Someone asked me once whether I searched for concrete knowledge of God. My response was that I preferred the experience of Mystery. Enticing, both subtle and flamboyant—in tolerable proportion, and always just that far away…until becoming part of its fullness. And, somehow, I don’t think we need to die to become enfolded in its expanse—we already Are held, just as Mystery already embraces. And yet, and still…I believe that there is more that we do not know by sense or feeling or knowledge…until we do at last come home.

As I mused, I gave further thought to what I meant by subtle and flamboyant…Neither approach is necessarily favorable over the other and neither can be measured in the duality of ‘good or bad.’ Our eight month old kitten suddenly dying from feline leukemia was rather flamboyant—inexplicable, dramatic, heart-rending and not at all muted in terms of feeling, emotion, or expression of grief. Coming into the kitchen one morning at just the moment to notice the edge of the wooden fruit bowl awash in the first light of the day—a subtle reminder of Mystery’s simplicity. The way a judicious use of salt in cooking helps food taste more like itself—subtlety adorned with a sprinkle of scientific perfection. Adding chile to chocolate crinkle cookies and letting chemistry take the helm, is allowing Mystery to exercise flamboyance. Tree shadows on the sidewalk; the riot of possible petal arrangements in dahlias; the good deed done for a neighbour; the sound of the wind before you hear it; the power of a hurricane and the grand stillness of the milky way that is actually moving faster than my brain can imagine; the tent encampments down the street and the stories they harbour; the shoulder of my friend who nudges me in understanding; the laughter that buoys and the quiet that sustains…

This Mystery…this God…Who is so much more than I can say I Know… I have hints and intuitions, I have Experience and Relationship. I have subtleties and flamboyances.

And I have gratitude. Willingness—sometime eager and sometimes begrudging. Curiosity. Humanity in its grace and its challenge.

But mostly, for me…The Mystery is about Love…the greatest mystery I know without knowing entirely; that I sense without grasping its fullness; that surprises me with constancy, wraps me in wonder, and strengthens my spirit, while also winking as stars do in the evening. There is more beyond the horizon. There is more here within and around you. I am always and everywhere. Subtle and Flamboyant, inexhaustible, eternal, Full Mystery, Full God. Full Love.