Author: admin

2011 The Evelyn Underhill Association Newsletter

Download the PDF version of this newsletter.

The Annual Day of Quiet Reflection

“Reflections on the Inter-faith Conversations of Evelyn Underhill”

directed by Michael Stoeber

June 15-16, 2012
The Washington National Cathedral

annual-quiet-day-2011

In her writings, Evelyn Underhill includes some reference to non-Christian religions, especially to themes in Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic mysticism. She draws these mystics generally into positive relationship with their Christian cousins, by postulating a common ground to all authentic mystical experience. On this Day of Quiet Reflection, we will explore various aspects of Underhill’s inter-faith conversations, paying special attention to her reflections on the poetry of the great Sufi mystic Kabir and on the life of the co-founder of the Hindu Brahmo Samaj, Devandranath Tagore. Our contemplative reflections will include also reference to Underhill’s own experiences and poetry related to this inter-faith dialogue. 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 … Read more

Life as Prayer: The Development of Evelyn Underhill’s Spirituality

by Todd E. Johnson

todd-johnson-portrait-2010-newsletter

William K. and Delores S. Brehm Associate Professor of Worship, Theology and the Arts School of Theology

Although Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) was baptized and confirmed in the Church of England, the Underhill family could be considered Christians in only the most social of terms. Underhill had little formal religious education and no theological training.^a

In fact, Underhill’s first commitment to any sort of religious group was a hermetic sect known as the “Golden Dawn,” a most inauspicious beginning for one who would later be called “the spiritual director for her generation.”^b

Underhill’s spiritual journey is a fascinating one, and one which has been well chronicled.^c Underhill’s career began with her classic work Mysticism (1911)^d and can be said to have concluded with her other classic Worship (1936).^e These studies are similar … Read more

2010 The Evelyn Underhill Association Newsletter

Download the PDF version of this newsletter.

‘Mysticism’: The Centennial Year 1911-2011

Evelyn Underhill by Suzanne Schleck

In 1911 an unknown author published a 500 page book on the little known topic of mysticism. Accessible in its writing, it was nonetheless a work of scholarship, based as it was on some one thousand sources. The book was a huge success, and twelve editions appeared. Because its erudition, the suspicion was that the author, one Evelyn Underhill, must have been a male. Who else would have the academic training or ecclesiastical knowledge to produce such a work? In fact the author was a self-trained writer, wife of a London barrister, one who would go on to write or edit a total of thirty-nine books and some 350 articles and reviews. Underhill was poet, novelist, biographer and religious writer. Her single most … Read more

The Making of a Mystic

Ed. Carol Poston

University of Illinois Press 378 pages $75

Substantial correspondence from an exceptional writer, poet, pacifist, and mystic.

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) achieved international fame with the publication of her book Mysticism in 1911. Continuously in print since its original publication, Mysticism remains Underhill’s most famous work, but in the course of her long career she published nearly forty books, including three novels and three volumes of poetry, as well as numerous poems in periodicals. She was the religion editor for Spectator, a friend of T. S. Eliot (her influence is visible in his last masterpiece, Four Quartets), and the first woman invited to lecture on theology at Oxford University. Her interest in religion extended beyond her Anglican upbringing to embrace the world’s religions and their common spirituality.

In time for the centennial celebration of her classic … Read more

The Call of God

by Kathy Staudt

(Quiet Day 2009)

In her introduction to “The Call of God” (also used as introduction to an earlier retreat on “Inward Grace and Outward Sign,”) Evelyn suggests how questions about vocation emerge naturally as soon as we do the sort of thing we’re doing today – as we make space and time to turn our hearts wholly to God, moving out of ourselves and resting in that loving presence, in a spirit of adoration. She is speaking to people who have gathered in a beautiful place – the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral — to place themselves, as we are doing, in the presence of the beauty and holiness and insistent love of God The result of taking this kind of time for retreat, she writes, “will be a new and more vivid sense of His reality and … Read more

Interview with Dr. Carol Poston

In January 2010 a new edition of the letters of Evelyn Underhill will be published by the University of Illinois Press. The Making of a Mystic is edited and with an introduction by Dr. Carol Poston, professor emerita of St. Xavier University, a scholar of English literature and author of Reclaiming Our Lives and editor of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The Evelyn Underhill Association (EUA) is grateful to Dr. Poston for her willingness to be interviewed for its newsletter.

EUA: Dr. Poston, you spent ten years completing this volume. Why did you undertake this work?

Carol Poston: I was reading one of the excerpted Underhill books for my own Lenten discipline, and I found myself asking where this wonderful and wise woman came from, being interested always in how women manage to educate … Read more

2009 The Evelyn Underhill Association Newsletter

Download the PDF version of this newsletter.

Interview with Dr. Carol Poston

EUA: Dr. Poston, you spent ten years completing this volume. Why did you undertake this work?

Carol Poston: I was reading one of the excerpted Underhill books for my own Lenten discipline, and I found myself asking where this wonderful and wise … Read more

Honoring Evelyn Underhill

by Kathleen Henderson Staudt

For many years now an important spiritual resting-point in my life has been the annual day of quiet reflection in honor of Evelyn Underhill, sponsored by the Evelyn Underhill Association at the Washington National Cathedral. It is always held in mid-June, on a Saturday close to the day when the Episcopal Church calendar observes Evelyn’s feast day, June 15. It is a beautiful time of year on the Cathedral close, usually with lovely weather, the roses blooming in the Bishop’s Garden, quiet places to walk and pray on the grounds or in the Cathedral. Always the day has included several hours of communal silence, punctuated by a leader’s reflections on some theme from the writings of this 20th century mystic, spiritual director and retreat leader.

Evelyn Underhill’s gift to the Church may best be summarized by … Read more

Evelyn Underhill: More Than a Beacon or Bridge: An Artist

by Bishop Robert Morneau

Background:

Evelyn Underhill (December 6, 1875 – June 15, 1941) was a married lay-woman of the Anglican tradition. Her writings on mysticism, worship, and the spiritual life continue to influence individuals who are interested in the Christian tradition. Underhill wrote over thirty books, conducted retreats for laity and clergy, and was, like the rest of us, a struggling pilgrim seeking to understand and respond to the mystery we call God.

One of her greatest legacies was the retrieval of the Christian mystics. Her study of and love for the writings of such individuals as St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and Meister Eckhart grounded Underhill in one of the richest dimensions of Christian spirituality.

Although attracted to Catholicism and receiving spiritual direction from Baron Friedrich von Hugel, Evelyn Underhill remained in the Anglican tradition. … Read more

Mysticism and Social Concern

At the Evelyn Underhill Quiet Day in June 2008, Rev. Canon Dr. Gerald Loweth presented the following insights:

Evelyn Underhill is well known for her writings on the subject of Christian mysticism. She began her work in the early twentieth century at a time when this tradition was being looked at afresh. Among other writers of her time she was able to describe and define the mystic experience in terms of the encounter with God and its transforming affects on the person. She put this down in such works as Mysticism and Practical Mysticism.

Following the turmoil of the First World War, Underhill began to undergo a change in her thinking. The fruits of her research into the mystical tradition were still alive and present in her new writings, but she expanded her thinking towards a more socially conscious and … Read more