I am doing a UU service on Mystery (exact title TBD) early next year. I have my own thoughts on Mystery and its spiritual importance, but I wonder what others think.

What do we mean by Mystery when we talk about it in a spiritual/religious context?

What is the relationship between Mystery and God (as you conceive God)?

What role does Mystery play in your faith/spirituality?

Is invoking Mystery sometimes cop-out to avoid problematic questions/answers about faith?

I get it...I see how intellectual everybody is and how "intelligent" all these arguments are. I hear how "God gave you a brain" and how you're using it to ask all these questions to which you will never get an answer.

Don't bother. I have a dog. He's a very smart dog. But he can't tell me what 1 + 1 is. That's the easiest question ever and yet my very smart dog (which a brain that God gave him) cannot hope to answer.

so, joan osborne's song "one of us" has been thrown around the cafe over the last few months.  i had started a thread some time back and i think pinga had at one time as well.  recently the song came up in the glee thread.  the one line of the song that always makes me think is "what would you ask if you had just ONE question?" ...  well, what would you ask god?  only one question, wow that's tough.  please keep it to just one question and feel free to add why that would be the biggie, or even what you think god's answer would be.

 By next Saturday the trout fishing season will have ended.  Often I will meet a couple of friends to go fly fishing on the last weekend of the season.  It has become a bit of a tradition.  We expect  that the fishing will be difficult or even grim.  Cold gray skies.  Big fronts moving in.  Few insects hatching and few fish rising.  We go anyway.  We justify it by saying that the big ones are feeding heavily as they get ready

mystical - having some secret meaning; beyond human understanding; mysterious; spritually symbolic

spiritual- supernatural; of the spirit or soul;caring much for things of the spirit or soul.

Both of these things sound the same to me but posters talk as if they are different.

Anybody want to clarify?

Should the Pagan's reclaim the sacred?

Those on the ivory towers haven't a clue, so what are the options to the larger base that supports life as we know it? Perhaps the unconscious have the actions in place ...