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Writings
About Evelyn Underhill
Evelyn Underhill's Guidelines For
A Sane Spiritual Life
Mary Brian Durkin, OP
Evelyn Underhill is recognized as one
of Great Britain's outstanding religious writers. Her books, lectures,
retreat conferences, and letters of spiritual advice offer insights
into ways to develop and maintain a sane spiritual life. In these
works, often in homey and humorous ways, Underhill shows how the natural
and supernatural life are compatible and can be fully integrated by
anyone willing to make the effort. "You don't have to be peculiar
to find God," she insists, "but you do have to make a willed
commitment to make Him the center of your life, all aspects of it!"
(House of Soul, p. 90).
Adoration and charity must be paramount, she states: "Adoration
is caring for God above all else. Charity is the outward swing of
prayer toward all the world
embracing and caring for all worldly
interests in God's name." (Ways of the Spirit, p. 142).
Charity, Underhill insists, makes us a tool, a supple instrument reaching
out, working, caring, healing, ministering selflessly in whatever
ways the Lord directs us. Only by our loving, generous self giving,
first in the prayer of adoration and then by our dedicated actions,
will his redeeming work in this world be accomplished.
Insisting that a truly spiritual life must be founded on prayer, Underhill
advocates setting aside a specific time, preferably in the morning,
for adoration, spiritual reading, and meditation. "Old fashioned
practices," she admits, "but it's the only way!" (Mixed
Pasture, p. 72). So many people don't understand that this regime
of prayer, time alone with God, is the spiritual food that sustains
and nourishes, she told an advisee: "They only do it when "they
feel in the mood" or "when they can." Once you've started,
never give up this practice, despite discouragements or ups and downs
(Letters, p. 71).
She counseled a friend: "Try to arrange things so that you can
have a reasonable bit of quiet every day and do not be scrupulous
and think it selfish to make a decided struggle for this. You are
obeying God's call and giving Him the opportunity to teach you what
He wants you to know, and so make you more useful to Him and to other
souls. (Ibid, p. 141).
Like Teresa of Avila, Underhill advocated simplicity and flexibility
in prayer. Don't be held down to any set plan or model; follow a style
that suits you; change when you think it wise, she advised. A simple
rule or regime of prayer, to be followed whether one is in the mood
or not gives backbone to one's spiritual life, as nothing else can,
she counseled: "If you fall later into a state in which you cannot,
without strain, practice meditation or mental prayer, you can spend
the time in spiritual reading, only try always to keep the time intact
and not use it for other things." (Ibid, p. 312).
To an advisee who complained bitterly that she had to earn her own
living doing "stupid typing" and hence had little time to
spend in prayer, Underhill replied that the long train ride from Beckenham
Hill to the city offered ample time for prayer, providing it was not
spent "reading the rags."
Underhill believed that beginners in the early stages of developing
their prayer life often placed too much emphasis on feelings and not
enough on will. She chided an advisee: "If by losing the spirit
of prayer, you mean losing the heavenly sensations of deep devotion,
I am afraid that does not matter a scrap." (Ibid, p. 103). She
advised another to make an act of willed attention to God, to stop
fussing over the lack of emotional feelings: "The will is what
matters---as long as you have that, you are safe." (Ibid, pp.
147-148).
In another letter, she underlined this entire sentence: "Never
forget that the key to the situation lies in the will and not in the
imagination." (Ibid, p.82). To truly develop a spiritual life
requires self-discipline and will power. To emphasize this point,
Underhill quotes St. John of the Cross: "The whole wisdom of
the Saints consists in directing the will vigorously toward God."
She then adds, "The way that is done by ordinary people like
ourselves is by aiming at Him in all circumstances of life."
(Mount of Purification, p.8).
Underhill's admonitions are succinct, practical, and understandable:
"The direction and constancy of the will is what really matters,
and intellect and feeling are only important insofar as they contribute
to that." (Letters, p. 67); "Remember God is acting on your
soul all the time, whether you have spiritual sensations or not."
