Skip to main content

mystics

This is a church in Point Claire right on the St. Laurence River.

mystic - n. a follower or an expounder of a mystical way of life.

mystical - adj. 1. having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither appparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence. 2. of, relating to, or resulting from an individual's direct communion with God or ultimate reality.

Dean said, "You are such a mystic," to me this weekend. I took it as a compliment, as I try to take most things that people say to me, even phrases like, "You are odd," and "Did you mean to do that?" But then I looked at the last few listings under the definition of "mystic" and they are: "unintelligible or cryptic." Hmmm. I don't like to be unintelligible. I suppose one of the most frustrating things is to be misunderstood. I said something to a friend last night and they totally misunderstood my intention and were offended by it. Oops. Fortunately, we know each other well enough that she brought it to my attention quite quickly and we were able to clear it up and laugh about how silly and sensitive and moody we were being. But still, misunderstandings suck. Most people will not give you the benefit of the doubt, they will just walk away and think bad and sometimes inaccurate things about you without giving you a chance to explain yourself. That's just not fair nor fun.

I guess God knows very well what it is like to be misunderstood and misrepresented and misinterpreted and mistaken for someone or something else. I have done it to him as have most people I know. I love understanding things, but I love mystery as well and when you are talking about human beings, there is always a lot of mystery involved. Relationships are not a science and too often I hear people express the desire to be able to disect and understand God before they believe in him or get to know him. Sorry, it does not work that way. Part of the beauty of relationship is the mystery and wonder of it and I wouldn't have it any other way. Let me be a beholder and wonderer of mystery instead of a judger and critic with what few and limited observations I have.

mystic - n. 4.c. inducing a feeling of awe or wonder.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

soul refrigerator

I went grocery shopping yesterday and came home with three bags of food. After I unpacked them all, this is what my fridge looked like: really empty. How does that happen? How can I feel so full and ready for any food emergency one moment, and after one quick glance, realise that I have nothing, really? Today is one of those days in my soul as well. I woke up with gratitude and fullness in my heart, ready to take on this day and all the wonderful opportunities that it presented. Then I caught a brief glance of some emptiness in my life and bam - my buoyancy was compromised. For the past few hours I have been treading water, trying to keep my head in a positive space, bobbing in and out of disappointment, and catching myself whining with pathetic indignity at the cement blocks of other people's stupidity that are tangled around my ankles. When I am staring at the empty refrigerator of my soul, these are my thoughts. Where do I go from here? Perhaps I should slam that refrigerator

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go