Rev. Ian Cummins
Poem referenced in sermon:
The older I become, the more aware I am
of mystery,
especially in my faith.
I think when I was younger, it might have frightened me
to think of faith containing mystery;
I valued thinking too much to entertain that notion.
I wanted to know what was true, what was “right,”
Studying, analyzing, knowing!
Why, this mystery thing just might have spun me
into far flung
galaxies
of uncountable, immeasurable, entities
much as envisioned in the Hubble telescope -
and now the Webb.
The very idea!
It feels so much more clear now that mystery doesn’t cancel
more empirical, nail-downable knowledge,
the brain’s direct perceptions -
but dances with them,
and I relax into how much I’ve always loved imagining
as well as “knowing.”
In this space, it’s tempting to say
there is no black and white of it
but there is.
God loves us. We are the beloved. Period.
But what God’s loving means to us opens the door
to those galaxies
not only of every shade of gray
but of every color as well.
Just looking out my study window,
watching the aspen leaves dance,
sometimes listening to music,
I go to another place
as the undeniable presence of God, of Spirit, surrounds me,
something ethereal courses through my veins,
and tears of gratitude and awe gently well up.
How I express this - what’s “seen” in the mystery,
what’s experienced and felt, what this other knowing is -
becomes the more difficult task.
Rev. Ian Cummins
Poem referenced in sermon:
The older I become, the more aware I am
of mystery,
especially in my faith.
I think when I was younger, it might have frightened me
to think of faith containing mystery;
I valued thinking too much to entertain that notion.
I wanted to know what was true, what was “right,”
Studying, analyzing, knowing!
Why, this mystery thing just might have spun me
into far flung
galaxies
of uncountable, immeasurable, entities
much as envisioned in the Hubble telescope -
and now the Webb.
The very idea!
It feels so much more clear now that mystery doesn’t cancel
more empirical, nail-downable knowledge,
the brain’s direct perceptions -
but dances with them,
and I relax into how much I’ve always loved imagining
as well as “knowing.”
In this space, it’s tempting to say
there is no black and white of it
but there is.
God loves us. We are the beloved. Period.
But what God’s loving means to us opens the door
to those galaxies
not only of every shade of gray
but of every color as well.
Just looking out my study window,
watching the aspen leaves dance,
sometimes listening to music,
I go to another place
as the undeniable presence of God, of Spirit, surrounds me,
something ethereal courses through my veins,
and tears of gratitude and awe gently well up.
How I express this - what’s “seen” in the mystery,
what’s experienced and felt, what this other knowing is -
becomes the more difficult task.