75 People Who Changed the World by Ira Rifkin

Author:Ira Rifkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House

EVELYN UNDERHILL

(1875–1941)

• • • • • • •

A poet and novelist, Evelyn Underhill wrote elegantly on mysticism and devotional life and advocated the integration of personal spirituality and worldly action. The only child of a British barrister and his wife, Underhill was educated primarily at home in Wolverhampton, England, and later at London’s King’s College for Women, where she studied history and botany. At the age of sixteen, she published her first book, a volume of light verse about the legal profession titled A Bar-Lamb’s Ballad Book—hardly a harbinger of the sweeping and incisive studies of religious mysticism that would bring her eminence throughout the West as an author and lecturer.

Although she converted to Christianity in 1907, the year of her marriage to Hubert Stuart Moore, Underhill did not immediately affiliate with a denomination. She was drawn to Roman Catholicism but felt some of its tenets conflicted with her growing attraction to the burgeoning modernist intellectual movement. While researching Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness, her 1911 classic, she met Baron Friedrich von Hügel, the expert on mysticism who greatly influenced her thinking and became her spiritual director. In 1921, the year she became a practicing member of the Anglican Church, Underhill delivered the Upton Lecture on the Philosophy of Religion at Manchester College, Oxford, becoming the first woman to do so. During this time, she also traveled throughout Western Europe, studying its art and culture. Mysticism, which explores the works of the great mystics, including Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Ávila, and Rumi, is still considered the consummate investigation of human spiritual awareness.

Evelyn Underhill recognized that contemplative prayer is not just for monks and nuns but for anyone willing to undertake it.

Underhill believed that contemplative prayer is not just for monks and nuns but for anyone willing to undertake it. She considered the study of modern science not a threat to contemplation but rather an enhancement of it. She was an advocate of an integrated life, balanced between active and passive spirituality. As a routine she spent mornings writing and afternoons working with the poor and giving spiritual direction. A prolific writer, she published novels, books of verse, philosophical and religious works, accounts of retreats and conferences she conducted, and critical essays and reviews in various publications, including the Spectator, where she served for a time as theological editor. She frequently lectured on matters of religion and spirituality. Her Upton Lecture was later published as The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today. Another of her books, Worship, published in 1936, led her to a profound interest and involvement in the Greek Orthodox Church.

Underhill worked in naval intelligence during World War I, but by 1939 she had joined the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. The following year she authored a forceful pamphlet on Christian pacifism entitled The Church and War. Although she studied the personalities of mystics and ascetics, she was widely known as a passionate individual interested in all aspects of life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.