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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

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

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‘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

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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 … Read more

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The Spiritual Life of the World

Day of Quiet Reflection

The 20th Annual Evelyn Underhill Quiet Day, The Call to God, will be held on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at Cathedral College on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. The Day will be guided by Dr. Kathleen Staudt, teacher, author and spiritual director. Registration materials will be available after Easter 2009. For information contact kathleen.staudt@gmail.com

“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 … Read more

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The Spiritual Life of the World

Day of Quiet Reflection

The 2008 Quiet Day will be held on Saturday, June 14th in Cathedral College on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. The Day will focus on Evelyn Underhill’s blending of personal prayer, corporate worship, and social justice into a coherent life, one accessible to others through her writing.

This year’s Day will be guided by Rev. Canon Dr. Gerald Loweth. In his recent dissertation Canon Loweth examined Underhill’s transition from a focus on private prayer, to worship, to a deeper involvement in the social issues of her time. In his two presentations, Canon Loweth will guide participants in exploring the connection between “personal “ spirituality and social action The Day, which runs from 9-3:30 p.m., will offer opportunities for private prayer and … Read more

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November 2006

SOAKED IN LOVE:
The 18th ANNUAL EVELYN UNDERHILL QUIET DAY

Evelyn Underhill described the Retreat House at Pleshey in a letter to her spiritual director Baron Friedrich von Hugel as follows: “The whole house seemed soaked in love and prayer…(the place) cured solitude and gave me at last really the feeling of belonging to the Christian family…I lost here my last bit of separateness and wish for anything of my own and gained a wholly new sense of the realness and almost unbearable beauty of Christian life.” Using slide images of the house and grounds at Pleshey (a village in Essex), participants will reflect on the effect of this place on Underhill’s life and writing, and on their own special places of retreat.

The Quiet Day will be held June 16, … Read more

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January 2006

DAY OF QUIET REFLECTION

The annual Day of Quiet Reflection in honor of Evelyn Underhill will be held on June 17, 2006 in Sayre House, on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. As usual participants will meet from 9-3:30 p.m. for a day of meditations and periods of quiet, with noon Eucharist at the Cathedral for those who want to participate. This year’s leader will be Carol Poston, professor of English, Xavier University, and editor of a new edition of Underhill’s letters. To receive registration information (probably in April or May) please contact Kathy Staudt at kstaudt@umd.edu.

THE MYSTIC AND THE CHURCH

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) is best known for her pioneering work, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness. First published in 1911, it … Read more

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November 2004

News & Noteworthy

The Retreat House at Pleshey in the Anglican Diocese of Chelmsford, England, occasionally has retreats on Evelyn Underhill. Check its website at www.chelmsforddiocesan.sageweb.co.uk

The literary executor of the Evelyn Underhill estate is Ambassador Richard Wilkinson, British Embassy, North Forest 0125, The Counts, and Santiago, Chile. Please contact him for question about permission to publish Underhill’s writings.

As an act of generous friendship, Mary Clemente Davlin, OP completed an article by Mary B. Durkin, OP that was left unfinished at her death last year. The article, “Evelyn Underhill: Her Life and Religious Thought,” has now appeared in the March/ April 2004 issue of Spirituality.

NEW BOOKS

The complete text of both The Spiritual Life and Mysticism can be found on line at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, … Read more

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November 2003

New & Noteworthy

Emilie Griffin’s lovely new anthology of Evelyn Underhill’s writing—Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings, is now available from Orbis Books, pk. $15. The introduction by Griffin is followed by chapters on: The Spiritual Life, House of the Soul, Aspects of Mysticism, The Soul’s Journey, Worship, and Practical Advice.

Stephanie Ford, Assistant Professor of Religion, Earlham School of Religion, has completed a dissertation on Evelyn Underhill’s mystical theology in light of the feminist critique of Grace Jantzen. Ford’s degree was completed at The Catholic University of America.

Oxford University Press’ New Dictionary of National Biography includes an entry on Evelyn Underhill by Dana Greene. Carol Poston, Professor of English at Xavier University, Chicago, has received a contract from the University of Illinois Press to publish a new edition of … Read more

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November 2002

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

For the past eight years our newsletter editor Lois Sibley has contributed much to the EUA newsletter. She kept the burgeoning mailing lists, solicited copy, designed and laid out the newsletter, and then reproduced it for others to mail.

A freelance editor and proofreader, and wife, mother and grandmother, as well as caregiver for newborns who will be adopted, Lois did the newsletter in her spare time! As you read this, send up both a prayer of thanksgiving and a shout of joy for her generosity. Thank you, Lois.

Help! Help! Help!

If you have read the above, you know this little newsletter is in need of Help! Yours, that is. We need a replacement for Lois Sibley to carry on the tasks named … Read more