Review in the Frisian Journal by Kick Bras

Review in the Frisian Journal by Kick Bras

An inspiring testimony*

Review by Kick Bras**

‘On 1 January, 2003 I was sitting at the kitchen table preparing my service for  Epiphany, the baptism in the Jordan. Suddenly I was overcome by an overwhelming experience of unity with God. It lasted for several hours and it was just ecstatic, completely ecstatic. At a certain point I myself simply wasn’t there anymore. Actually only unity was still there. The unity with God.’

So Carine Philipse tells her spiritual counsellor, Hein Blommestijn, on the DVD that accompanies this book. That experience set off a very powerful mystical process, and this book is the account of that process. It contains attempts to put into words the ineffable: how God manifests Himself in Carine’s deepest being and increasingly transforms her. She expresses her reactions to this divine influence in poetic texts, most of them prayers,  and also by thinking through what is happening to her and what this means for her. During this process, she lets herself be counselled by several theologians who understand the journey she is making and who help her discern what really matters.
All this constitutes an authentic witness of what God’s Spirit can still bring about, also within people of the 21st century. It’s a fascinating story, and also a remarkable one. There are not many texts like this. On the DVD, the author says that by publishing these very personal experiences and reflections she hopes to inspire   others to descend to the level where God is working in them.

‘I have always felt, “What I am writing is not mine, and the entire mystical  process is not for me, nor mine, but I am meant to pass it on… to give other  people something through which they too may come in contact with God in  themselves, or however you prefer to describe it”.’

Carine Philipse comes from a Remonstrant background and already as a child took a remarkable interest in religion. She decided to study theology and worked for many years as a hospital chaplain. While doing this she was regularly hampered by severe headaches and ringing in the ears. Gradually she became acquainted with the world of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, prayer and icons, and increasingly felt she was intimately connected with God.
Quite unexpectedly from her point of view, her husband broke off their relationship of many years, and it was during this period of great vulnerability that the major breakthrough of 1 January 2003 took place. While under the influence of this experience, she writes, in stammering words, an ecstatic confession that is also a prayer of complete surrender. In the years since then, similar experiences recur and have an increasingly deep impact on her life. The texts bear witness to complete unity with God, whom she experiences in herself as well as in everything around her. This experience of unity gives her deep peace and ecstatic joy. At such times she feels herself fully absorbed in God, entirely free from herself.
Gradually, however, it becomes apparent that these experiences are setting off a process of transformation in which she is challenged at an ever deepening level to completely surrender all control of herself, to let go of all that is certain and, in pure trust, to stand before God with empty hands. She also becomes more and more intensely aware that she herself cannot do this, but that God has to do everything in her and that, by surrendering completely to this process, she dies to her own ‘I’.
A year later she experiences a point of no return. She calls this ‘the mystical death’. God has taken her away from herself. In the meantime, her physical complaints have intensified; her headaches and the ringing in her ears make that she can no longer endure loud noises. But she accepts this reality in the light of the awareness that the Eternal One is also present in the pain and in the hindrances this brings along. In this way she learns to live all the more fully without any certainties, trusting only in God’s unfathomable love.
During the years following the period covered by this diary, Carine’s health became so severely damaged by improper medical treatment that she can no longer work and can hardly ever leave her home. As she says in the conversation with Hein Blommestijn:

‘Of course every now and then the pain makes me despair and I think, how can   I go on, since it gets steadily worse. Of course these are very normal human  feelings, and also the sorrow about everything that has happened. But I just look at it with love… I mean, I believe that a forgiving attitude – and of course I include forgiving myself, for allowing this to happen and not seeing it in time – just comes from the Love of God. The Love of God brings about this forgiveness. Yes, of course, I’m also a human being, as I said, and sometimes I get angry and think, they should never have been allowed to do this. But still, that unity with God is always stronger.’

This impressive testimony will certainly raise questions. It seems completely at odds with the rational culture of our day, with its emphasis on human autonomy. These direct expressions of a highly penetrating process sometimes seem too vehement, too one-sided, too rash. So one could pose questions about the longing to be able to lose oneself completely in God.
Some explanation may be useful here. One needs to understand that just such an intense experience of God’s influence on one’s own deepest being brings with it the danger of great egoism. One can be so engrossed in one’s own experiences, and get so addicted to them, that the surrounding world completely disappears from view, and God becomes in fact nothing more than an instrument for narcissistic satisfaction. Precisely for this reason, an authentic mystical process requires an intense struggle to surrender heart and soul to the will and the work of the Eternal One, not clinging to one’s own experiences, but daring to trust in the unity with God, even through periods of emptiness, pain, and fear. In an impressive poem, of which I cite a short passage, Carine puts it in these words:

And that is why
she no longer depends
on experiencing

oneness
with Him.

She knows
she is one
with Him
and that
is enough for her.

It is fascinating to follow this mystical process over a period of more than two years and to see how the utmost concentration on the inner process eventually leads Carine to a deeper relationship with her fellow men and with the world around her. This book is thus an inspiring testimony of a person who is driven by the divine Spirit. Such a testimony touches our deepest desires.
To publish it is a delicate business. But for those who read it with reverence and respect it can be a guide along the way. I would like to see it find such readers.