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 ...
To acknowledge the Sacred within is humbling. One's ego portrays itself as the captain of its separate destiny, like an intrepid explorer, seeing things and naming them for the first time. Ego doesn't care for the idea that MY hunger for love, MY grief, and MY thankfulness are not only mine but also God's in me. As our egos die into Love, we see that our personal stories are transparent to an infinitely larger story within us. Suffering "in God" is allowing our small stories to be like icons, transmitting a Great Light.