Monday, October 13, 2008

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008




The older I get, the more I believe in what I can't explain or understand,
even more than the things that are explainable and understandable.

- Lillian Gish, actress, born on this day, 1893, in Springfield Ohio


Me too! Only it started a long time ago for me. At the Liturgy on Sunday, I was reflecting on the Mystery of Divinity incarnate in each human being. Oh, there are people who have written on this subject eloquently, but I wasn’t getting very far, I thought, in being articulate about this whole concept. It has a lot to do with language. What I say does not resonate in the same way with those hearing me. We all have different filters, different brains, that interpret things in mysterious ways.

I can’t explain myself. Let alone you. Yet the older I get, the more I believe in myself. And in the You’s. The older I get, the more mysterious, the more inexplicable, the more un-understandable human beings become. And to me that makes them/us more interesting ….. if not also more annoying and frustrating!

Biblical literalists think that that approach makes God, let alone Life and humanity, more explicable and more understandable. Wrong. It makes all those things shallow and dull and boring.

The older I get, the more mysterious is masculinity, femininity, human nature, sexuality, “God”, the Universe, feelings, emotions, prayer, physics, music, art.

I like it that way. I embrace more, fear less, appreciate difference and changing understanding.

America could do with a good dose of this. Maybe an epidemic will break out, and we’ll all enjoy it all more?

Brian+

No comments: