Noel Staples is a member of Cambridge & Peterborough Area Meeting, UK.

These two pieces never intended initially for publication were stimulated at Noel’s Quaker meeting by a Member who felt that Noel would benefit from Spiritual Direction. This was the beginning of his openness to sharing what he had hitherto kept closely to himself. These pieces offer a beautiful balance to the number of – equally important- pieces in this edition to the work of attempting to challenge the destructive mechanisms in the world.

Noel here wonders where his spiritual journey will take him next:

Further encounters with god

Noel Staples shares a mystical experience

It is very difficult to write down mystical experiences. There are no adequate words. Attempting to fit words to ineffable experiences is also emotionally draining. To try to explain mystical experiences to others is also to try to explain to oneself, and the effort to do so involves reliving the original overwhelming experiences.

   During conversation with a Friend who gives me spiritual guidance, she suggested: ‘why not try talking to god?’ I was lamenting the fact that lately my attempts to pay ‘attention’ to the presence always reduced me to tears – not particularly of distress, but just from a sense of being in the presence of something that was just far too much for me. While my mystical experiences have always been very strong (I have often thought of them as ‘having a tiger by the tail‘), they’ve always been more or less pleasurable, yet wordless, bringing a smile to my face even in distress. I had never yet conceived of ‘talking’ to this presence. Only once or twice have I ever done so, almost in desperation.

    After talking with my guide, I had had a completely different kind of experience, very strong and hard to cope with. Awakening in the early hours my guide’s words about ‘talking to god’ came back to me and I was soon ‘out there’, in the fastnesses of space and listening this time to the silent music of the spheres. Very quickly, too, this experience deepened and my eyes began to prickle and well up and the sobs came. I felt very self-conscious trying but I spoke out loud to god. I can’t remember what I said but I do remember saying ‘Oh s**t!‘ and talking about not being able to cope like this and god needing to take it a bit easier with me and things like that.

    Well! The verbal floodgates opened! I’ve no idea how long I spent but I smiled and smiled and chuckled and talked for ages. At one point I went downstairs to my computer after an idea came in this conversation. On my return I laid down again and immediately fell back into the arms of god and smiled and smiled and laughed with happiness. Remembering little Portly and Ratty and Mole (from that beautifully spiritual chapter seven ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn‘ in The Wind in the Willows) I asked not to be made to forget this time and I haven’t. It was so wonderful. Sometimes I was drawing great deep breaths to breathe in whatever it was. It did gradually let me go. I was exhausted and kept saying I needed to sleep now. I felt sad that I had to give up and took half a sleeping pill as it was beginning to get light, then slept till the phone rang at about 9:30am.

    It happened again about two weeks later when I felt once more strong enough to cope. Later that morning I emailed my spiritual guide. I said: ‘This morning, after I woke up about ‘sixish‘, I suppose I had another deep and very something or other encounter with god. I cried a bit at first but then sort of settled down to a lovely time just “being there with god”. I did talk a bit, still a little self-consciously, sometimes out loud sometimes not. I smiled a lot, even laughed, and still am. I’ve cycled into town and smiled at everybody, so I’ve spread my good luck around! Can’t help wondering, though, if my cheese is finally slipping off my cracker, but I’ve got to go drive a Royal Mail artic (articulated lorry)  this afternoon, so that will bring me back to earth. I won’t go on but I hope god will shout at you and you can have a time with god like I’ve just had. I wish it for everybody, though goodness knows I find it hard enough to cope with. I’m getting better at it, I know I am! Surely I’m not just going bonkers... I can‘t be!‘

    I have no memory of what I said but the strength of both experiences is still with me. I feel maybe a little less afraid of ‘going there’ now. I remember wondering out loud to my good friend Nick, soon after we set off on the Norfolk Broads in May 2010, how on earth I could help others share what I experience and what it would be like if I just let myself be ‘wide open’ to that really overwhelming experience, which I kind of live with by keeping it at arm’s length, as it were. I said that I found that idea quite frightening, and I would fear going down that road without the help and support of others who had tried it and felt they had survived relatively intact. Perhaps I would have to give up swearing! Augustine of Hippo once prayed: ‘grant me chastity and continence, but not yet’. Next January I hope to begin the Equipping for Ministry course at Woodbrooke. Perhaps the course will help me find my way.