When did I feel completely sure?  When did I experience the mystery, the ultimate reality? It is hard to tease the “grabbed from inside” knowledge from the awe of looking at a star-studded night or a gorgeous ocean sunset.   For me it comes most frequently when I begin to consider the concept of time.  The concept of time has always fascinated and bewildered me.  Two of my favorite books are Einstein’s Dreams (ah, a simple Ctrl + U did it) by Alan Lightman and Mission by Patrick Tilley both of which mess with your mind about time.  Check out either for a good read. 

When I start contemplating time, I get lost in the infinite, and become quite aware of that which cannot be defined by human imagination or intellect.   I feel small, I feel connected, I feel infinite, I have a strong realization that I am, as a human being, like a puff of smoke, here then just as quickly – gone.  And yet, here I sit, the Garden of Eden outside my window, a technological wonder allowing me to write this and send it off into cyberspace, having produced with my husband another three wisps of smoke.  In terms of the universe I am nothing…and yet…like every other single thing that exists…I am everything.   I am not just “I” but am an integral, essential piece of the universe, of the ultimate reality, of the mystery, unique and separate from everything but one with everything.

When I was a little girl in Catholic school, we learned and memorized “catechism” – a little delving into the internet reveals it was called The Penny Catechism  and it included questions that now strike me as relevant.  If you take out the word God and Him, and replace it with Ultimate Mystery, it was more right on than those of us who lived through Catholic school in the mid-20th century would care to admit!

Who made you?  God made me.

 Why did God make you?
          God made me to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this
          world, and be happy with Him forever in the next. (Not human beings having a spiritual experience, spiritual beings having a human experience, as Teilhard states?)

To whose image and likeness did God make you?
          God made me to his own image and likeness.    (As a child, I couldn’t figure out how little Mary Horton looked like the old dude with the beard, but whatever, I didn’t and don’t dwell on the small stuff!  Of course now “image and likeness” means something comletely different…)

Is this likeness to God in your body, or in your soul?
          This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul. (Okay how about COMPLETELY in my soul 🙂 – I mean, I admit I am getting a little grey and have to more routinely wax my chin, but I still think I am hotter than an old dude with a white beard, I mean cmon!)

How is your soul like to God?
          My soul is like to God because it is a spirit, and is
          immortal.

AHA! There it is. The soul.  Timeless, universal, immortal, here then gone but not gone.

What must you do to save your soul?
         To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope and
         Charity; that is, I must believe in him, I must hope in
         him, and I must love him with my whole heart.  

Well, that whole saving the soul business starts all kinds of trouble for us Catholics.  However, take a look at the rest of the statement, which is a staple of Catholic belief and practice: I must worship (let’s change that to respect/revere, shall we?) the ultimate reality by faith – by believing that there is something bigger than us of which we are part; by hope – that there is a purpose to all this, that our meager understanding when we have “aha” moments is only a movie trailer preview of what is to come and which I’m hoping beyond hope that I get to experience in a way that makes pleasurable human sensation seem like being  wrapped up like a mummy.  Finally, love with my whole heart. Love the ultimate reality with my whole heart, love all other existence with my whole heart, love myself with my whole heart, love my enemy with my whole heart, love the impatient person who toots at me at the stoplight with my whole heart, love my grouchy patient with my whole heart, love (fill in the blank) with my whole heart…

Yes, those moments of pure, indescribable love, the love that makes you feel like you have no body – those grab you from the inside, indeed, and let you know – there is a mystery, a “God,” an ultimate reality.