Mystery

The other day I was talking with a colleague about Twitter, an electronic application allowing people to follow one’s every thought.  Asking him if he Tweeted, I smiled at his response, “My life is not that interesting.”  Counter this professor’s profession with Ken Brantley’s incisive comments about Twitter in The New York Times,[Quote] “The theory appears to be that if you never shut up, no one can forget you.”[1] [End Quote]  Brantley’s article entitled “Whatever Happened to Mystery” reminds us of an important truth when he says, [Quote] “Artists of any kind — and that includes pop stars — are almost never as interesting as their art.  You know what happens when these dream girls and boys open their mouths or scratch themselves. The mystery dissolves like fog at sunrise.” [End Quote]

G. K. Chesterton agreed when he wrote, [Quote] “As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.  A person can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.”[2] [End Quote]  Mystery allows us humans the opportunity to rest, saying “I don’t know,” to ponder, holding to ideals, and to question, halting the obsession we have with ourselves.  You see, the older I get the less I speak.  Some might say, “But you teach. Don’t you talk all the time?!”  Sure.  I am constantly using words to convey a message, very much like I do in my classroom or am doing right now on radio.  But when I say, ‘I speak less’ I mean I am more reserved about the things I am sure of and talk less about the things I thought I was sure of.  With Chesterton I believe my understanding is helped by what I do not understand.

A children’s story will help me explain.  Kenneth Grahame’s famous tale The Wind in the Willows tells about the exploits and experiences of various woodland animals.  In this cutting, The Mole, who has learned a great deal about his earthly world, suddenly confronts a mystery from outside his world.  [Quote] “Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror, indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy, but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.” [End Quote]

Perhaps we would do well to allow “a great Awe” to fall upon us.  Perhaps mystery would help us understand what we do not understand.  Perhaps we should ignore the present must seeking instead the Presence august.  Celebrities on Twitter, chatter to clamor for attention.  Perhaps we should focus our attention elsewhere.  For Moody Radio, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.

Mark does not Tweet, nor will he Tweet.  But you can find him on Facebook.  To be aired on Moody Radio, Fall, 2010.

[2] G. K. Chesterton. 1908. Orthodoxy.