Christian Mystic in England

My journey as a modern day Christian mystic in England began in illness and solitude. In this article I share a little of that journey.

Click on the next link for an article on famous British Christian mystics.

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Contents

• Christian Mystic in England
• What is a Christian mystic?
• My journey of finding God in a time of illness and solitude
• Christian mystic and the claiming of Jeremiah 31:33
• Christian mystic and the spirit of the law
• Receiving poems on a journey as a Christian mystic
• A journey as a Christian mystic and student of A Course In Miracles
• Ways in which Christian mysticism aligns with the non duality teachings of A Course in Miracles
• Closing reflection
• Links to related articles on this spiritual website

What is a Christian mystic?

A Christian mystic is someone who seeks direct experience of God — often through silence, solitude, contemplation, and the inner life.

In England, this tradition includes figures such as Julian of Norwich, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and St Patrick who found God in nature and stillness.

The Celtic saints of Wales and Ireland have also influenced English Christian mysticism.

My journey of finding God in a time of illness and solitude

Many years ago, I collapsed on the way to work with what was later diagnosed as ME/CFS.

Soon afterwards, scared, and concerned how I would manage physically and financially, I prayed a prayer of surrender.

I had a moment of knowing that all would be well.

A sense of trust in the bigger picture was far from being my primary feeling around that time, but that moment echoed loudly and sustained me. It still does.

At the time I did not regard myself as a Christian, but had been a Catholic Christian for my formative years. It was part of who I was, and my intention of being guided by God and ‘connecting with centre’ had continued.

I remembered and claimed Jeremiah 31:33. This is the bible verse where it says that God speaks to our hearts and minds.

I asked God to find me in the isolation of my room.

I expected recovery but instead my health declined.

A photo I took in Gloucester Cathedral years on from having been bedbound

For many years, my spiritual life unfolded in circumstances I never would have chosen. Illness confined me to a small room, with little speech or movement. Carers came in to tend to me.

In a world without the internet or a mobile phone, I was cut off.

Cognitive difficulties limited my access to listen to music or words, so that much of my time was spent in silence. It was not the silence of a monastery or the chosen solitude of a retreat. It was the silence of limitation — a silence that arrived uninvited.

I found myself living a kind of modern anchorite life: enclosed and still.

As the outer world fell away, the inner world grew louder.
I had been a writer since an early age, but my style was prose and fiction.

Now poems formed in my mind which became a means of guidance on the psycho-spiritual journey.

Some of them were scrawled down through the pain in my arms. Two years later, one of my carers brought me in a notetaker. From then on, I could capture the poems more freely and send them off to a typist. It was always exciting to get them back and find out what I had written.

Mysticism often begins where ordinary life ends.

Illness stripped away the distractions that had once filled my days.

In the long difficult nights when I didn’t know who or whether someone would turn up to feed me the next day, my mind was distressed and I called out for help.

I pressed into a God who was not distant but intimate, not demanding but tender, not quiet but eager to be heard.

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Christian mystic and the claiming of Jeremiah 31:33

Jeremiah 31:33 speaks of a new covenant written not on tablets but on the heart. 

I could not “perform” faith in any outward way, so I was motivated to discover God’s covenant inscribed within me.

I claimed Jeremiah’s promise —
“I [God] will put my law within them, and write it on their hearts”.

To claim Jeremiah 31:33 as a Christian mystic is to trust that God meets me directly, personally, and without intermediaries. It is to believe that the divine voice can be heard in solitude, in illness, in silence, and in the places where life feels most stripped back. The heart and mind become the meeting places between God and the human soul.

God’s presence is not limited to places of worship but is equally present in hospital rooms, in quiet bedrooms, in moments of exhaustion.

Christian mysticism draws on the spirit of the law

Christianity says that we are children not of the letter of the law but of its spirit.
“He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—
not of the letter but of the Spirit;
for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6, NIV)

The New Testament is the fulfilment of the New Covenant spoken of in Jeremiah demonstrated through the person of Jesus.

I suggest that because of Jeremiah 31:33 and the verse above, Christianity, the New Testament, is by its very definition an invitation to the mystical experience — an invitation to experience God in our minds and hearts— an invitation to inner transformation.

The spirit of the law is spacious.
It allows for weakness.
It honours the hidden life.
The spirit of the law recognises that God is encountered not only in action but in stillness,
not only in strength but in vulnerability.

Christianity in a time of solitude and illness

Receiving poems on a journey as a Christian mystic in England

The poems I received and continue to receive allow me to shape silence into language and to give form to the spiritual journey.

I apply spirituality to my everyday problems and the poems are the by-product.

During fourteen years bedbound with the illness ME/CFS, I received over 6000 poems. They often arriving fully formed, even when I could barely speak or write.

These poems became my spiritual companions, offering insight, provocation, comfort, and revelation.

As a Christian mystic in England, the poems take me deeper in my understanding of God.

They carry the texture of lived mysticism: intimacy, surrender, and the discovery of God in unexpected places.

A journey as a Christian mystic and student of A Course In Miracles

I discovered the book A Course In Miracles in 1992, and started to read around it.

I preferred initially to rely on hearing from God through the poems I received. It seems rather demanding of me, but somehow it was my test to know that the spiritual experience was genuine. 

As my spirituality became more assured, I went ahead and completed the 365 page workbook of A Course in Miracles. I was too weak to have lifted the book at the time, but had bought the workbook on cards - one for each day. 

The Course uses the language of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. It was through the Course that I made peace with these words, and went deeper in relationship with Jesus. This eventually led me on a journey back to calling myself a Christian.

Ways in which Christian mysticism aligns with the non‑duality teachings of A Course in Miracles

Although Christian mysticism and A Course in Miracles arise from different traditions, they share several deep resonances:

• Inner authority: Both teach that truth is revealed within, not imposed from outside.
• Union with God: Both emphasise that separation is an illusion and that the soul’s deepest reality is oneness with the divine.
• Transformation through perception: Christian mystics speak of “the eyes of the heart”; ACIM speaks of “true perception.” Both point toward seeing with love rather than fear.
• Forgiveness as liberation: In both traditions, forgiveness is not moral duty but spiritual awakening — the relief experienced as the ego steps back and God's truth is revealed.
• The primacy of love: Whether expressed as divine union or as the ACIM principle that “only love is real,” both paths centre love as the essence of spiritual life.

As a Christian mystic, both the Bible and A Course In Miracles support me on my journey to awaken to God’s presence within.

Closing reflection

I am an English Christian mystic.

I have never had a deliberate intention to isolate myself. But since isolation has been my accidental path, I take comfort from the idea that maybe it was a pre-life choice I made to set me on the journey of awakening.

I honour the interior journey, and the way God speaks when I apply spiritual practice to the circumstances of my life, and choose to see Christ in the next person I meet.

My main spiritual practice is the practice of releasing judgment on the next problem I experience. It allows me to find God in the ordinary. I would be delighted if you wish to learn more of my approach and choose to download a free copy of my ebook. 

My path has also been shaped by illness, solitude, A Course In Miracles, the bible, and poetry.

Through all of it, one truth keeps making itself felt:

the kingdom of God is very near– God is here.

Thank you for reading this article.
And thank you for being here.

With the Love we are,

Katherine

Katherine T Owen, webmaster at
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