“Gathered here in the mystery of the hour …” How does a concrete, sequential thinker think of these words, and will the interpretation of these words be different for the abstract random thinker?
What, to you, is the mystery that draws humans to gather?
As I’ve let go of strict ideas of ‘belief’ and ‘knowing,’ and let myself release into a felt sense of mystery, my relationship with the world around me has grown deeper and more meaningful.
What belief can you let go of that will help you form a deeper relationship with the world?
In the era before smartphones, it was common to wonder about something and not know the answer. Today, it is more common to open Google and search. Answers are often right at our fingertips, but this easy access to information comes at a spiritual cost.
Wonder about something and sit in the mystery today. Don’t look it up until tomorrow.
As 2020 and 2021 was filled with so much death and destruction, especially of Black and brown bodies, I have turned to trying to understand or uncover different spiritual traditions and their understandings of mysteries. If I am connected to the divine or there are mysteries to explore and comprehend, then the sacred cannot be denied to me because of the body I currently inhabit, which is something I didn’t believe before. That idea gives me solace.
How do you feel your body is connected to the universe?
When I was a child growing up Muslim, I never internalized Allah as a person. My mother always referred to Allah as energy. It was always a mystery to me what a divine being who was energy would look like. A sunburst? A comet? A shooting star? The moon? I never could come up with a visual and as a child it was important that I try. I’m grateful as an adult that I never did, because now I embrace the mystery that is the holy and the unknown.
How do you experience the mystery of the divine, the holy and the sacred?
