Taking on the mystery is yielding to grace, letting go of all analyses, explanations, ideologies, self-images, images of God, agendas, and expectations. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the finitude of years, hallowing diminishments, and living into the solitude of our own integrity. Taking on the mystery is undergoing the pain of learning that there re no empires favored by the Holy One ... the grief of understanding that there are not theologies favored by the Holy One. Taking on the mystery is acknowledging that we cannot name the mystery, though we try, we cannot claim the mystery, though we do. The mystery names and claims us ...
Those who are accustomed to meditate will know that at a certain point you can touch the great silence, the center, the source of all good... Would that men and women would seek silence more often, as we used to do in past ages. In our Indian days we who had the welfare of the people at heart would climb high into the mountains to meditate at the rising and the setting of the sun, and we would not leave our post until we had an answer to our prayer. We did not attempt to solve our problems amidst the noise of the camp fire, but repaired to the mountain top -- not only the physical mountain, but the mountain of high consciousness. We recognized the great power which lay in the silence.