We are born, and we wonder, were we somewhere before? If we were, where were we? We live our lives, and we wonder what we are meant to do? Is there a special purpose for our lives? We die, and we wonder why? Will we live on in some way after death? These are the questions that all people ask at some time or another in their lives. These are the questions that bring us up against the edge of any certainty; on the other side of that brink lies mystery. Religions are born out of the questions; God is born out of the mystery.

Whatever concepts of God are believed, whatever myths and symbols image God, all religions include mystery as an attribute of God. It is a common belief that God is something totally other, something utterly unknowable for humans, something ineffable. Rudolf Otto, explains this phenomenon in The Idea of the Holy, “The truly ‘mysterious’ object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon somethng inherently ‘wholly other’, whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own,..” Yet, at.the same time, those who accept that God is totally unknowable usually also attempt to understand what God is through some earthly or human metaphors. This paradox, of not knowing and yet knowing, is at the heart of religion, in fact it is at the heart of life.

Scientists, too, are finding that they come up against the same kind of mystery at the edges of their knowledge. They are always pushing those edges for new understandings but as soon as they make a new discovery, they find new puzzles to solve. The threshold of knowledge only moves out a little; the mystery always remains on the other side. Scientists who study the microcosm also discover a paradox similar to one in which God can’t be known but is known. Sub-atomic particles can be described only from one viewpoint at a time; they can never be totally known all at once. The underlying stuff of life seems to contain a paradox, a mystery. This ultimate mystery is a basic part of the meaning of the word “God”. It is no wonder that God as mystery is common to all religions.

The Native Americans of the Plains call God, Wakan Tanka, the Great Mysterious. The Medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart described God as “A mystery behind mystery, a mystery within mystery that no light has ever penetrated.” In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says of himself, “I am the silence of mysteries”. The Tao Te Ching says, “The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.” (translation by Stephen Mitchell) One of the ninety nine names of God in Islam is The Hidden. Zen Buddhist koans and other exercises attempt to make an experience of the paradox and mystery possible.

Most people love a mystery. Humans are curious creatuies and if there is something hidden, they want to find it. If there is something wrapped up, they want to open it. If there is a mystery, they want to solve it. Children are especially intrigued by mysteries. The younger children in this age group, though curious, will accept mysteries at face value since their thinking processes allow them to be comfortable with them. The older children are beginning to analyze in a more rational way and they may push for more rational answers. We wish to honor the new mental abilities of these children, yet it is important and possible for them to consciously carry along their earlier intuitive understanding of the underlying mystery.

An understanding that mystery is a the heart of life is affirmed by our Unitarian Universalist principles which encourage us to spiritual growth and urge us to a free and responsible search for truth. It is also promoted by our use of the source, direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder.