The idea of this program was that a religious mystery wasn't like a murder mystery which can be solved, but was something that couldn't be solved and we had to learn to live with - we had to realise we wouldn't be able to give a definitive answer to the mystery. There was a nice quote from Robert Runcie that he feared Christianity was getting to be like a swimming pool where all the noise was coming from the shallow end.
There was also talk of mystical experience and how the mystics sometimes expressed the mystery of God in ways that went outside of the language of the church - Meister Eckhart spoke of "taking leave of God".
The ultimate and highest leave taking is leaving God for GOD, leaving your notion of God for an experience of that which transcends all notions.
I think you have to be careful with "mystery". Too often the church talks about mystery but when you start to explore the religious experience you suddenly find things aren't quite as mysterious as first claimed. The trinity might be a mystery, but try changing the formula and suddenly you are a heretic - so exactly how mysterious is it ? When the church uses "mystery" to stop questions and assert its authority, that just looks like a smokescreen. The "mystery" just means "don't ask questions", but if they have a formula for it, then it seems as if something can be said about it after all, doesn't it?
So providing mystery still allows us to explore and ask questions and accept we will always have provisional answers that will do for a while until we get to thinking of more questions, then that sounds fine. There are lots of mysteries - the world of science is a mystery that we will keep on exploring, love is a mystery, faith is a mystery - mystery often means "both... and... " thinking, holding two notions that might not sit easily together in some tension, because they are both important.
Too often in this series ideas seem to be expressed in a negative way. The word "mystery" seems to contain an element of puzzlement or bewilderment - some anxiety that a closure that would be welcome is not forthcoming, like a murder that can't be solved. But existing in an open-ended discourse, speaking about something where we may not be able to ever have the final word, can be a life-affirming and joyous experience. Life is about growing, changing, experiencing, enjoying - in this sense closure and "the final answer" would be some sort of death - instead of mystery can't we just realise life is a super-abundance, a river of life that never stops flowing ?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment