Tag Archive for: Mystery

MYSTERY

Underpinning all our knowledge of the world and its workings is mystery. 

The Christian theologian Karl Rahner writes: “Mystery is something familiar, something that we love, even when we are terrified by it or perhaps even annoyed or angered and what to be done with it… In the ultimate depths of our being we know nothing more surely than that our knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea.  Hence the deepest question for us humans is this.  Which do we love more, the small island of our so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery?”

I have discovered for me that “the small island” that comprises the traditional religious beliefs I was raised with and the dogmas and creeds that were spoon fed to me give me no reliable information about the nature of mystery.  The tenets and closed ended affirmations, the once and for all proclamations of what brings salvation and what is the meaning of life, may bring for many a craved sense of security, and be enough.  But they leave me feeling like I’ve only stuck a timid toe in, never plunging down into the depths of the ineffable.  

Religious practices that place us in relation to the real, transforming power of mystery, the power of God, the ones that have as a participant with this creative force, this energy alive but resisting definition, that puts us squarely in the face of mystery, in a direct experiential way; that’s what I’m talking about. Hoping to risk my significance for this.  Hoping I can. 

What has been most imperative it seems is that I empty myself, or perhaps more accurately, be more self-giving.  I must commit myself to the process, as much as I can each day.  And as only God knows, this level of commitment shifts from day-to-day, moment to moment. 

How do I know if I’m actually floating in this vast sea of mystery?  It’s usually what I never initially intended.  It always when I am not attempting to shape the world closer to my own heart’s desire but instead am somehow having my heart transformed so that what I now want is something very different that what I desired at the beginning. 

While I can dally in the idea of God beyond space and time, I need a religious reality than must be some aspect of the observable, natural world. It is infallible because it holds together when I am broken, and while great disasters are not averted here in the real world, personal ones, local ones, global ones, they are not the final answer.

When what had once appeared as mundane events in a life of what can at times feel like an endless loop of dry cleaning, dog walking, work, dinner preparation, sleep, repeat again,  now is punctuated with encounters and events pervasive with meaning. Where once had been merely material happenings randomly occurring, there is now richness and trust in the very process of life, perhaps even prophecy, that is mystery.

There is not longer just my story, my will. Letting go of control, of plans,what is exposed is a collective tendency within the world to create ever-increasing complex wholes, in which the parts work together to enhance and magnify each other. 

That these daily moments of grace happen is a practice of noticing.  How they happen is mystery.

AWE…SOME

If you like the idea of adventure, if you don’t want to spend your days floating in a tiny boat called “My Knowledge,” and are willing to risk jumping into the vast ocean containing “Infinite Mystery”…then I’ve got a mooring for you.  Here is where God resides, with an anchor weighty enough for firm grounding and yet light enough to change course gracefully.

Today, I wanted to look at an understanding of God as “the ultimate mystery of things, as the serendipitous creativity manifest throughout the universe…through which new forms and configurations of reality and life have come into being.” (Gordon Kaufman, God, Mystery, Diversity.)

Now, before your eyes glaze over and you exit the post, stay with me a minute.  While this idea is different from our  traditional views of God as Lord or Father, we are not talking about mystery here as some far out, non-rational construct.  Harvard theologian Kaufman treads carefully upon the word mystery, stating the word “in its theological employment should be taken as a kind of warning that our ordinary ways of speaking and thinking are beginning to fail us and that special rules in our use of language should be followed.” 

When we start our conversations about God, with an air of mystery, instead of an attitude of already knowing, God can emerge in dialogues with those from many cultures, dogmas, and religions, without fear of judgment. In lieu of God being perceived on the model of property (in other words, something that an authority figure has, that is passed down as a possession to another party, who receives and accepts it), God is liberated from our absolute and exclusionary conceptions that most of us have inherited. 

 Beliefs like: “I ‘get’ God and you don’t”, “God is on my side and not yours”, “God is saving me and not you”, “God is all loving but he doesn’t love certain groups of people”,  etc.etc.) have no sea legs in mystery.  They need walls and divisions to prop them up.  

Without an agenda, God becomes the Vehicle that brings us to newly created ideas and truths that emerge in free conversation with one another.  Conversation and not conversion becomes the paradigm for engagement with one another and a commitment to allowing the process to unfold, trusting that God will be continuously and serendipitously creating; and it is good.   

