© Phil Fox Rose, 2025, National Cathedral, Washington, DC
Greetings from Washington DC. Today, June 15, is Evelyn Underhill’s feast day in the Episcopal calendar. I’m writing this to you from Washington DC where I have just completed speaking and preaching at the Evelyn Underhill Association’s annual Underhill Day held at National Cathedral Close in St. Alban’s Church. It is a tremendous honor for me and an honoring of the work we do at Underhill House. As I spoke to those gathered about the power of contemplative practice to change one’s perspective on division and strife in order to be of greater help in healing the world, across town by the Washington Monument they prepared for a massive display of military might, while around the country protests occurred. I’ll s aymore about the event and my trip in the next letter, but I wanted to share here part of one of the talks I offered:
I chose as the overarching theme of today’s meditation, “Creating Space for Quiet in a Turbulent World.” Not to overstate this. Much of human history has been turbulent, but some times more so than others. These last few decades we’ve certainly entered such a time, as the world order rearranges after a relatively quiet half century.
Evelyn Underhill was preparing to publish her book Practical Mysticism at another such time, just as World War I was breaking out in 1914. There was a strong consideration to hold off publishing it — worried it seemed potentially frivolous to put out a book advocating for “quietness of mind” — that it was “wholly out of place” at such a time. She decided to move forward and the part of her preface I’m about to read could have been written today about what we’re doing here:
The title deliberately chosen for this book — that of “Practical” Mysticism — means nothing if the attitude and the discipline which it recommends be adapted to fair weather alone; if the principles for which it stands break down when subjected to the pressure of events, and cannot be reconciled with the sterner duties of the national life. To accept this position is to reduce mysticism to the status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary, if the experiences on which it is based have indeed the transcendent value for humanity which the mystics claim for them — if they reveal to us a world of higher truth and greater reality than the world of concrete happenings in which we seem to be immersed — then that value is increased rather than lessened when confronted by the overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time. It is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these records that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life. Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the human spirit not — as some suppose — a soothing draught, but the most powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that spirit will be far better able to endure and profit … than those who are wholly at the mercy of events; better able to discern the real from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the new problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now disclosed.
Everywhere I turn these days, folks are talking about the strain our society is under. People are facing so many challenges to their serenity — from politics and the economy, work and urban life, clickbait headlines and social media arguments. Across town as we sit here today, there’s an old-fashioned show of military strength, and protests against it. In California, here in DC and around the country there are protests and counterprotests, demonstrations of power and challenges to that power. There’s no shortage of things people are outraged by, and of people outraged at the outrage. It’s a cycle.
And yes, contemplative practice can be a balm. But far more important is that it has the power to remap how we experience things; to give us firmer footing. David Allen describes it as filling our reservoir, so that when we need it, the serenity is there. A slightly different take that’s closer to my theology comes from my old teacher Cynthia Bourgeault: that under the stormy choppy ocean surface the deep waters are always calm; contemplative practices help us to remember again and again that no matter how chaotic the surface we can return down into the still water at any time. We are not creating the calm, it’s already there, but we forget again and again. Contemplative practice reconnects us to it. Which is always useful, but in chaotic times it is downright essential.
Often, contemplation is seen as a luxury practice for people with leisure time, but I believe deeply it is a form of radical resistance, especially in these times. Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chodron says “each time you [let a thought go], you are cultivating unconditional friendliness toward whatever arises in your mind,” and that this “unconditional compassion” toward our own mind and the present moment will make us more tender and loving toward others and the world as well.
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Between my talks and sermon, there was much more, but I wanted to share a relevant piece of with you today. On this feast day of Evelyn Underhill, I encourage you to consider ways you might enhance your contemplative practices so that “when confronted by the overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time” you can be sustained by “a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck” and access the Eternal Love that underlies and connects us all.
One small practice if you are local to Seattle would be to visit Underhill House during the summer, especially while the St. Mark’s Contemplative Prayer group is off until fall. I will be there Thursdays starting again July 10. (All Pilgrim’s Church is doing some needed renovations to the chapel space right now.) I do hope you can visit us or support our work this summer.
Last week before I headed to DC, I had the delight of attending the joint Taizé–Buddhist chant service held once a year at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Taizé happens at the cathedral once a month, replacing the contemplative prayer group I lead there on all other Tuesdays (though both are currently off for the summer), and I always make it if I can. The Clear Mountain Monastery Buddhist community that meets on the cathedral grounds is also dear to me. It is a delight to see these two communities come together for this annual event. It ended with a prayer from Thomas Merton that I carried it with me to DC to be added to the closing prayer of Underhill Day with resonances with my messages there, and with Evelyn Underhill’s themes more broadly. I offer it here to you and for this moment:
Prayer offered by Thomas Merton at the First Spiritual Summit Conference in Kolkata, India, 1968)
Oh God, we are one with You. You have made us one with
You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another,
You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to
fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there
can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.
Oh God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully,
completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore
You, and we love You with our whole being, because our
being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit.
Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with
love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit
which makes You present in the world, and which makes
You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has
overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.
In Peace,
Phil
(Image source: © Phil Fox Rose, 2025, National Cathedral, Washington, DC)
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