A couple of months ago, my friend Fr. Gary asked, “why haven’t you written about the word “mystery” on your blog?” I was flabbergasted. Surely, I thought, I’ve used that word as one of my chosen words before (this, by the way, is my 101st entry in the series). But he was right. I’ve written about mystery and around mystery and have been inspired by mystery. How could I have not? As a person of faith who tries to live a contemplative and aware life, mystery lies at the core of all I am and believe. For in mystery, God resides.
Fr. Gary (easily the most gifted preacher I have ever known) wrote in an email: “Mystery: Wow. Some of the every day events I come up against that bring me into Mystery include birth, death, evil, love, vocation, suffering, the human person.” Indeed, there’s a lot of fertile, mysterious soil in in the stuff of our everyday lives.
When I was going through chemotherapy and writing my book, “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith,” I thought and wrote a lot about mystery, for that’s what that whole process is about. Disease and its treatment include a number of events from Fr. Gary’s list above — death, love, vocation, suffering, the human person. Probably birth, too, now that I come to think of it. The second chapter of my book is all about mystery. I write:
So I became intrigued by and drawn to the idea that God, all in all, is a mystery. It’s a good mystery, of course. God’s a huge, divine, holy, sacred mystery and the power of that mystery fills my life. But God’s still a mystery, and I’ve decided to embrace that. My daily prayer has become, “Surprise me today, Lord. Reveal to me some of the mystery and meaning behind all that’s happening to me.”
Since then, I’ve found myself inundated and inebriated with mystery, as well as by a string of confusing and strange emotions like fear, worry and a few moments of anger. I have had long and good talks with friends and family. And here’s what I’ve figured out so far: This mysterious disease with its equally mysterious treatment will run its course, one way or another.
But I know there’s a flipside to that coin, too. None of us, whether we are carrying around a life-threatening disease or not, know the balance of our life. We don’t know if we have a day left or decades. So in the meantime, I’ve decided to embrace the mystery of the whole thing instead of running scared.
More than all this and above all else, I’m embracing the mystery of God’s presence in my life, delighting and in awe of the fact that he knows me and has called me by name. As my friend Fr. Gary once said to me, “Never forget that Jesus is crazy about you, Steve.” That was powerful for me to hear, even though I already thought I knew it. It helped me remember that God is not just “out there,” hovering and lingering over us like a zookeeper. God is crazy about us. As much as I am crazy about my wife and kids, God is way crazier about us all.
My God is a God of mystery, but not because he is removed and distant and uncaring. In the words of author and priest Michael Himes, “God is mystery not because God is so distant but because God is so terribly close.”
My God is the God of all I see and touch and feel. He is the God of all that is coursing through my veins–the good and the bad, the disease and the medicine. God counts not only my days but also the ever-diminishing hairs on my head, my footsteps and my breaths. He is the God of rare blood diseases and cancer centers and chemotherapy. This is my faith, and my faith is in the mystery of God.
So there you go. How I came to write that and find those particular words is another mystery. Always is. Most often I sit down to write with little more than a grain of an idea — a word, a sentence, a question, a piece of overheard conversation. What God does with that, and what happens after I write it and throw it out to the world is up to God. I have done my part. I have started in faith to respond to the call. The rest is mystery. The rest is God.
Ask yourself in silence: What are the mysteries in your life? What happens to you that defies explanation, other than pointing to God?
Note: To watch some of Fr. Gary’s homilies, visit the website of the Catholic Student Center at Washington University, where his weekly homilies are posted and archived.
Mystery–that is an interesting subject. I love to read and have always loved mystery stories but for the last few months have not been interested in them. Couldn’t understand why. But maybe my interest in mystery has opened in a new place with a new Mystery.