Our Capacity for Splendor and Mystery

In anticipation of the solar eclipse, Sr. Mary Collins invited me to read an essay by Annie Dillard in the book Teaching a Stone to Talk. In the essay, Dillard describes how it felt to experience a total eclipse, including a sense of uneasiness, disorientation, fear, and awe. She also remarks on how quickly other people hurried away from the viewing site when the eclipse concluded, noting:

“But enough is enough. 

One turns at last even from glory itself 

with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery, 

and even from the heights of splendor,
                                                                 we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home.”

Although a part of us craves and seeks out splendor and mystery, it appears we can only handle it in small doses, and then we are anxious to return to the familiar. Fortunately, God is also to be found in the latitudes of home. Sr. Mary Faith Schuster has a poem that begins, “Thank you God for the beautiful common things….” Fortunately for us, we can find splendor and mystery not only in once-in-a-lifetime cosmic events but also, as Sr. Faith notes, in “the bare trees / like dark lace / on the hills / and the new wheat / shining / and the white geese / high in the sky / and settling for a moment on our land”. We just need to remember to look and give ourselves time to observe the astounding splendor and mystery in the beautiful common things all around us.