By Kat Silverglate © 2025
He had this thick shock of snow-white hair and he spoke with this booming voice. When his vocal cords cracked the hum of the students chatting and shuffling papers, authority absolutely filled every inch of that room. He was the professor who led the three major sections of systematic theology in seminary. Systematic theology differs from biblical theology in that it takes the major questions of faith and addresses them theme by theme rather than addressing them as they come up through a chronological romp through the biblical narrative. Systematic theology, our professor would say, often reflects the way we discuss faith with each other in our everyday life. We ask questions like, what does the Bible say about prayer or death or miracles or Christ? The whole Bible, not just this story or that. Or this passage or that.
The lecture on mystery was so very memorable for most of the students. He delivered it with his signature analogies that made the main point relatable and easy to pull up later. I remember hearing groans of resonance and relief when he delivered it. His exact wording escapes me now because it’s been a minute since they were first delivered, but the essence of what he said took up permanent residence in my heart this way:
“The Gateway Arch, a monument in St. Louis, stands so tall that the top is sometimes covered by clouds. When this happens, you see a curved column on one side and a curved column on the other, but you cannot see how they connect. No matter how hard you strain. You know they do. You can tell that they must. But you do not see exactly how. The mysteries of faith are much like this. Partially seen. Partially hidden. God makes the connection.”
We were studying the core mystery of the Christian faith, the Trinity: God both as totally One and, at the same time, three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I’d say the majority of students hungered for sound teaching on mystery; or, hadn’t heard explicit teaching on mystery. They’d been disillusioned by the temptation to fill gaps where Scripture doesn’t fill them. Or they’d been confused or hurt by teaching that pushed faith aside for the false comfort of sight. By and large, the group was relieved by the by the notion that we are tiny in a spacious place, too grand to comprehend by sight; too magnificent to resist by faith. Gap filling is something we do out of some deep need for control. But, in the end, it makes us less secure, not more.
Together we learned Deuteronomy 29:29:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Deut 29:29
Professor Roy had a phrase for these types of mysteries. He called them both/and truths. Both/and truths stand boldly against either/or thinking. We don’t live either in revelation or mystery. We live in a both/and faith. Both revelation and mystery. Not science or faith. Science is merely discovering what God made. To under-emphasize or to over-emphasize the importance of either is fraught with problems. And loaded with insecurity.
As the topic for this month’s mission on mystery was forming, my daughter-in-love and a dear friend and I were preparing to hike a section of the Camino de Santiago. It’s a pilgrimage that individuals have been travelling since 813 AD. That’s when the remains of St. James were discovered in Spain. You may have seen the movie The Way starring Martin Sheen? It came out in 2010 or so. That movie put the Camino on the radar screen of people in the United States. Now, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world do portions of the Camino for various reasons. Some are grieving a death like the actor in the move The Way. Some want to pray for guidance as they walk. Some are sorting out a major life issue like divorce or empty nest or job moves or live moves. Lots of people do it just for the challenge of it. Just to see if they can. It has become wildly popular in recent years.
The original route of the pilgrimage goes more than 500 miles from a town called St. Jean de Pied Port in France to the church of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Most folks can’t afford to take off the five or so weeks it would take to walk that far, so they pick a distance that is manageable and do a section. We did 100 miles.
Pilgrims carry all they will need on their back in back packs and they stay in pilgrim houses and hostels and now air-b-n-b’s along the way carrying “passports” that priests and inn keepers and hostel hosts and restaurants stamp as pilgrims stop for food and rest.
Before doing this journey for the first time, you are told by others who have completed the pilgrimage not to worry so much about where to go. The path, “they” say, is marked by signature yellow arrows.
This all sounds mysterious and, quite frankly, ridiculous when you are in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and you are doing something you’ve never done. But, then, you get there and you wake up at O-dark-thirty on the first day of your walk and you turn on your head lamp, or someone in your group shines a light on the path, and you see the vague shadow of others walking with back packs and poles in the dark in the same general direction. You start walking that way looking for some type of confirmation that you aren’t just following the crowd. You are looking for the promised yellow arrow. You discover that it is there. And the longer you walk on the Way, you find that it is always there. Sometimes surrounded by other road signs and conflicting arrows and distractions, but there. And when you see it, you know the way, and you head in that direction. Looking for arrows.
And when you get lost, and sometimes you do get lost, you ask. You seek. You knock. You become utterly comfortable and unafraid to seek guidance. It becomes as natural as walking. And then, a stranger calls out as he sees you going astray and says, “hey ladies, ya’ll looking for the Way? You’re going in the wrong direction. Go that way.” And he points and you look up thanking the Lord for the human arrow out of whatever town you slept in the night before.
And just when you hit your stride with this new type of guidance, you find a crossroads with two yellow arrows pointing in two different directions and you watch a group of pilgrims debate which way is the right way. The crowd goes one way and, instead of following, you wait. You seek guidance. Apps. Maps. Prayer. Debate with your fellow pilgrims. And you finally realize that one path goes by a road and the other through the woods. You get to choose this time. You know after all this walking that God will be with you. There will be more arrows on both paths.
For me, leaving that first double arrow cross-road, a light bulb went on. It dawned on me that the mystery of the Holy Spirit is reflected so divinely in the arrows of the Camino pilgrimage. Scripture calls the Holy Spirit our helper, our counselor, our truth teller, our comforter. The One who inspired and helps us understand God’s words. The One who tugs our hearts for right and wrong things. Who gives us those internal alerts to run away from or to run towards. The Holy Spirit is the yellow arrows of our walk.
There is both mystery and revelation in this truth. A promise that the Holy Spirit is given to us in this way and mystery in our daily walk with our promised guide. In both realms, one thing is for certain. When we seek guidance from God, we find power. Power that the Holy Spirit provides. And our daily walk becomes like a dance.
A GUI-dance:
God’s Unending Invitation to dance toward the mystery, one nudge at a time.
OUR MISSION THIS MONTH:
In your Mobile Mission Pack this month, you will find quality control stickers. For the next 30 days will you consider asking the Holy Spirit to control the quality of your walk. To be your guide. To give cautions where appropriate. Guidance. Prompts. Encouragement. Pauses. Place those stickers in a place where you can let them remind you that the Holy Spirit guides.
Our mission this month is to yield to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Deliberately for 30 days. To begin to see it as a kind of a beautiful mysterious dance. A a GUI-dance. God’s Unending Invitation to dance.
Let’s DANCE.
Amen? Amen!
POST SCRIPT
And if you are new to all this and you don’t know where to begin with God. Will you remember this, He started with you a long time ago. He’ll never stop knocking. The question for each and every one of us is this, will we respond. Will we choose to be ridiculously responsive to the promptings of God?
Dedication:
This mission is lovingly dedicated to Isaac and Eliza Silverglate.
