Of clarity and questions: mystery builds upon mystery…

Most days I work through lunch. Somedays I eat. Somedays, when I eat, I actually eat a meal. But, when I do it is usually always at my desk while still working. I’m not exactly a shining example of ‘self-care’, but I made it a point to stop for a bit and try to catch up on this book by John Thatamanil.

I started it almost a month ago and I posted a blog called with some of my initial thoughts and first impressions.

I’m glad I got to sit with the book for a bit today because I came across this passage that was just too good not to share:

the mystery discloses itself as mystery. Revelation neither removes nor eliminated mystery because then what is revealed is no mystery but a mere puzzle. One can affirm that revelation grants genuine knowledge but without asserting that it affords exhaustive knowledge.

The beauty and wonder of true mystery is that it’s mysteriousness is inexhaustible. It can never be fully revealed, never fully resolved. Mystery builds upon mystery upon mystery.

I think the job of the artist is to make the experience of mystery palpably vivid in a way that does not resolve the mystery but, instead reveals the mystery as more profoundly mysterious than we realize.
We enter the cloud of unknowing, not so that the unknown can become known, but so that we can bask in the blinding brilliance within the experience of not knowing.

But that is not to say that it reveals nothing. The revelation within mystery invites us into further unfolding; further expansion. The sacred clouds of ambiguity and uncertainty do periodically part. We bear witness to interstices of the infinite. We do find answers, but in finding them we also discover how small our questions are. Our most profound moments of awestruck clarity plunge us further into the majesty of deeper questions. This is what Rob Bell refers to as “the engine of life”…

If you’re enjoying my work, please consider supporting it by Buying me a Coffee.