Ponderings At The Back of the Wardrobe

Mystery is not something we conquer, but something we embrace and enter into; and, in the process, we are enriched, humbled, and transformed.  So often in western "civilization" we try to conquer the mysteries of life, a poor and wearied approach that modernity has tried and found wanting.  Many branches of science are beginning to acknowledge with every new probing discovery the wonder, awe and mystery of life.  "Exact science" is beginning to discover its hubris and the folly of empirical rationalism that would seek to reduce the mysteries of life to controllable equations.

The human mind and reason functioning from a perception of its ability to conquer and control always, inevitably, finds itself on the cusp of the chasm of the "deep magic", as C. S. Lewis describes the nature of creation permeated by the life-giving and life-sustaining power and active Presence of its Creator.  The greatest mystery, that of a loving and personal, yet transcendent Creator - God in Three Persons, as one great hymn puts it - beckons and invites all His creatures back into the embrace of His unfathomable and unfailing love in order that we might have the joy of sharing again in the dance of the divine mystery that gives meaning and purpose to every aspect of life.  And, that great Mystery of Love permeates the everydayness of our lives in a manner that has the power to transform the commonness of our daily struggles, questions and uncertainties into discovery, encounter and awakening and to alter our perceptions of what is real and lasting and that can only, finally, be described as wonder and mystery.

Somehow, it seems imperative to take searching steps of faith toward the back of the wardrobe with a trembling hope that as we reach out in the dark there awaits us the joyful discovery that the Great Mystery we have so often feared, ignored or raged against is waiting to free us to enter into and experience the profound realization that there are other "lands", other "dimensions", other "vistas" available to us. He has prepared for us, as the Holy Scriptures describe it, "that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and has not entered into the heart of man" as we learn to trust and embrace - the Mystery.