The Greenfield Group is a gathering of Unitarian Universalist ministers that have been meeting together for study, reflection and worship for close to 70 years. I had the privilege of being a member of that group for more than 30 years during my ministry in Norwell and into my retirement. In late November 2005 the Greenfield Group had chosen as its topic “Mysticism And Liberal Religion” and assigned papers and essays to be written, read and shared with the members of the group. I can report that it was a very worthwhile gathering and that the discussion and sharing it provoked was deeply meaningful to all who participated. This issue of the Psi Symposium Annual Journal is a sharing of the written content of our mystical convocation. But deeper than the words was the communal participation  and dialogue that can never be captured in the printed word.

What a pleasant surprise to discover that most UU ministers are mystics in the making, and that though we may be critical and questioning of our own and others religious and spiritual experiences we nonetheless have had such experiences and continue to have them throughout our ministries and throughout our lives. I am thankful to my collegues in the Greenfield Group for their willingness to share their written reflections with the wider Unitarian Universalist community.

Your Editor presented the opening paper at the convocation on “Dreams and the Mystical Path: The Use of Dreams for Theological Formation” which consisted of a presentation of a series of dreams over a period of years and how they were reflective of my own theological development and the personal and religious issues I was wrestling with at the time. Rosemarie Smurzynski continued the exploration of dreams and the mystical path  by sharing a number of “Dreams of Journey and Transportation” that occurred during significant periods of transition in her own life. We are all of us engaged in a life-long journey into the mystery of being.

Martha Niebanck in her paper, “The Mystical Nature of Ordinary Consciousness” shared some sacred worship experiences in nature that were part of her “ordinary consciousness” but nonetheless meaningful, and suggestive of the fact that the “mystical” can be part and parcel of our everyday life experience, and indeed is.

Marta Flanagan explored the question of how often mystical experiences may be evoked by participation in communal worship and was surprised by how often it had in fact been brought about in her own life as both a leader of worship and a participant thereof. The two poles of a well balanced worship service are to evoke a sense of the mystical and the ethical in the participants. It should not come as a surprise that the one so often inspires the other.

One of the male ministers of the Greenfield Group, who chose to remain anonymous for publication told of mystical experiences that were the by-product of participating in a Community of Men. Mystical experiences are not bound by gender, but they can be part of the lived experience of men (or women) sharing their gender experience in a community of men (or women) as the case may be.

William “Bill” Gardiner has been a workshop leader in social action for many years. He discovered that “Mysticism and Social Action” fit together like hand and glove by providing the inspiration and outreach that each needs and demands of the other. The mystic and the prophet have much in common and Bill Gardiner helps us to see and to appreciate that commonality.

This issue of the Psi Symposium Journal concludes with a collection of briefer though no less meaningful formative mystical and religious experiences by Frank Hall, Anita Farber-Robertson, Naneene Gowdy, Fred Gillis (408k pdf), John Weston (361k pdf) and once again, Bill Gardiner. This leads me to invite our readers to send to me or to our Newsletter Editor, Jo-An Glasse, an account of any meaningful mystical or spiritual experiences you may have had whether of recent vintage or years ago. We are all of us mystics in the making.

Richard M. Fewkes
Editor, UU Psi Symposium Annual Journal

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