Abu Bakr, companion to the Prophet
I've just completed a fantastic set of recordings from the Abbey of Gethsemani in the mid-1960s: Thomas Merton lecturing novices and friends on his own study into the mystics of Sufism. Says William Chittick, in his reflection on Merton and his passion for Sufism: "We perceive the things of this world by perceiving them, but we perceive God by the clear recognition of the impossibility of perceiving Him."
Merton describes a kind of "continuum" in Sufi thought--a region configured by paradox and bewilderment, "the outward manifestation of inner awe, wonder, and astonishment, which render the rational mind incapable of employing its usual care and precision." At one end of this continuum is somethingn like "sobriety" and at the other is "drunkenness"--and this pair of terms coincides with other pairs that also enter into discussions of the nature of the God-human relationship, such as fear and hope, contraction and expansion, gathering and dispersion.
William Chittick describes it this way:
"Drunkenness, expansion and hope correlate with God's nearness. Drunkenness designates the joy of the seekers in finding the eternal source of all joy within themselves. God's nearness in turn is closely related to those of his names that designate mercy, compassion, love, kindness, gentleness and so on. In contrast, sobriety, contraction, and fear correlate with God's distance and the clear differentiation of the individual from the source of all good. Sobriety refers to the human response ot divine names that designate God's majesty, glory, splendor, magnificence, might, wrath, and vengeance."
All of this takes me back to Bruce Cockburn's 1980s anthem, "Lovers in a Dangerous Time":
Never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.
Bewildering, yes! Faith, yes! Hope and fear, mingled in the human heart, yes!
