Reflection
To be spiritual is to have an abiding respect for the great mysteries of life — the
profound distinctiveness of other souls, the strange beauty of nature and the
animal world, the ineffable complexity of our inner selves, the unfathomable
depths of the Inexplicable One. The first step in the practice of mystery is to
cherish the baffling, curious, hidden, and inscrutable dimensions of your
existence and the world around you. The practice of mystery enhances our
understanding of the complexity of reality. It is an affront to the modern need to
have answers to every question and to our tendency to create tidy systems with
a cubbyhole for every problem and aspiration. If you sometimes think that
answers are wisdom, it is time to try practicing mystery.
Spirituality and Practice
Prayer
O God, give me the wisdom to live in hope, to be in awe at the knowable and to
accept the unknowable.
Action
Take time to really see what is right in front of you.
Pay attention to those moments when all separations disappear.
Suggested Reading
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable God’s judgments,
and God’s paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of God?
Or who has been God’s counselor?
Romans 11:33-34
Paradox is in fact a hallmark of western spirituality, an ongoing reminder that
mystery is the heart, the atmosphere and completion of our spiritual quest that
the ultimately untouchable is forever at our fingertips.
John Kirvan, God Hunger
The human mind makes foolish divisions in what love sees as one.
Anthony de Mello, The Heart of Enlightenment
Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.
Neil Armstrong
Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.
Rabindranath Tagore
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery.
There is always more mystery.
Anais Nin
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we
are but does not leave us where it found us.
Anne Lamott
It’s a mystery. That’s the first thing that interests me about the idea of God. If
there is one, it’s mysterious and powerful and awesome to even consider the
concept, and you have to take it seriously.
Stephen King
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be
that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Charles Dickens