In times of stress we find a comfort in information. What happened? Who’s to blame? What could we do differently? Maybe if we just had better research, training, or reliable security. But sometimes tragedies just happen. There is no explanation. Where else, besides knowledge, might we turn for comfort?
I love a good mystery.
And I also love solving them.
One type of clickbait post I’m always a sucker for is the “listicles” titled something like, “25 greatest unsolved mysteries” or “10 Biggest Historical Mysteries that Will Probably Never be Solved.”
Don’t you already want to know what they are?
The Voynich Manuscript. The Somerton Man. The Wow! Signal. Rongorongo.
Please resist the urge to google those while we’re in worship. Just ask me later.
One favorite mystery for me is the mystery of the Krytpos sculpture.
Kryptos is a sculpture created by an artist named Jim Sanborn displayed on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The sculpture incorporates 4 secret messages that Sanborn encoded with the help of a retired CIA employee. Three of the messages were solved within a few years after the sculpture was dedicated in 1990. The 4th message has never been decoded. Despite being the focus of intense analysis by hundreds of amateur and professional cryptoanalysts, and despite being physically located on the grounds of the agency that probably includes more experts in the field than any other place in the world, we don’t know the message.
That’s kind of thrilling to me.
Another favorite mystery of mine is the classical music piece called, “The Enigma Variations” composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1899. The actual title of the piece is “Variations on an Original Theme” and it is, simply and unmysteriously, 14 variations on a theme. It’s a beautiful piece of music. But there are several mysteries associated with the piece. The easiest to solve is that each of the 14 variations is titled with two or three letters. The letters turned out to be the initials of the names of several of Elgar’s friends and the movements are meant to be musical portraits of the people indicated. A second mystery is that one of the movements is titled with just an asterisk. It turns out that movement is meant to be a portrait of Elgar’s mistress, a secret he wanted to hide from his wife.
But the biggest enigma of the Enigma Variations is that according to Elgar, the main theme is never played. Elgar stated that the tune that you do hear in the piece is actually a counterpoint that harmonizes with some other, unnamed, but supposedly well-known, tune. What tune that is, is the “enigma.” And that’s a 120-year mystery that has never been solved.
Something about that “never been solved” thrills me but also fills me with anxiety. I like mysteries, but I want them to be solved. I like questions, but I want questions to have answers. I love that the world is wide and deep and endlessly available for further exploration, but the fun of exploration is not just going into the dark, but going into the dark and then turning on the light.
A couple of weeks ago we had a Town Hall meeting here at the church. We started with a “check in”, which is where we go around the circle at the beginning of the meeting and invite people to share how they are feeling and maybe share a story from earlier in the day that might still be turning in their mind or heart. At this check-in, somebody shared that they were obsessed with a computer solitaire game, and we all had a chuckle about that. And then, when we went around the room, somebody else said they played the same game and we laughed again. And then a third person said that they were currently on a winning streak on the game and were passing their best ever record.
I didn’t share that evening, but I’ll come clean now. I also play computer solitaire. Now, I don’t play video games. I have no interest in shooting zombies or rescuing princesses, or whatever it is you do. But I like to play solitaire. And here’s what I like about it.
Essentially, the goal of solitaire is to take a deck of cards that has been shuffled randomly, and then, following a set of rules, to take the unorganized cards and put them into order. The game of Solitaire is basically just taking a mess and cleaning it up. We usually have to pay people to do that kind of work. Take this stack of invoices and file them alphabetically. Take this mixed up set of cards and organize them by number and suits. Washing dishes and putting them back in the cupboard feels like work. But doing essentially the same thing with a deck of cards feels like play.
Who knows?
For me, there’s something essentially satisfying and relaxing about seeing the messiness of the world, and then mentally putting it in order. Even cleaning my apartment gives me some of the same good feelings. Putting things where they go, whether it’s dirty socks or disordered ideas. It’s taking a mystery and solving it. It’s finding the key to a secret code. To “know” something, is to put the world in order. This is like that. This properly goes over here. “Knowing” is asking why, and then finding out. Here’s why. Because. That feels good to me.
Michael Lyde, one of our church members, asked me to co-facilitate a class here at the church a couple of weeks ago, it was the fourth session of a program he was leading called, “Death Café.”
That evening we talked about various beliefs about life after death. And, of course, no one knows. What happens after we die is truly one of “Life’s greatest mysteries that will probably never be solved.”
But I pointed out that in people’s various imaginings of what might happen in the afterlife, people tend to hope that three problems will get solved in the next life that are unsolvable in this life.
One problem in this life is heartbreak. In life we constantly form personal connections with other people, and then, inevitably, we lose them. Our love affair ends, our children move away, eventually for everyone life ends in death and we are alone. So people often imagine an afterlife where we will be re-united with those we have lost, and never lose them again.
Another problem of life is the essential injustice of the fact that there seems to be no real connection between being good and being happy. Some really despicable people seem to do really well in life. Meanwhile some really wonderful people suffer horribly. It feels like there should be a quid pro quo between being morally virtuous and being physically healthy and materially satisfied. But there isn’t, in this life, so a lot of people imagine an after life where the good people finally go to their reward.
And the third problem in this life that we hope will get solved in the next, is the problem I’ve been talking about today, the problem of unsolved mysteries. We want existence to make sense, and oftentimes it doesn’t. We want to put our lives in order and so much seems random. We want to know why, and sometimes we aren’t told. So for a lot of folks a feature of the afterlife is the chance to finally stand in front of God and get it all explained.
As Saint Paul put it in his first letter to the congregation in Corinth: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know the same as I am known.”
