House
of Mystery
“Keep
alive the fact that a mystery has come into existence and that a physical being
serves as the house for the mystery.”
John
Paul Caponigro
I had a
chat with my financial advisor last week. He said that he and his wife have
a new baby boy that they are insanely in love with. They are experiencing those
days when the miracle of creation overwhelms, expands, and bursts our
unsuspecting heart. We know ourselves to be utterly changed and feel as though
the crush of our love for that baby-child will destroy us. And it is true; having
a baby does forever change the people who create that small mystical being.
From that point forward, your heart resides outside your body, vulnerable to
all manner of bruising and breakage. It expands and contracts with the joy and sorrow
of that child.
Quickly,
the realization dawns that this new creation is its own person. Its
personality, temperament, interests may or may not reflect you or your mate. We
like to say things like, “he has my daddy’s eyes,” or “that red hair comes
straight from my great-grandmother,” but the truth is, this is a brand-new
being, unlike any other, and we were only the receptacle that held him/her while
incubation took place. This child may be like us or completely different from
us in every way. A mystery has been born, and now will live and grow into
itself while we watch in helpless amazement.
The
world waking up in springtime is something like this too. I love this time of
year when green shoots begin poking through the dirt, enticing us to scrape
back the leaves and mulch and try to remember what we planted there. Sometimes
the mystery is solved only when blooms appear, or the leaves unfold. I’m always
surprised at the way certain plants expand—last year there were five gladiolas
and now there are ten shoots poking up. The clump of white iris has doubled in size. I believe
all this reflects the mystery we call God.
Since
God is all that there is, these must be part of God—and so are we. And so are
the neighbors up the street who let their dogs run amuck in the neighborhood,
and the homeless guy who pushes the grocery cart around Southside, and the guy
down the street who calls for help when his glass eye goes missing, and the old lady two
blocks over who is a hoarder. The mystery of God includes the people of Yemen,
and Sudan, Ukraine, and Russia, and even the dreaded oligarchs and autocrats. It
includes the little babies born to them, as much as the baby boy born to my
financial advisor. The mystery includes us all. We are one with it. Our bodies
and our planet are the dwelling place of the divine. Walk in that knowledge
today and give thanks.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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