LETTERS BY A MODERN MYSTIC
Excerpts from letters written to his father
By C. Laubach. SPCK. 117 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978 0 281 066 124
Frank Laubach (1884-1970) was a missionary in the Philippines, and the book records his experiences when he experimented in 1930 with trying to live in conscious communion with God every minute of every day. To achieve that goal he attempted ‘turning the mind to God for one brief second of each minute’.
While applauding his aim for a ‘closer walk with God’, I found much in the book that troubled me. He equated this ‘conscious communion’ with ‘trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice’ (p.4). He found it when God spoke to him using his own tongue (p.40). Predominantly Laubach seemed to have his closest divine encounters out on a hill in the evenings, when God spoke to him through sunsets and nature.
