On the rapid transit train this morning I noticed a weld between two metal handrails. It was beautifully executed--all the ovals of the weld near matching in size and texture. I appreciated the beauty of it because of a basic welding course I took years ago. If I had not taken the course, the skill of the rapid transit welder would have been lost on me.
How much beauty in life do we miss simply because we do not know it is there?
I think the spiritual life suffers from a similar story. We believe we know the spiritual--each us, of course, setting our own terms of the definition. When we see the spiritual, we know it as such, but how much do we wrongly cast aside as spiritually irrelevant?
How do we see what is hidden? Though it seems a bit circular, I think the answer is in religion itself. A belief system that opens up possibility, rather than making life more narrow teaches us to see more than we expect.
All the religions of the world have this aspect of openness, though it is not taught as much as certainity, definition, and structure. An unknown spiritual world is available to each of us for the knowing, we only need the willingness to see it.
