Mystics

I'm sitting in front of my computer with my usual pre-sermon anxiety. I do not get nervous in the usual sense. It is never "fun" to stand before a crowd of people and talk, though it is euphoria-causing at times. But that's not the anxiety. It's the anxiety of being full of information and wanting it to come out soon, in a coherent way. The anxiety a coke can feels after you shake it. I wait for an opening hopefully before the fizz dies down. So to occupy my mind I have some thoughts on what it means to be a "mystic".
A mystic is a person whose experiences with God come at a level not entirely in line with reason. It isn't an unreasonable experience (it usually is), but it isn't communicated to the reason. For example: one doesn't survey the nutritional facts of an apple pie only to satisfactorily take a fork and mathmatically count the calories until the pie is gone. That would be using the reason primarily, but it is not reasonable. No, one takes a pie and eats it to achieve an emotional response because it tastes "dang good". To eat apple pie and like it is reasonable. But the enjoyment is in our tongue and stomach, not our brain's "reason" center. A mystic's taste of God may come from some pretty reasonable things. We may reason that God's glory is in nature, but the reason itself is not the pleasure of it. The pleasure is in beholding and being warmed by the latent "glory" in creation. Reason and mysticism go hand in hand. I see beauty, I feel glory.
It is reasonable to believe God is in my storm, even as the waves lap over the edge of the boat. But it's his embrace in the storm that I feel, not the cold logic that calculates "I will never leave or forsake you" even applies here. My heart feels his love in the cold waves that may take me under any minute. As the boat capsizes and I'm in the surf, his gentleness to my soul now is apparent, though my senses and my reason rebel. His eyes pierce through the written words, and my reason carries it, but my reason does not relish it, something else entirely draws breath from those words. That is where a mystic lives. Not entirely in a text, but not far apart from it. Good grammar carries it, but my heart burns from it, not my mind. I see myself sinking in the water, and with a lungful of water I breathe life. That is mysticism's strength: God in everything; God in nothing. His promises look worlds apart from my circumstances, but they are a perfect meeting place.