The beauty of this concept is that God is presented as something that everyone has access to.  The final outcome of any open dialogue is part of the “serendipitous creativity”, and this cannot be encapsulated by one stream of thought, as all participants contain but a fragment of the ‘truth’.  They are fully engaged in working on expanding their consciousness together; with faith that what will emerge (which has no explicit directive) will be something greater, something more.

 This fellowship of commitment to creative communication “about things seen and unseen” must be sharply distinguished from simply a fellowship of a common perspective.  It is certainly more uncertain than a hierarchical approach to truth.  But it allows God and humankind, in Mystery, the constant joy of creative expansion.  This dialectical model “encourages criticism from new voices, and insights  from points of view previously not taken seriously.” (Henry Wieman, The Source of Human Good)

  

Gonna Take a Sacramental Journey

Growing up as a child in a liberal but devout Roman Catholic household, I lived somewhat of a dichotomy.  We sang our kumbayas with guitar strumming folk masses on Saturday afternoons (Vatican II being brand spankin’ new) and then switched gears when it came to time to discuss the “Holy Sacraments”.  Not only did they sound solemn and serious, they were confoundedly shrouded in mystery. I knew they were very important as we usually had to complete a year of religious education devoted to a particular sacrament in order to receive it.  But at the end of the day, I still couldn’t really figure out what was actually about to take place. No matter, there were the actual after benefits.  A party with all your relatives bringing you gifts (and money) and a big sheet cake with cascading frosting roses.

It is hard as a child to understand something which is far from concrete.  Indeed, it can be difficult as an adult.  Yet each religion has their own version of sacraments whether they use the language or not. They are the means by which humans can discover the subtleties, the sublime joy of touching the sacred through symbols and ritual. Who knows?  Maybe you may come up with some sacrament making of your own.

The word sacrament describes a rite or a set of physical symbols that either separately or together comprise a visible form of grace.  Sacraments are transmitted through a series of  material elements. 

Roman Catholics and Episcopalians have seven sacraments: Baptism, Holy Communion, and Confirmation (these  3 comprise the sacraments of initiation), Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. Most Mainline Protestant denominations confer only 2 of these as sacraments: Baptism and Communion.  Some of the many symbols and rituals involved in these rites include water (the baby or person’s head being dunked in it), oil (for anointing the sick), candles (to represent union, light, sacred space), and chalice (for bread or wine).

While denominations differ as to their theological understandings of what the literal or symbolic meaning(s) are in any given sacrament, they would agree that these items become more than what they appear.  They become tangible representation of the unseen, pointing to the very real presence of God.  Everyday items like water, oil, or candles can be conduits for confering Grace.  

This tendency to acknowledge and penetrate the holy using objects and ritual is an inherently human one. In Hinduism, they use the word samskara to describe the sixteen personal sacraments (there are also noncanonical samskaras) observed at every stage of life, from the moment of conception to the scattering of one’s funeral ashes.  Each region and caste of India have their own specific ways of enacting them. 

Buddhists also use the word samskara to define “the constructing activities that form, shape, or condition the moral and spiritual development of the individual”  (Encyclopedia of Religion).  Repetition of these activities is imperative to imprint a particular samskara on the psyche  so that it will be carried over to the next life.

Jewish observances are the rituals that make up the spiritual life of the individual and community. Whether it be the ‘Brit Mahal‘ (the naming ceremony) or the “Bar or Bat Mitzvah” where the teen becomes an official “child of the commandments”, they are furthering their blessings as they acknowledge their covenant with God.    The Jewish wedding ceremony is called the “Kiddushin”, which means holiness and their Chuppah (the bridal tent) represents the making of a home together, and it is open on all sides, just as Abraham and Sarah’s tent was, to welcome all in unconditional hospitality.   The Kaddish, the special prayer for the dead, which means  “the hallowing, the making holy.” We all mark the milestones that make up a life and we provide a powerful dimension when we invited the sacred.  

As we look to the symbols and rituals that nurture our souls and make meaning for us (whatever they may be),  it may be helpful to also to remember the words of the irascible Mark Twain : “We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things and yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy for us.”

Book of the Day, Body of God by Sallie McFague, Quote from the Book of the Day: “The world in our model is the sacrament of God, the visible, physical, bodily presence of God.  God is available to us throughout nature.  It is available everywhere, it is unlimited-with one qualification: it is mediated through bodies.  Our model is unlimited at one end and restrictive at the other: the entire cosmos is the habitat of God, but we know this only through the mediation of the physical world.”