forms, within the many religions of the world.
This Something More is imaged as a personal Being in some traditions, while
in others it is conceived as a universal, compassionate energy, or as the dynamic
interconnectedness of everything. ‘Mysticism,’ then, is the word specialists
use to indicate what can happen to people when, generally through the stories
or practices of religion, they feel connected and animated by this Something
More."

Knitter goes on to speak about a mysticism of resistance and a mysticism of
quiet.

A Mysticism of Resistance
"Most, maybe all, of us have become part of CRISPAZ because we had to.
In a sense, we didn’t have a choice. Once we heard about the suffering
of the people of El Salvador, once we learned of the causes of such suffering
– especially the role of our government in it – we felt called, or
obliged to respond in some way. We felt that we had to resist – that is,
do something to remedy – the suffering-caused-by-injustice …
"There is Something that generates those feelings within us. Something
that vibrates between us and the victims of injustice. I call it Something More
because even though we feel it within the depths of our own being, it is also
a power that, as it were, invades our being and puts it in motion. The Confucian
philosopher Mencius, over 3000 years ago, called this Something "the Heart
that cannot bear the sufferings of others." We all have that Heart, he
claimed. As a Christian, I would call it the Spirit given to all of us, living
in and connecting all of us. Buddhists use similar imagery when they tell us
that we all share the same Buddha-nature of Compassion. Whatever the symbolic
name, the experience is pretty much the same – we feel in touch with Something
that requires us to resist the injustice that causes so much suffering."