Loving Paradox

One of the things that I've come to understand about contemplation and mysticism is the new way in which one can encounter paradox.

The modern Western mind has never been comfortable with paradox. It reminds me of the refrain from Frost's "Mending Wall": Something there is that doesn't love a wall. Well, to most of the Western world, something there is that doesn't love a paradox. It's a loose end that needs to be tied up. It's a mystery that must be solved.

In many parts of life, that's a useful way to approach things. In crime solving, for example, loose ends must be tied up. Same for the world of science. Answers must be found. However, there are some parts of life that defy solving. And as I mature (read "get older"), I have come to believe that they are more pervasive than I had once thought.

Particularly in the realm of spirituality and religion, paradox is virtually the norm. How can God be both three and one? How is Jesus fully human and fully divine? And those two are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg! The problem is that somewhere along the line, Western philosophy became enamored with finding answers—ones we can understand. The Socratic Method, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, while amazing things, condition us to use the same dualistic mindset where one thought must be proven absolutely and universally true at the expense of another thought, which is then absolutely and universally false.

It is often through great philosophical  and spiritual struggle that we come to realize that much of life doesn't fit into the neat boxes we have constructed. In fact, we may discover that those boxes have no real meaning. Although on the service it might be seen as naive, I think it is a profound truth that "it is as it is." Yes, there are things that we must come to terms with. There are parts of life that we need to understand.

But there is a deep freedom and peace in accepting the inherent paradox of many things. And perhaps we will move beyond merely accepting it to embracing it.