Two Kinds of Mysteries

If I want a great, snappy read on an airplane or on vacation, I can always get a Robert Parker Spencer paperback. If I want a little more complexity, then one of the Alphabet mysteries or Hellerman paperbacks will work. There are lots of other great writers whose works are sold as mystery books. If I want a more realistic mystery in which there are solutions but not justice or closure, then Ian Rankin is my favorite. These are the mysteries that most of us enjoy.They are the mysteries that most of our television programs pursue. They are the mysteries we expect to be solved. Somebody done somebody wrong, and we expect to find out who by the end of the book or the show.

These are the kind of mysteries that science seeks to provide solutions for. These are the mysteries of medicine in which there is a disease and we want research to find out what causes these diseases and what can prevent them. There is a problem and we expect that given enough time and enough intelligence there will be an explanation and a solution.

But there is another kind of mystery which fascinates us all. There is the mystery that always grows larger rather than comes to a solution. There is the mystery that captivates and enchants and never comes to the end. John Denver said "Life ain't nothing but a funny, funny riddle?" and that is one of the mysteries that is never "solved." There is the mystery of the human personality. We are forever meeting people who live next door to us and suddenly they do something so strange we are simple amazed. All the neighbors say, "She was a very quiet and responsible citizen. We never expected that from her." Try as we may, we could never find out what caused that to happen. Isn't that part of our fascination with sports because they are always a mystery? Recently Serena Williams lost to a qualifier and Serena said,"I played against a woman who played better than she had ever played before."

For many people some of the great classical music is a mystery. They may know the score inside and out, but every time they hear it they hear something different. They are moved by a different section. The piece is a mystery that keeps opening up before them dimensions that they had not known were there before.

To be reminded that there are these two different kinds of mystery is necessary when we come to talk about the religious dimension of life. The question of God is a mystery which some people want to solve and to settle. But the question of God and the whole spiritual dimension of life is the mystery which ought to keep leading us into new questions, new wonders, new concerns, new hopes, and new vistas.

There are the mysteries that can be solved and the mysteries that only lead to more mysteries. The question of God is the mystery that leads to every other mystery.