We are in a space of talking and writing about paradox and contradiction, which could otherwise be known as the way of the mystic. Try this on: you are ordinary (not hard to imagine for most of us), and you are mystical (somewhat harder to imagine for most of us). The mystic is one who goes seeking oneness, who goes seeking a unification of apparent opposites to make a whole experience. That you are here at all, listening, implies your mystical seeking. Within us and around us is a perpetual tension. Meister Eckhart writes fluently about the tension between light and dark, that one cannot know itself without the other. the willingness, the courage to face your own dark and bear witness to the beauty of your light is a gift. Perhaps the only apt response is silence and awe.
I am inspired by many of the writers I am pulled toward lately, those who encourage a holding of many tensions, of many opposites. For who are we if we are not trying to make sense of it all, however feebly? As long as you are seeking, you cannot be destroyed by life’s uncertainty even as it brings you to your knees. Sometimes it will be stormy and sometimes calm. The trick is to accept and be okay with both. I read from a lovely little book called In the Shelter by Padraig O’Tuama, a book I highly recommend. This particular passage references the nature of God/Reality/Life in a nod to the story in the gospel of John of feeding the multitudes and calming the storm.
“Hello to the dark storm.
In this twin story is the story of a life. Sometimes it is stormy, and sometimes there is bread to share. Sometimes our picture of God is a food-sharing man not he side of a grass-covered hill; other times it’s more frightening than we can imagine. We may prefer one story over another, but they both happen, over and over, again and again. While I am in the storm, someone else is on the hillside, and someone else is waiting in a boat, watching waves begin to form.”
Hello to the dark storm. Hello to the bread. Hello to the boat. Hello.
No matter where you find yourself, the sacred is there.
Thanks for listening!
