Tag Archives: mystery

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Sabbath Reflections: Week 8

It was a fun experiment, to be sure, but after two full months of posting everyday on this blog, the time has come to cool the jets, if only a little bit. To scale back. The 26th came and went with no original post, but it wasn’t because there wasn’t time – rather, I sat in front of the screen and could not think of anything to write. What I’ve discovered over these past two months is that while there is a sense of freedom that comes from writing every day, there are some afternoons or evenings when the words just aren’t there. It has nothing to do with a want for an inspirational prompt (the entire site is dedicated to an aspect of life I believe is new and captivating each day), nor with a paucity of time or a struggle with laziness. I’ve found that what happens when I attempt to post everyday – in addition to doing my own prose writing as well – is that the writing itself suffers.

I believe that this world is charged with mystery and wonder, what Hopkins called the “grandeur of God.” I believe that when we spend too much time maintaining lives that “keep it real” at all costs, we lose something very important. I believe people of this modern/postmodern world have misplaced an ability to be comfortable with the unexplained, the ambiguous, and the surreptitious. We have relegated such things to outlandish encounters in bad rom-coms and supernatural oddities in fantasy paperbacks. But the truth is, this world is infused with mystery and wonder because it has been created by a God who is at home in these things. To quote Hopkins again, “Christ plays in ten thousand places.”

That said, I must do justice to this mystery and not force what isn’t there. Or, at least, I should not give myself half-heartedly to daily blogging about something that continually warms my whole heart. When I sit down to chronicle the manner in which I have glimpsed this God at work and at play in our world, I want my words to be genuine, not coerced through obedience to some quotidian ritual.

So, if you are a reader, I hope you will understand my reasoning. I am certainly not hanging up the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on this blog. However, like the businesses here in Germany that observe a “Ruhetag,” that is, a day of rest, I, too, would like the freedom to sometimes let the words simmer a while longer. I will continue to post rather frequently, but I hope that what follows will not be contrived or strained in any way.

So, until the next post (sooner rather than later, I hope), may we breathe our days in deeply, and open our eyes to all that dances around us. May we spurn the cut-and-dried negativity of a world afraid of mystery, and remind ourselves to live as people who see more than the bare minimum of life. Of such is the kingdom of God…

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Sabbath Reflections: Week 4

I’m thirty days into this 365 project, posting every day this year. Honestly, I was doubtful I’d even make it this far. Nevertheless, today I couldn’t help but consider what I’ve learned after thirty days of solid wondering. If this project has taught me anything, it is that cultivating an awareness of the mystifying depths that exist under even the most seemingly mundane events (like crying five-years olds, writing classes, rush hour traffic, criticism and green beans to name a few) should not be viewed as a hobby. It is a discipline, and certainly not an easy one. Training our eyes to see beyond the workaday routine is not always pleasant, and encountering the mysteries underneath is not always as magically epiphanal as I assumed it would be.

I think most of us want at least some measure of this kind of seeing – we want to have that poet-like appreciation for a world infused with beauty and truth. However, we normally are satisfied only tapping into that sensibility on the occasional hike, day at the lake, or holiday closeness. The rest of the time, give us reality and we’ll be fine. Maintaining a constant awareness of mysterious beauty – of God at play in our here and now – sounds nice, but when you actually commit yourself to it, you find the practice of it sometimes feels like drudgery, like one more item on the daily to-do list.

This morning, the assigned Gospel passage was out of the second chapter of the Book of Luke, the story of old man Simeon and his (seemingly) chance encounter in the Jerusalem temple with Joseph, Mary and newborn Jesus. The old codger had spent many years in Jerusalem, waiting, watching, trying to maintain that deeper kind of seeing, still believing the Holy Spirit’s promise that he would not die until he had seen the messianic hope of Israel. I’m sure that when he told his family (if they were still around) about this promise, they respectfully praised his devotion to Israel’s deliverance but then rolled their eyes when his back was turned, believing their father/grandfather/great-grandfather had slipped out of awareness and into senility.

But, “moved by the Spirit,” he puttered into the temple on the exact day and at the exact time that Joseph and Mary, according to custom, were presenting their newborn baby. Suddenly, this happy young couple were standing face to face with a wrinkled geriatric with a beaming smile on his face; with dry, callused hands, he gently took drooly, drowsy Jesus from his parent’s arms and hoisted him into the air, praising God in a rasping voice choked with emotion. What was nothing more than a routine abidance of the Law for Mary and Joseph was something so much more, so much deeper, for old Simeon. In the end, all the daily drudgery of waiting and watching and hoping finally culminated in the sight of a little child, who blinked unseeing eyes back at him in the dusty half-light, unable yet to focus, but who would, as Simeon would prophesy himself, one day show the entire world how to see beyond the workaday reality into the mysterious depths of our own hearts.

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Extracurricular

For my Sono Libero kids…

On Tuesdays, thirteen students saunter into my classroom a few minutes after the final school bell chimes. They gather here to commit themselves to something none of them can do alone, something greater, requiring their collective talents and a communal vision. Granted, some days the vision is dulled by the fog of pressing schoolwork and college applications and rival clubs, but I know that they participate in our creative endeavor because somewhere inside of them burns a flame of innovation and imagination. And, when they choose to fan that flame, mountains move.

We’re putting together a literary magazine, a compilation of artwork, prose works and poetry from the student body. The students who come to my room are the ones who not only believe in the power of art in general, but are convinced that power burns confidently within the hearts and minds of their fellow students. Essentially, they adhere to a notion that people are so much more than what is found on their surface. They have faith in the existence of depth, of mystery, to life, and they want to celebrate this fact rather than disregard or deny it.

Maybe there’s hope for the world after all.