"Mystery means that, in spite of all our efforts, all our insights, discoveries, and experiences, we will never do much more than touch the hem of God's robe. It is enough that such touching brings healing. It is too much, idolatrously too much, to claim more than very little information about the wearer of the robe. And even that little information, we can claim only with enormous humility. However, humility is the twin of trust.

"It has been said, referring to the temptation to which biblical literalists often succumb, that we should never confuse the love letter with the lover. We all have our version of such literalism, our dogmaticisms, our exaggerated (if unadmitted) claims of knowledge. Humble acknowledgement of mystery delivers us from the imprisonment of such certainties into the awesome dimension of possibilities. Trust begins there. So, in some primitive way, does prayer.

"Historically, the church has used the term 'holy' to refer to what I mean by the word 'mystery.' My bias for the word mystery is grounded in the awareness that holiness is a term which often has been too well defined and too aggressively applied in too many inquisitions. Jesus gave the mystery a personal name, as did the prophets, but Jesus did not thereby eliminate or domesticate the mystery. The point is, mystery simply reminds us that God is free to be God in ways that we have no knowledge of at all."