Summary: Haase attempts to show us that we are all just ordinary mystics.
As I said in my last post, I intentionally read Becoming an Ordinary Mystic in conversation with Finding God in All Things. Both are focused on spiritual formation by experienced Catholic spiritual directors. Both are written as mini-retreats for readers to receive wisdom and spiritual learning from the spiritual disciplines. Both are elders who write after a lifetime of Christian service.
Becoming an Ordinary Mystic was published just a couple of weeks ago. It is very clearly designed for readers to take seriously spiritual formation. Each chapter has questions and exercises to reflect on the chapter’s content. It was rare that I read more than one chapter at a time because I needed the time to process it, and even then, I did not spend enough time processing it before moving on.
The spiritual life is not to be taken lightly, but Haase is here to assure us that we should not take ourselves too seriously as we seek God. Haase frequently takes a real-life person as an example in most chapters to think about how we must re-orient ourselves toward God. Whether it be a misunderstanding of God’s affection toward us, our assumption that God loves us for what we do for God, or distortions in how we understand spiritual disciplines, Haase gently prods us toward greater reliance on God and less reliance on our own strength, while at the same time prodding us toward taking seriously our role.