Can mystics matter?
By ARTHUR JONES Osama bin Laden may still be in Afghanistan s caves. Americans by the millions avoid airline flights. Every major accident is probed for terrorist connections, and Frederick Bauerschmidt is writing a book called Why the Mystics Matter (Sorin/Ave Marie Press). One wonders why, at a time like this, mystics might matter. The first thing that comes to mind, said Loyola College, Baltimore, Md., theologian Bauerschmidt, is Julian of Norwich s line: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Julian lived in the second half of the 14th century, a low-point marked by plague and war, said Bauerschmidt, currently directing Loyola s study abroad program at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain, Belgium). Yet she retained a deep faith that all that happens is, often in a way that is hidden from us, grounded in God s love for us. The mystic was no Pollyanna, said Bauerschmidt, 40. She knew, apparently from hard experience, that the circumst
