Alive in the Mystery

Our religious tradition draws on six religious sources. The first is, “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which move us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” Religion begins with experience, not with words. Annie Dillard writes, “At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.” Dillard knew what our forebears, the Transcendentalists, knew: nature itself is a scripture to be read, studied, and understood. The cathedral that provided them with the most profound inspiration was the world of nature. In his essay, Nature, Emerson wrote, “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.” This last phrase, “glad to the brink of fear,” is a way of describing the powerful impact of awe when we are seized by an experience. It can be awe-full or awful, the intersection of excitement and dread. His focus is on that experience, which is all that he needs.

The word miracle comes from a Latin root that means “to wonder at.” Or, as a Pennsylvania Dutch idiom explains, “It wonders me.” Look at the beauty, complexity, grandeur, and mystery of the world. Does it wonder you? Does it evoke a sense of “transcending mystery?” Thinking back to my childhood, I remember what wondered some of my friends. For Billy Heme, the youngest child on our street, it was, as he so aptly and raptly called them, wiggle worms. When I came home from the hospital when I was eight because of a bike accident in which I broke my collar bone, he gave me a small container of earth worms as a welcome home gift. Priceless! For Eddie Wagner, who we called Little Eddie because he had the same first name as his father, it was the crayfish in the spring driven creek beside his house. We would spend hours on a Saturday wading through the water, overturning rocks, and trying to catch these marvelous creatures. For my sister, it may have been ladybugs or the dandelion bouquets that she picked for our mother. For me, many wonders: buckeyes, osage oranges, cicadas, butterflies, lightning bugs, Japanese beetles, full moons, thunderstorms, rainbows, and much more. Alive in the mystery.

Rachel Carson wrote, “If a child is to keep alive his [or her] inborn sense of wonder... [the child]…needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with [the child]…the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” As a child, I was fortunate to have adults who companioned in me a sense of mystery through gardening, fishing, and reverence for nature. I have worked to do the same with my daughters. When we lived in Pittsburgh, I would take LinsiAn for walks around our neighborhood to take in the beauty of flowers and trees and the slow procession of the seasons. This past year, LinsiAn, MerriLyn, and I began taking walks along a trail near our home that runs alongside a creek that is lined with cottonwood trees. We were all mesmerized by the clouds of cottony, silky white fibers strewn along the path as the trees sent forth the tiny brown seeds that bore the promise of more trees. Alive in the mystery.

Someone said, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.” This is an invitation to life, each day, an invitation to explore mystery, consider possibility, and create meaning and purpose. The truth is that each of us is a puzzle, each a mystery to our self and to others, as they are to us. This means that our opportunities for growth are lifelong and profound. We swing on the pendulum of life as Don Vaughn-Foerster suggests, alternating between seeking to penetrate the ultimate mystery of life and simply trying to live this day well. Our religious tradition invites us to experience the mystery of life, to ask questions. Some of our best questions are those that will never yield to answers, but they keep the quest for life alive in us. This is why Einstein said, “Never lose a holy curiosity,” for with a holy curiosity you will always find yourself alive in the mystery.