(Ibid, p. 184).
Although adamant about the necessity of maintaining a regime of personal
prayer despite bouts of aridity and spiritual flatness, Underhill
also insists that this fixed period of private prayer is not the only
time of union with God; every bit of work, every thought and action,
done for God and in His name, is a prayer: "Never let yourself
think that because God has given you many things to do for Him
pressing
routine jobs, a life full up with duties and demands of a very practical
sort---that all these need separate you from communion with Him. God
is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet
and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament; however unexpected
its outward form may be receive Him in every sight and sound, joy,
pain, opportunity and sacrifice." (Life as Prayer, p.
186).
Though certainly not a new concept, Underhill frequently stressed
the sacramental value of the finite and temporal in mundane activities
and the importance of seeing or finding God in everyday life. She
wrote to an advisee: "Take the present situation as it is and
try to deal with what it brings you, in a spirit of generosity and
love. God is much in the difficult home problems as in the times of
quiet and prayer, isn't He. Try especially to do His will there, deliberately
seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience." (Letters,
p.137).
Underhill advised one facing a difficult situation that by increasing
her prayer time to an hour at least, then she should be able "to
handle the situation even though just now the "sacrament of the
present moment" may take a rather knobbly sort of form. Still
God is in it---and it is there that you have to find a way of responding
to Him and receiving Him." (Ibid, p. 258). Repeating Teresa's
dictum that the aim of the spiritual life is "Work, work, work,"
Underhill reminds retreatants that usually this means just doing one's
job, enduring the drudgery, monotony, yes, even the meanness of it
all, for Christ's sake. Your prayer of adoration and your outward
swing to others by dedicated, disciplined service, graced by creative
initiative, courage, gentleness, and compassion, indicate a requisite
balance has been achieved. To minister to others requires the virtue
of patience which Underhill defines in down-to-earth terms: "Patience
toward God is the quiet acceptance of life, bit by bit from his hand.
Patience toward others is bearing evenly all that is uneven in character,
prejudice, and habits
It is meeting with equal countenance the
nasty and sunny sides of the human person
It is equanimity toward
the people who offend our taste
who ask for a cup of cold water
at the wrong time, the stupid, the querulous, the obstinate. Each
of us can fill up more blanks for ourselves! (Ways of the Spirit,
p. 170).
There is only one way to learn patience, Underhill asserts, and that
is to study the life of Jesus Christ. Ponder his actions: his compassion
for the sick, the marginalized, the hungry and weary, the troubled
and bereaved. He never criticized one person, except the self-righteous.
He overlooked rough, uncouth manners; forgave his tormentors; and
found joy in doing his Father's will, even on the Cross.
She writes: "In my relations with my father which are difficult
and where I'm often met by coolness and indifference, I am constantly
tempted to be cold and indifferent in my turn and feel it more and
more difficult to be or feel loving or anything but a stranger. Yet
I know that this too is a test if I could take it rightly.
"As towards my husband, I often fail to show interest in his
affairs and amusements, not rousing myself to respond when I'm tired
or concerned with other things, forgetting he is very patient with
me and our difference in outlook must be just as trying for him."
(Fragments From An Inner Life, p.94).
Underhill's journal entries and excerpts from letters to her spiritual
advisors reveal that she "lived" the advice she gave to
others. Admonishing herself to use the "domestic bits" of
life as means to mortify impatience, uncharitableness, sensitivity
to slights, she resolves, despite familial friction, to preserve an
interior spirit of tranquil joy: "There is no place in my soul,
no corner of my character, where God is not." (Ibid, p.86).
Another entry in Fragements reveals that of her types of active service
for Christ: direct teaching, books, and lectures, and also the direction
of souls---she considered the latter to be of more importance. Her
followers today would not dispute that evaluation; her influence is
widespread and growing. Her pithy, practical advice on ways to balance
and unify a contemplative and active life continues to inspire many
of their spiritual journeys.
Excerpted from Spiritual Life
(Winter 1997), pp. 236-43
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