A Wish

When I was a younger man, it seemed that there were answers to every question and a way to resolve every theological quandary.  One of the things I took away from seminary was the idea that the scope of scholarly study would bring order to any confusion and second mile insight to the historically problematic parts of the Biblical words and its theological truths.  There was little, if anything, filed under mystery.  The younger man I once was knew more than he really could possibly know and the older man I have become knows he knows so little.    

What has overwhelmed me in recent years is the growing awareness of holy mystery.  It is on every page of the Holy Word we hold in our hands and it is in everything which touches us through the creation.  I remember one of my seminary courses in which we spent the entire quarter talking about the sacred and the profane.  It left an impression on an impressionable seminarian.  I still remember the text and the author.  However, as the years have brought me to where I am, I live convinced that there is nothing which can be defined as profane, or not sacred.  Everything from sunsets, to bugs, to critters that crawl and fly, to dirt and trees, to people like you and me have been touched by the creative hand of God and if touched by His hand, surely there the mark of holiness is left.  Indeed, the Lord God made them all.    

Instead of a world to be figured out and defined, I see myself living in a world where holy mystery is always unfolding, where God is in surprising ways revealing Himself to us through the ordinary, and "where every common bush is afire with God."  The world seen through the eyes of this old guy is much different than the one seen by the younger guy.  I wish I could have helped him see sooner.