MYSTERY
The first time I heard the word Mystery I did not understand what it meant. As an avid reader of mystery stories, I had the idea that something is a mystery only because its solution has not yet been found. But mystery is different from Mystery. By it’s very nature Mystery cannot be solved, can never be known. It can only be lived…
…We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our incompetence, a personal failing. Seen this way the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives…
…A sense of Mystery can take us beyond disappointment and judgment to a place of expectancy. It opens in us an attitude of listening and respect. If everyone has in them the dimension of the unknown, possibility is present at all times. Wisdom is possible at all times. The Mystery in anyone may speak to them and heal them in the grocery store. It may speak to us and heal us too. Knowing this enables us to listen to life from the place in us that is Mystery also. Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless search for answers and become willing to not understand, that we be open to witness. Those who witness life may eventually know far more than anyone can understand.
Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years I have begun to wonder if the secret to living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company.
From My Grandfather’s Blessings, by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
