The World of Grandpa Don

Problems vs. Mysteries

Today, on my 70th birthday, I re-read a piece from one of the booklets left by Anne. It was one of those things that all of a sudden turns on a light in your brain. In my middle years, I was hung up on trying to solve the puzzles of life and religion, and this effort in itself was keeping me from knowing God. There was a gradual awakening and my spirituality was allowed to surface. A part of the piece read today is relative to that awakening. I quote from the writing of Rev. Stephen Doyle, O.F.M. 

"Problems are stone walls against which we bash our heads: Mysteries are oceans into which we plunge"  He continues, " There's the clue: problems are to be solved; mysteries are to be lived."

 One of my favorite expressions for a great part of my life had been, "I don't understand everything I know about this". I applied it to my job, but I could not apply it to my spiritual side. I kept bashing my head against the puzzles of religion, trying to apply logic to it until I discovered that it wasn't the logical thing to do. Spirituality must be lived. It is only then that understanding comes from within. And the deeper we plunge into it, the less of a mystery it becomes.

The title of Doyle's piece was "Suffering: Problem or Mystery" and it dealt with the way we try to explain the problem of suffering and pain in our lives. I lifted his words slightly out of context but, maybe not too far.

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