Walking Mysteries

“Anyone who fails to go forward begins to go back, and love, I believe, can never be content to stay for long where it is.” —St. Teresa of Avila

Have you ever reached a point in a friendship or relationship where you begin to feel you’re running out of things to talk about? Do you ever fall into patterns and habits with the time you spend together—watching TV instead of having a real conversation, talking only about sports instead of delving into what’s really weighing on your mind and heart, or going through a typical routine without pausing to consider whether it’s what the other person would really prefer? Are you really content with settling into this sort of stagnation?

St. Teresa tells us that this stage of stagnation is not love, and that it will not last—either we will move forward and get to know the other person even better than before, or we will fall back, for without a genuine interest in knowing one another more and more, the connection will inevitably fade. In any relationship, it is impossible to keep the other person at arm’s length without drifting further apart.

Over the course of my college years, I had a few friends with whom I became very close. By the time we were in our last year together, sometimes I would begin to tell a story about something that had happened to me and they would tell me, “We’ve heard this before, but go on.” Even though they already knew the story, they didn’t stop me from retelling it—because they genuinely enjoyed hearing me talk about the things that were important to me, and because they knew that just because they’d heard it once didn’t mean they knew the whole story. Instead, by letting me know that they’d heard it already, they caused me to be more reflective in my retelling and focus on different shades of the same story, different pieces of my own experience. Sometimes, I would even make up a different ending just to entertain them.

The truth is that there are always more stories to be told, more sides to be revealed, more layers to be uncovered. Each and every one of us is a walking mystery of untold depth.

If there is anyone in your life that you think you have pegged—that you know their whole story—think again. Whether it’s an acquaintance you find annoying, a friend who seems to match your every thought, or a family member you’ve known your entire life, in reality you have but a small glimpse into the window of their soul. And that is a wonderful thing, because it means that the relationships you share will always have the potential to keep growing and deepening as you glimpse more and more of each other. Unconditional love, in order to be pure, must seek to know the whole truth about another. If we wish to love someone truly and fully, we cannot be content to linger amidst the partial truths and small pieces of information we know about them and assume we can construct their entire character from there. We must continue in pursuing the real human being underneath the exterior; we must be relentless in loving them for who they are—just as God is relentless in loving us.

Our own perspectives as human beings are limited—we cannot see the fullness of another person—but God’s perspective is limitless. He is able to see and understand every detail of our own humanity better than we know ourselves, and He loves us with the purest unconditional love imaginable. But just as we sometimes have a tendency to stall in our relationships with other people, we also have a tendency to stall in our relationship with God. This time, the problem is definitely on our side—He never rests in pursuing us. But it is easy to become comfortable in our spiritual life and allow ourselves to be content with routine without really looking deeper into how God wants to touch our lives. We are afraid that what He calls us toward will not be what we expect or anticipate; we are afraid of baring ourselves to Him because we still instinctively feel unworthy. But there is no need to be afraid. We know that God already sees all our flaws and defects and loves us unconditionally, and His love will only help us to see the beauty in ourselves. We must strive to love Him as He loves us—to continually pursue the truth and beauty and goodness to be found in Him, to share more of ourselves with Him, and to experience new things together. We cannot be content to settle in our relationship with God—because He will never be content to settle for being kept an arm’s length away. He wants all of us.

Erin Cain

Erin Cain

Erin Cain is a writer and editor living in New York City, drinking lots of Earl Grey tea, and attempting to grow in virtue and love. She writes at Work in Progress.

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5 thoughts on “Walking Mysteries”

  1. Pingback: Pope Francis’s “Humanum” Conference - BigPulpit.com

  2. Pingback: Walking Mysteries | [work in progress]

  3. Not sure I agree with you. Unconditional love being getting to know the whole truth about another. I think, or hope, I can unconditionally love another but the secrets of their heart are known only to another or to God.

  4. Hi Thomas,
    I wasn’t trying to suggest that we can ever truly know someone else’s heart. We can only see glimpses of their soul, and only through the distorted lens of our own perspective. The point I was trying to make was the opposite: there is always something more we don’t know; the core of their being will always be a secret to us – and we should embrace this reality instead of making assumptions about others. If we make the effort to get to know someone more and more, we will still never truly know them, but that’s not a reason to stop pursuing them. The depth of the mysteries contained within human beings can point us toward God, Who is a mystery of infinite depth.
    Of course we can love unconditionally without knowing the whole truth about another – otherwise we would never love, because certainly we will never know the whole truth. But if we aren’t seeking to know the truth about them, if we aren’t open to seeing them for who they really are and not who we imagine them to be, then we are unwittingly placing conditions on our love. If we don’t remind ourselves of the fact that the other person is really a mystery to us, we might love only a shadow of them, an idea that was formed in our own minds. We have to embrace the mystery itself, to love without fully knowing the object of our love – thus, unconditionally.

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