clarity and mystery

Meaning is discovered more in mystery than in clarity. Too often, the quest for clarity short circuits the hard work of being truly present…paying attention to God's right-now presence. One of the clearest teachings about God throughout history is that God is mysterious. Christians, of course, acknowledge that the clearest representation of God we will ever behold is in the person of Jesus, but notice: even Jesus is a mystery. We are still wondering today what the heck many of his parables mean, what his death signifies and in what manner he honored both grace and truth. This mystery constitutes for the Christian the very core meaning of our faith. Indeed, without mystery, faith is superfluous.

My experience suggests to me, however, that mystery is something that makes us all very uncomfortable. We like to be in control. We cherish our certainties. These days this addiction to clarity is apparent to me in the form of ideological polarization. Such polarization dehumanizes, however, because it lends itself to gross generalization.

When we generalize on issues we take as “given,” it short circuits real listening to God and others. We are prone to generalize especially when the matter concerns some great controversy in which society is embroiled. We ask: “Are you in or are you out?”—knowing full well that one person’s out is another person’s in. We demand declarations that will settle the matter once and for all—and thereby foment division, prejudice and hatred.

Many of us feel pressured to form opinions along binary lines, and we are pressured to form these opinions in a timely fashion (which, in our society, means: quickly—or you’re too late).

Most opinions we form are derived from experience, but once we form them, we tend to turn them into ideologies—and thereby limit our experience of realities that do not fit the framework of our opinions.

Ironically, love (which is messy by nature) carries its own kind of clarity. Love recognizes truth in an instant, but the fact is: loving truth cannot be described adequately (with complete clarity) were all the poets and all the philosophers of all the ages to combine their gifts in the attempt to do so.

May we learn to live in love. May we befriend mystery.