Midway through my parish pastor career, at one typical Sunday worship as I took my place in the chancel, I noticed two twelve-year-old girls in a front pew just below the pulpit. It was unusual because most often pre-teens staked claim to back pews that hid pre-teen preoccupations from disapproving adult stares. I frowned because their front-and-center positioning could become problematic, confirmed by a more than normal buzzing collection of jutting knees, elbows, whispers and giggles. A mild anxiety nestled in my psyche. It didn’t prepare me, however, for the poster they raised aloft three minutes into the sermon, for my eyes only to see. Shielding their impish smiles and embarrassed giggles, in bold garage-sale-sign-font, the placard begged, “TELL A STORY.” They were as interested in the “adult-talk” of a sermon as they might have been in a TV hernia truss infomercial.

Only a fool would limit her diet to straight Balance of Nature capsules and none of the fruits and vegetables they promised to supplement. Similarly, the research laboratory that never presents a useful development that benefits humans or the world in which we live, would soon find its lab workers flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Having attended too many conferences that failed to deliver on the promise of a new paradigm that would solve many a problem, when the leader of one conference I attended asked what I wanted by the end of the sessions, I said, “I want to hear clear examples of what your theories will look like when utilized in real life.” My most vivid learning of the conference was that theorists are not comfortable in the practical world.

Most every religious tradition I can think of includes in its tradition deities that think, act and feel like humans do, and/or hold up the lives of saints and other religious exemplars to serve as guides in marking the path to faith. I take that to mean that there is something in the human makeup that demands illustrations of mysterious things, and especially of things of the spirit. Religions crank out sacred texts that give human words to help human minds to fathom the otherwise unfathomable. Moses needed a physical representation of the divine power driving the miracle of the burning bush, so he implored, “Let me see your face.” Christians make much of the divine becoming human. We are primarily physical beings, needing mysteries to be comprehensible. When I talk of spiritual “muscle”, “insight”, or “agility”, even then I’m telling a story to make the mystery accessible. We need things “fleshed out.”

Ideas and truths are not real until they make sense. The Mona Lisa in an art book is like a theory until you see the original in Paris. The vacation pictures of friends are poor representations except to the friends who took the vacation. Maybe the search for the spiritual in the physical realm will feel like a fool’s errand, yet we humans are a strange concoction of body and spirit (at least that’s what I have come to find that I am), so we are forced to plumb the physical realm for the warp and weave of deeper spiritual truths.

From the early morning jolt induced by the clang of the alarm clock, through the twists and turns of the day, until the first moment of restful slumber, transcendence struggles to get my attention…telling me stories to tug me into deep mysteries. I don’t always look and listen…mundane obsessions easily distract. But sometimes a solar eclipse is more than just an astronomical curiosity, the soar of an eagle more than just a photo op to post on Facebook, a mind’s whisper to a dearly missed loved one is more than a wishful daydream. I find it to be an acquired skill and false starts are common. But when you get the hang of it and find the realm of the spirit poking through, your body will pulse with a deep, enduring joy, and your face will host the frequent visit of a knowing smile.