Confronting Mystery

In the previous blog I wrote about my two heart attacks and my business collapsing, along with the strong awareness I had that taken together these had been a ‘Jonah experience’. This led me to look at the Old Testament story of Jonah to see how it spoke into the reality I found myself in.

To paraphrase the first chapter of the Book of Jonah we see that Jonah, who was a prophet, was sent to the city of Nineveh to announce God’s judgment against it. However, Jonah chose to flee in the opposite direction and boarded a boat in Joppa bound for Tarshish (probably in south-west Spain).  

The ship encountered a violent storm that was life threatening to all on board. The crew panicked and cried out to their gods for protection. The crew members were shocked to discover Jonah asleep in the ships hold, seemingly unperturbed. He was woken up and told to pray to his god for mercy. They also cast lots to discover who had offended the gods and caused this storm. Jonah lost the toss and was asked what he had done to provoke the storm. He was also questioned about who he was. Jonah replied that he was a Hebrew who worshipped the Lord, God of heaven, who made the sea and the land. He said that the storm resulted from him running away from the Lord. 

Jonah was asked what could be done to stop the storm. He told them that since he had caused the storm they should throw him overboard to calm the sea. At first they were reluctant but when the turbulence got worse they asked pardon from God for taking Jonah’s life and threw him overboard. As soon as this took place the sea immediately grew calm. Thereafter Verse 16 says: “The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him”. Following this we are told that the Lord arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah; and he remained inside it for three days and three nights.  

This story raised many questions and confronted me with mystery on various levels. How could I make sense of this story? Was this merely a mythical story with some kind of moral meaning that I needed to grasp and apply? Was this a factual, historical account of a real person who was engaging in a relationship with God? How was he able to dialogue with God? Was God actively involved in the events of his life?  Was God able to control and manipulate physical elements such as wind and water; as well as cause a huge fish to function at his bidding? How could Jonah stay alive for three days in the belly of the fish? 

  

In my younger years I had obtained a BA degree in Social Science and was trained to view reality through rationalistic and secular lenses. My studies in psychology, sociology and philosophy were valuable and useful; but limited in scope. They precluded entertaining any notions of mystery and mystical reality. Within that frame of reference it was not possible. In Western society we live in a largely disenchanted universe.

 In spite of this I did accept mystical reality; the reality of God; as well as relationship and dialogue with God. Mysticism can be understood as awareness of a reality beyond the apparent reality we find ourselves in. Given this definition I am a mystic. Moreover, I know many living people who share that perception of reality and we follow in the footsteps of thousands upon thousands who have lived before us who did so as well. The question is how can I believe this given my aforementioned background knowledge from my rationalistic studies? The answer is that it came about through many personal encounters with God and the experience of intimate dialogue. How I initially came to know God is a story for another time. What I want to say here is that my awareness of the reality of God was progressively taken hold of through a long period of struggle (some thirty five years), and did not happen overnight. I had come to ‘know’ God through this at a deep level of being, rather than just ‘know about God’. There is a big difference.  Religion and religious studies deal with the latter; in this blog I am focusing on the former. When the Lord chose to be present to me in ICU I had no doubt about who I was relating to. It is a knowing that goes beyond my rational faculties; indeed a knowing that is radically at odds with how my education taught me to view the world. I have to hold the two in tension.   

Over the centuries much ink has been splashed across paper debating what creature swallowed Jonah. The Hebrew text was non-specific, referring only to a ‘great fish’. The consensus was that it had to have been a whale. To my mind one can get tied up in conjectural knots and miss the ultimate point. There is mystery at work here, pointing to mystical reality. If we are dealing with the God who, in Jonah’s words, “made land and sea”, then anything is possible. If God created the natural order and laws of nature, then God can choose to bend the rules and do something different. This God could also keep Jonah alive for three days in the belly of the fish.

Here are some questions for you to reflect on:

•   How do you respond to what you have read about the story of Jonah thus far?
•    At what level are you able to embrace mystery?
•   Who is God for you?
•   Have you experienced intimacy with God?
•   How do you respond to my experience?
•   How do you deal with the tension between your awareness of mystical reality and your rational education in the midst of the prevailing secular ethos of Western society?

http://www.facebook.com/john.keightley.98