How do you feel about mystery, particularly when it comes to God and the life of faith? Are there spaces of not-knowing in your life with God? What do those bring up in you? Do you find a drive for solving the mystery and arriving at certainty? Is there frustration or fear in those spaces of not knowing? Have you ever chosen to lean into the unknowing? To letting the Mystery be just that – not because you haven’t figured it out yet, but because it’s not necessarily *for* figuring out? There is some great good in letting God be God, affirming that God is ultimately beyond our ability to comprehend. It can lead to humility, a holding-loosely, a place of love instead of control. But it can be so difficult coming to terms with that way of being. We WANT to know, to understand, to put things in manageable categories – yes, even God. But by nature, God is not one of those things that can be categorized, boundaried, managed, tamed. Even when we say true things about God, they still don’t get fully at the Reality behind the words. We’ll be sitting with some of the mystery this week - the unknowing – and the goodness of it. We’ll talk some about apophatic spirituality and how many saints throughout the centuries have understood our relationship to this Mystery. But as we begin, just notice what is coming up in you. Does something in you buck against these thoughts, this unknowing? Do you find your mind going to all the places it normally finds definitions and categories, hoping for some sort of scaffolding? Just notice, and consider with God what the invitation might be for you this week.

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2021-07-05 14:30:33 UTC