Over all the mountaintops is peace, In all the treetops, scarcely a breath; The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; you, too, will have peace.
God – and humankind too – is a mystery, a living paradox of opposites:
"Most deeply hidden and most nearly present, always acting and always at rest, still gathering and never wanting, seeking although in need of nothing!"
I dive down deep as I can and I find no end.
~ Augustine in JOURNEY FROM PARADISE by Ralph Harper
It is not outer reality that silence reveals, but our own innerness. Silence is essentially a surrender to the holiness of the divine mystery – whether we use these words or not. An atheist, calming his or her spirit in the peace of silence, is irradiated by the same mystery, anonymous but transforming. We are to listen. To what? To silence.
Taking on the mystery is yielding to grace, letting go of all analyses, explanations, ideologies, self-images, images of God, agendas, and expectations. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the finitude of years, hallowing diminishments, and living into the solitude of our own integrity. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the pain of learning that there re no empires favored by the Holy One ... the grief of understanding that there are not theologies favored by the Holy One. Taking on the mystery is acknowledging that we cannot name the mystery, though we try, we cannot claim the mystery, though we do. The mystery names and claims us ...
The sacred is plainly a mystery of consciousness – using the word MYSTERY to signify not a problem that can be intellectually solved, but a process of awakening and transformation that must be acted out in order to be experienced, and experienced if one is to make it one's own.
It is the Beloved who is seeking us, calling to us, longing for us. We always think that we are the seeker, but the deeper mystery is that we are the called.
~ from THE CALL AND THE ECHO by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Simply put, God wants everything ... What a mystery! To want to loose all, willingly, and with each release to realize you have been increased and made into what you could nevr make of yourself regardless of all you may possess. What a mystery!
Spiritual disciplines are being renewed throughout the world. For some, the ultimate mystery of things is experienced in the depth of the inner self, for others in the human community, for still others in the earth process itself. Yet in each instance, the full sense of communion seems to be present.
O Great Mystery We give thanks for the natural world we see: All the Creatures, Stones and Plants Who show us how to be. We learn their lessos seek their truths, Return our loving praise, We honor the peace they show us, Which guides our human ways. We ask that we may become like them, Living in harmony, And deep within our heart of hearts, Know the Sacred Mystery.
