Sleepless nights sometimes produce amazing insights.
Revelations. Epiphanies. Gasping moments of varying
degree. It was a few lines in a book that rolled the
stone away this morning.
First the insight, then the commentary.
Faith grounded in experience becomes richer over
time, particularly as one approaches the Ultimate
Experience.
Consider two trains leaving the same station at the
same hour. One is the Certainty Express, the other
the Mystery Local. The Express doesn\'t stop at
local stations because it is driven by destination
and schedule. Point A to point B. The Local picks
up and drops off passengers at all the stations
along the way. No two stations are exactly alike,
but each is rich in its own color, scenery, history.
Sometimes the layover is long enough for one to
walk the platform or drink coffee from the little
shop inside the depot.
Twenty years ago I knew something was happening,
but I could not categorize or name it. Question
marks began to replace exclamation points.
Lashings that held the cargo in place started to
unravel. Brilliant colors on the paint-by-number
canvas lost their luster. And as each year passed,
right up to this 2 a.m. hour in the year of my
eighth decade, clarity gave way to mystery.
Faith grounded in belief is a non-stop ride. An
experience of little villages and whistle-stops
along the route is regarded as a contaminant.
The few lines in the book I mentioned earlier
were highlighted by a hand other than my own,
but they were meant for me. They made the
obvious point: belief can\'t grow, experience
can\'t stagnate.
To re-state the obvious: faith grounded in
experience grows more profound, more
delicious as one approaches the encounter
with the Fullness of Mystery. Don\'t expect
too much too soon. It\'s all about the ride,
not the destination. If one dares to live the
questions and appreciate the ambiguity, to
foster a faith grounded in experience, the
scenery gets more beautiful along the way
and the coffee tastes better and better at
each stop.
Until finally the journey is done and the
Ground of Experience is waiting for you
on the platform. Welcome as the fullness
of discovery and the completeness of
Reunion.