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"... and then I knew that I had Thee consciously within me. From then onwards, I loved Thee, not by recollection of Thee and that which surrounds Thee, nor for the memory of such things, but I in very truth believed that I had Thee, substantial love, within me."
--St. Symeon the New Theologian (942-1022); Symeon the New Theologian--The Discourses, Trans. D.J. deCantanzaro, "The Classics of Western Spirituality".
The Chinese sage Shu Shi told this story. There was a blind man who did not know what the Sun is. He asked other people to explain the Sun. A man said, "The Sun is shaped like a copper plate." The blind man banged on a copper plate. He listened to its clanging sound. Later, when he heard the ringing of a temple bell, he thought that must be the Sun. A second man said, "The Sun gives out light just like a candle." The blind man held a candle to feel its shape. Later, when he picked up a flute, he thought that this must be the Sun. ... Yet, we know that the Sun is vastly different from a bell or a flute; however, such a blind man does not understand the differences, for he has never seen the Sun and only heard descriptions of it.
St. Symeon the New Theologian (942-1022) was an eminent Christian teacher of Christian mysticism. He was the first person in Byzantine Christianity to use personal experience in teaching contemplative theology, and he was strongly opposed for doing so. However, he integrated Scripture and the teaching of the Church Fathers with his experience, for he believed every Christian is called to inner experience of the mystery of Triune God within himself or herself. In this use of personal experience, he integrated, also, the intellectual mysticism (i.e., St. Clement of Alexandria) and the heart mysticism (i.e., Pseudo-Macarius), the two major movements of Christian theology in the Eastern Church.
Ironically, among the early Church Fathers, "theology" was the word for mystical experience. In the latter half of the Middle Ages, with the rise of scholasticism, there was a shift from theology as contemplative experience of mind and heart to rationalism. Theology came to mean a complex matter of headwork, with a loss of grounding in the mystical experience of the Triune Mystery.
And, sadly, Protestantism suffers much lack of spiritual depth, partly from being rooted in rationalism and a historical dismissal of theology as mystical experience. The typical information in a Protestant Church is linear data, not awesome mystery. The usual sermon in a Protestant church is a mixture, and not good one, of pop psychology and religious rationalism. And, more, much worship has become, not an experience of the Triune God, but a pick-me-up-emotionally party: a pitiable shadow of a Moses who falls before the burning bush in awe of the Nameless One.
The opening story exemplifies failure of rationalism, while contemplative, or mystical, theology reminds us that all language of Inner Experience of the Indwelling Light can only be expressed as signification. If we fail to realize this, we make theology idolatry. And, again, sadly, many of our churches are filled with theological idolatry, rather than theology as a reflection of the inner experience of the Triune Godhead and an opening to awe in the presence of Mystery Itself, a Mystery in dialogue with those persons who have prepared the inner chamber of the Heart for conjugal union with the Living Christ.
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