How does one address a mystery?

In the covenant that helps define our association of Unitarian Universalist congregations we read that one of the sources of our faith is "direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder...that moves us to a renewal of the spirit."  It has been my observation that one of the best kept secrets in any human community is how many of people have had a "direct experience" of mystery.  We have an insight into the meaning of life, we experience some awe inspiring revelation of the granduer of nature, we have an "ah ha" or something happens and we discover a depth and meaning in our lives that we never knew before.  But what do we do now? 

We come to church hoping that somehow, sometime the church would help us understand what "these experiences" mean, somehow we can incorporate these experiences of mystery and wonder into our lives.  Sometimes we can, sometimes its a poem, or bible reading, or a particular line in a sermon.  Sometimes its an anthem, or a line from a hymn. 

Gordon B. McKeeman has created what we might adopt as our guide to being with in relation to mystery.  I include his insights below:

How does one address a mystery?

Cautiously -- let us go cautiously, then, to the end of our certainty, to the boundary of all we know, to the rim of uncertainty, to the perimeter of the unknown which surrounds us.

Reverently -- let us go with a sense of awe, a feeling of approaching the powerful holy whose lightning slashes the sky, whose persistence splits concrete with green sprouts, whose miracles are present in every place and moment.

Hopefully -- out of our need for wholeness in our own lives, the reconciliation of mind and heart, the conjunction of reason and passion, the intersection of the timeless with time.

Quietly -- for no words will explain the inarticulate or summon the presence that is always present even in our absence.

But what shall I say?

Anything -- any anger, any hope, any fear, any joy, any request, any word that comes from the depth of being addressed to Being itself -- or, perhaps, nothing, no complaint, no request, no entreaty, no thanksgiving, no praise, no blame, no pretense of knowing or of not knowing.

Simply be in the intimate presence of mystery, unashamed -- unadorned -- unafraid.

And at the end say -- Amen.