Opening To Mystery

Opening to Mystery

Written By: Shelly Niebuhr

Everybody’s a wondering what and where they all came from
Everybody is worrying 'bout where they're gonna go

when the whole thing's done
But no one knows for certain so it's all the same to me
I think I'll just let the mystery be

-Musician, Iris DeMent

Years ago, when I heard this song, my first thought was, “we might want to let the mystery be, but the mystery won’t let us be.” 

Mystery is all around us, seeking us, and is even in us.

As someone who worked as a therapeutic musician for nearly 20 years in medical facilities such as hospitals, hospices, memory care facilities, and nursing homes, I was confronted with mystery daily. Mostly within in the ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) stories I heard from the people and patients I worked with. 

A dying man once whispered to me, “A dove flew into my room early this morning. She’s going to show me the way home. I feel better about letting go now.” 

And another, “Last night a mockingbird sat at the edge of my bed and sang and sang and sang. I’m not alone. I’m going to be okay.”

A woman cloaked in the late stages of Alzheimer’s remembered some beloved crape myrtle trees from her childhood that lit up her shadowy world. “Crape myrtle trees,” she half-laughed and half-cried. “I remember their delicate fragrance, their curvy trunks. My sister and I would play beneath them.” In that moment, it was a memory worth everything to her.

I’ve found mystery usually appears in unexpected places, in unexpected ways, and has many guises: the natural world, truth, love, wonder, beauty, compassion, silence, music, paradox, forgiveness, service.  

Mystery almost always surprises me. When I encounter it, my inner and outer worlds grow and deepen—and often times, I am challenged. 

A patient I worked with once said, “Everything’s okay, even when it’s not okay.”  This, from a woman whose body and heart were broken in a hundred different ways. 

How could everything be okay when the world is falling apart around us? When we’re falling apart?  

It would take time, meditation, silence, and prayer before I began to grow into the profound mystery that she embodied.

My first taste of mystery came from beneath an apple tree in my grandmother’s fruit orchard, where I often played as a child. One morning a jack rabbit bolted out from a cave my cousin and I had built under it. 

I fell back with a surprised thud and watched her as she raced into the field. She stopped about a hundred yards away and turned towards me. 

The morning sun shone through her large, lit-up ears, and in them, I saw tree limbs, little rivers, and leaf patterns; I was nearly overwhelmed with the wonder of it!

I blinked and she ran, disappearing into the sun. It was minutes before I could move. The mystery of that moment marked me for life, and I have sought such moments ever since. 

And yet, I’ve learned opening to the mystery is more important than the “finding” of it. 

As Kierkegaard said, “you cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.”   

Allowing myself  to open to, and be caught by this mystery, has perhaps, been the most important part of my spiritual journey. Everything else flows from this openness, this mystery.  

St. Augustine wrote, “The journey to God has an end. The journey in God has no end.” 

There is no end to the depth, breadth, and height of Mystery. 

Let it catch you.   

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About The Author

After 20 years of working as a therapeutic musician in medical facilities, I lost my job (sadly) in early 2020 due to Covid-19. Since then, I’ve become a contributing writer for Guideposts Publications and Al Jazeera World News, and am working on a book.

I’m a long time member of AUMC (I’ve lost count of how many years) and love my church family! I taught yoga at AUMC for 11 years, served on the Church & Society committee, and have sung in the choir. I enjoy reading, gardening, yoga, hiking, and anything to do with the natural world. I’ve been married to my wonderful husband Ralph for 23 years.