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When they finally located Jesus, Mary did not understand what it meant. She was left to live with the mystery of what had taken place. Her child was found, but she did not comprehend why he had chosen to be hidden from her. She pondered this life experience, reflected upon it, turned it over in her heart again and again. Oftentimes parents do not understand, either why children do what they do, why they choose values radically opposed to their own, why they respond as they do. Many times parents do not know why life has dealt them such a blow in the daughter who is missing or son who has died.
Sometimes we cannot figure out, either, why we have lost some part of our self that we have cherished and have had to painstakingly recover. Even after we stand in the temple of our soul and say, “Ah, there you are! sometimes we still do not understand why our depression was so lengthy, why our spiritual energy waned into hopelessness, why our enthusiasm faded into lethargy. We may not know the answers for why things happened the way they did for many years, and perhaps we may never fully understand the “why.”
There are circumstances when no amount of talking, healing therapy, good books to read, quiet reflection, intense research, or other deliberate searching adequately solves the story of “why.” Sometimes we can sit for years inside the experience of losing a treasure and not have the satisfaction of knowing “why” it happened. We can grind and grind our rational teeth, trying to figure out what went wrong and the reason for it. We can spend our energy blaming ourselves or others for what took place, or we can forgive whoever and whatever caused our great search and then move on with our lives. There may always be a piece of mystery that is left to sit in our soul, to tug us from time to time and keep us humbled by our inability to sort it all out.
Like Mary who pondered what she had lost and found, we also need to stand in the middle of the mystery of our life and reflect upon the message it has for us. By reflecting on our experiences, we can learn from them. Instead of just going busily about our life, we can let our inner eye scan our lost and found event and see what the deeper message might be for us. Once we have paid full attention to our experience, with all its hurt and turmoil, there comes a time when we must put the matter to rest even if we do not understand why this happened to us.
When we have lost a treasure and are searching for its return, it is time to reenter the temple of our soul. We ought to go searching all alone. It is essential to call on God for guidance and direction. In our frantic, heartaching, panicky search for our treasure, we need a deep center of peace and harmony. This can be nearly impossible to feel when we are in the midst of a painful search. Yet, we must constantly give ourselves to divine peace, begging that we receive this peace so that we can search with a heart of love and trust.
Joyce Rupp
Sometimes we cannot figure out, either, why we have lost some part of our self that we have cherished and have had to painstakingly recover. Even after we stand in the temple of our soul and say, “Ah, there you are! sometimes we still do not understand why our depression was so lengthy, why our spiritual energy waned into hopelessness, why our enthusiasm faded into lethargy. We may not know the answers for why things happened the way they did for many years, and perhaps we may never fully understand the “why.”
There are circumstances when no amount of talking, healing therapy, good books to read, quiet reflection, intense research, or other deliberate searching adequately solves the story of “why.” Sometimes we can sit for years inside the experience of losing a treasure and not have the satisfaction of knowing “why” it happened. We can grind and grind our rational teeth, trying to figure out what went wrong and the reason for it. We can spend our energy blaming ourselves or others for what took place, or we can forgive whoever and whatever caused our great search and then move on with our lives. There may always be a piece of mystery that is left to sit in our soul, to tug us from time to time and keep us humbled by our inability to sort it all out.
Like Mary who pondered what she had lost and found, we also need to stand in the middle of the mystery of our life and reflect upon the message it has for us. By reflecting on our experiences, we can learn from them. Instead of just going busily about our life, we can let our inner eye scan our lost and found event and see what the deeper message might be for us. Once we have paid full attention to our experience, with all its hurt and turmoil, there comes a time when we must put the matter to rest even if we do not understand why this happened to us.
When we have lost a treasure and are searching for its return, it is time to reenter the temple of our soul. We ought to go searching all alone. It is essential to call on God for guidance and direction. In our frantic, heartaching, panicky search for our treasure, we need a deep center of peace and harmony. This can be nearly impossible to feel when we are in the midst of a painful search. Yet, we must constantly give ourselves to divine peace, begging that we receive this peace so that we can search with a heart of love and trust.
Joyce Rupp
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