Well, perhaps…
Perhaps then we shall know all that we desire to know. But not today. We don’t know it all today. And we never will. We have to learn to be satisfied with not knowing. The drive to understand the universe and our lives leads to endless exploration, and answers are always beings discovered. But the answers we find invariably lead to more questions. Complete wisdom is always out of our reach. It’s like playing an endless game of solitaire and never getting to put that last King on that last pile.
When we are anxious. When we are afraid. When we are faced with a mystery in our lives. We seek comfort in understanding. We ask “why?” A troubling situation explained helps us contain our anxiety. An explanation can’t undo a bad situation, but it helps us put a frame around it and set it aside. Ok then, we say, the mystery is solved, now I can move on. But when the mystery isn’t solved, the anxiety stays with us, year after year, like the Kryptos sculpture, or the Engima Variations. The deck of cards stays out of order.
When faced with a human tragedy, like a school shooting for instance, we rush to ask “why” and we search for answers. What happened? Why did it happen? We stay tuned for the press conference and listen for the explanation. Why did they do it? The sense is that if we had perfect knowledge then we could take steps to be perfectly protected in the future.
But that is, in most cases, a false hope. We can’t have perfect knowledge. Not ever, at least in this life. And even perfect knowledge of some past event wouldn’t prepare us for the necessarily different circumstances of the events of the future. It is our truth, in this life, to not know. To know three of the messages on the Kryptos sculpture but not the last. To guess that the 13th variation of the Enigma Variations is a portrait of Elgar’s mistress, Helen Weaver, but not to ever know the main theme that plays beneath our lives from birth to death.
And think, honestly, what cold comfort knowledge really is. We can usually find some of the answers we seek. We can put together the timeline of the day, and trace where everyone was, and how the various pieces of the event happened to come together in the way they did. But the “why” that we ask is usually deeper than that. When faced with a troubling event, we don’t just want the facts, we want the meaning behind the facts. Not how did it happen, but why? Not just the physics of the event, but the theology of the event. And there, inevitably, we touch the mystery.
What is the meaning in the death of a child? What is the meaning in a tragedy? What is the meaning behind the multiple incidents good and bad that happen to us every day? You won’t find the meaning by simply adding up the facts. Meaning lies in a whole different realm.
Sometimes, we just can’t know all that we want to know. Sometimes the information just isn’t available, or can’t be shared with us. What’s the why behind a hurricane, or a lightning strike? Why weren’t we chosen? Sometimes there just isn’t a rational explanation. Sometimes the only answer we will ever get to our pleading question, “why?” is a silent, sympathetic shrug. Sometimes, events just happen.
It’s natural when facing a mystery to seek for comfort in understanding. But it’s also wise to know the limits of knowledge. We can never know everything, and very often we can only know very little. And gathering knowledge leads to a frustrating dead end if what we really want is the meaning behind the facts. We see through a glass darkly. Knowledge can only ever be sufficient to provide part of the comfort we seek. So where else when facing the pains of life might we turn?
I like Solitaire. Others are frustrated by it, or bored. Putting the disordered into order is comforting to me. But there are different kinds of people.
I’m the type of person who seeks to understand the world. I’m motivated by the quest for knowledge and wisdom. My spiritual personality is that, being a finite human being confronted with the overwhelming reality of the universe, I find my strength to bear up against the infinite, by retreating into my own mind and inventing systems and theories that explain the universe, or at least attempt to explain it.
So I’m exactly the kind of person that when confronted with some disturbing event in my life immediately starts asking “why?” I want the disordered story to fit together into a theory that I can grasp. And that’s why “History’s greatest unsolved mysteries” are so attracting to me and so annoying.
But confronting the chaos of existence with understanding is just one type of person, one strategy for making peace with the overwhelming enormity of reality. Regardless of which main type you are, all of the strategies can provide some comfort when knowledge alone isn’t enough.
So here are some other strategies you can try to find comfort in a troubling situation when knowledge isn’t available or enough.
Connect with tradition and the comfort of shared community.
Move through life with a sense of humor and joy, taking the world lightly.
Take comfort in your own strength to confront the hardships of the world with power and purpose.
Identify the common values between points of view that seem to be in conflict.
Name and defend clear moral guidelines, setting boundaries, connecting to ideals
Be of service, selflessly responding to the needs of others.
Move to imagination, creativity, and inventing oneself into the role that circumstances require.
And lastly take comfort in the mystery itself, finding the beauty in the mystery, even if it’s a tragic beauty.
When we’re troubled and we can’t know. Those are the places to go to find the comfort we need. We sang about them in our opening hymn:
“peace that turns away the enmities of strife.”
“the beauty of the earth, its flowers and lovely things”
The joy of spring, “with sound of songs and wings.”
The “service and the toil” of those who bring in the harvest to feed others
“The gifts of hope and love, of wisdom” (yes, but also) “truth, and right.”
These are “the gifts that shine like stars above to chart the world by night.” The gifts that go into the darkness of the world and turn on the light. Knowing the answer to the mystery is one way to turn on a light. But the light can also be illuminated by deepening our covenant with community, by releasing our anxiety through humor and joy, by feeling our power, by finding peace in what looks scary, by affirming our ideals, by re-focusing our attention toward the needs of others, by using our creativity to invent what we need, by loving the beautiful gift of existence even in its mystery.
Life consists of, “being driven forward into an unknown land.” That can be scary, but it’s also the fun. When “the fret and fever of the day,” get to be too much, “let there be moments when we turn away.” But instead of always turning toward knowledge, 24 hour cable news, and Twitter, and Googling the answer, sometimes you might choose: community, humor, strength and purpose, peace, affirming ideals, service, creativity, or simple appreciation of the beauty of it all.
When finite wisdom isn’t enough, “In quietness and solitude we find the soundless wisdom of the deeper mind.”