Paradox
We are a living paradox.
A paradox is a person or thing exhibiting apparently contradictory characteristics.
Simple, right? But in actuality, nothing could be more complex.
Amos Smith describes how the early mystics saw Jesus, as a paradox, “a nondual awareness, at once God and human.”
The two aspects, human and divine, cannot be separated or divided. They are never independent of each other. They are always in dynamic, interdependent relationship.
Humanity and Divinity are not a mixture, some parts human, some parts divine. Neither aspect is watered down or diluted. They are an indivisible dynamic union. Jesus was wholly and completely both.
It is often said we are either a human being having a spiritual experience or a spiritual being having a human experience. But either of these descriptions only partly explains our existence.
We too, are wholly and completely both. So too, is our existence, intertwining certainty with mystery. Life isn’t lived in a binary.
James Finley reminds us, “We’re not treating spirituality as separate from the day-to-day life, but having them ultimately processed as one. … There’s just one thing happening.”
This can be such a confounding concept. We live all of it; the paradox. In the paradox isn’t an easy place to live.
It means we have to be able to hold the paradox, whether in ease or in discomfort, joy or sorrow, or anything in between.
We embrace our human condition and surrender to the sacredness within it.
It also means we must be able to see that nothing in human existence is black and white. Suffering isn’t a disconnect from sacredness. Grief isn’t to be overcome. Life and death are not opposites.
We are human, holy, and whole.
Mysticism
I have found that in a mystical experience, our typical human perception suspends for a moment (or longer), and we have an insight. Whether that is an embodied insight, an intellectual insight, or a physical experience, in some way it changes our perception of existence.
A mystic experience reframes our understanding of the way things happen in our lives.
It aligns us with the awareness that everything in life is holy and interconnected.
What others are saying:
“Mysticism and mystery come from the same root, myste. This root and its meaning in mysticism is different from the word ‘esoteric’ which means ‘secret or hidden.’ Mysticism is not a mystery. It’s not about secrets.” ~ Jon Mundy
“Becoming a mystic does not require an escape from the so-called ‘real world’. In fact, ‘practical mysticism’ calls upon us to be very present and aware of whatever is going on in the world.”
~ Jon Mundy
Living the mystical path is more organic. It can’t be formulaic. It has to be intuitive. It has to be. It must be walked in a way that is responsive and interactive with our original nature. In connection, and in these connections, we are transformed as we step along the path. It cannot be designed for us. It’s not preordained.
We belong to each other
One of my core beliefs is that we belong to each other. It informs how I see the world and us as humans. I also believe we are a part of the natural world. Within the natural world, there are plentiful examples of species that have a responsibility to each other. Humans are no different.
Professor of Forest Ecology Suzanne Simard tells us how trees provide an example of belonging to each other. They show us interrelationship.
Imagine a forest. Much more than simply a collection of trees. Trees are members of another world, a world of infinite biological pathways that connect them and allows them to communicate, nourish, and heal each other. A forest behaves as though it’s a single organism, with a sort of hidden intelligence. Trees are not just competitors, but cooperators.
A fascinating and vital truth ~ trees are not simply a source, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.
Things we look at as individual are actually interconnected through a network and communicate through multiple channels.
Everything is connected. Everyone belongs.
We as humans could learn a lot from trees.