LIVING IN CLOAKED TIMES | OPPORTUNITY FOR GREATNESS

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

This week’s blog started with a powerful quote I heard at church a few days ago. It was penned by Richard Rohr, an amazing priest and author. From the moment I heard it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind:

 

“We need the faith that can be patient with mystery.”

 

When I got home, I wrote it on an index card and put it on my desk, among my other spiritual treasures. I didn’t mention this to Michael, which becomes important in explaining the evolution of this week’s blog.

 

A few days later, as is our custom, I asked Michael what the subject of the next blog should be. He thought for a few seconds and then said, “We are living in a cloaked time.” I was struck by the truth and eloquence of this single sentence. I said that I knew generally what cloaked meant but, as we often do, we looked up this word in the dictionary. I gasped when I saw it defined. Cloaked is something hidden or MASKED! When we looked on to the dictionary’s sentence example, it read as follows: “The mission was cloaked in MYSTERY.” (emphasis added) Immediately, I thought back to the Richard Rohr quote, and “the faith that can be patient with MYSTERY.” (emphasis added) I recited these words to Michael and explained the circumstances of how I had heard it in church. There was silence on the phone but no words were necessary. We both knew that the Holy Spirit was the only one speaking and He was speaking loud and clear. We both knew – We had our subject: we had our blog!

 

Yes, as Michael said, through the unquestionable inspiration of the Holy Spirit, today, we live in “cloaked times,” a season full of mystery as to our lives, in general, and, more importantly, as to our spiritual missions, as the central aspect of these times. Other words for mystery, are enigma and riddle, the dictionary tells us. When we saw this, a famous quote came to mind. The use of this quote has, in our era, been sprinkled across our culture diversely on Seinfeld, in Roger Ebert movie reviews and anytime something is complex and difficult to understand – “cloaked,” in other words. It’s serious and truly notable delivery in our lives, came by its author, Winston Churchill, during a BBC radio broadcast on October 1, about a month after the outbreak of World War II. These words are as follows:

 

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

 

(We are grateful to an article by Shmoop.com for the above paragraph.)

 

Wait a minute, some may be thinking, Has our blog taken a turn in the direction of giving political commentary? The answer is, “No,” although the entirety of Churchill’s quote couldn’t be more relevant to this” cloaked time,” and it’s mysterious uncertainties. We live poised on an era that is as globally tenuous as the age in which Churchill’s words echoed out through 1939 radios, in real time.

 

Also highly relevant to our world today, is that another word for cloaked is MASKED. During the  past two years, we have experienced what, not so long ago, would have been unthinkable – cloaked behind masks, our smiles no longer visible and, after weariness with the also invisible virus, often no longer in existence at all. Our facial expressions have been hidden, but our frustration and consequent emotions, have been all too evident, or, as my mother used to say, worn “on our sleeves,” in ways both unbecoming and even troubling. What seems, at times, to be most cloaked, now, are the solutions to the co-enemies of war and sickness, a formidable and dual situation that has changed every aspect of our present and foreseeable future. In keeping with the subject of this week’s blog, is all of this and its effect on our collective and individual faith. There can be little doubt, however, about one thing: We are called upon to possess a faith that “is patient with mystery.” Today, Michael and I, through the complete grace of God, would like to advance some ideas.

 

Michael says,

 

“During cloaked times, the Holy Spirit reaches out to you and fills your voids. Now, more than ever, we need to slow down and carefully listen to what He is saying to us. As difficult as this may be, we need to relax and listen. These answers are coming from God, the source of all wisdom and peace in the middle of mystery.”

 

The Holy Spirit speaks in many ways. Certainly, one of these is through Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture. In the Bible, there were many “cloaked times,” in one sense or another. Certainly, the Babylonian Exile and Israelites‘ slavery in Egypt were two extended examples of this. So far as one individual’s odyssey, we need not look far into Scripture to find examples of this “faith that can be patient with mystery.”

 

As discussed in a previous blog, but well worthy of a second reference, Noah, who had never seen rain, spent one hundred years building a boat. What an amazing instance of just pure obedience! While he knew what God had told him, no doubt, some of this century was a mystery to him, the magnitude of God’s full plan cloaked in mystery. Until it started to rain…mystery solved.

 

No better example exists in Scripture than the story of Abraham and Sarah. We studied his faith, in depth, a few blogs ago. As stated there, most of us would have wanted a quick solving and resolution of the mystery as to the land God “would show him.” Most people, the ages of Abraham and Sarah, would have found God’s promise of offspring, more numerous than the countless stars in the sky, more than cloaked in mystery. We suspect that every soul now reading this blog, would, themselves, have questioned God in changing a living arrangement of a luxurious house in a cosmopolitan city to a tent in the desert. However, well evidenced by the facts, Abraham and Sarah soldiered on with a faith that was patient with mystery during their cloaked time.

 

Every hero chronicled in the Hebrews 11 Gallery of Faith lived as we are, in a cloaked time. The author of Hebrews writes of them:

 

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They DID NOT RECEIVE the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them FROM A DISTANCE.” (emphasis added)

(Hebrews 11:12-13) NIV

 

The Apostle Paul, ironically a tent maker, was living in such a time of vast uncertainty. It was pivotal in his theology. To the church in Corinth, he wrote:

 

“Listen, I tell you a MYSTERY: We will not all sleep but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality…then the saying that was written will come true ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (emphasis added)

(1 Corinthians 15:5-54) NIV

 

The Message translation begins quite frankly regarding the unknowability of all of this:

 

“But let me tell you something wonderful, a MYSTERY, I’ll probably NEVER FULLY UNDERSTAND…” (emphasis added)

(1 Corinthians 15:51)

 

We, like Noah, Abraham and Paul, live in a “cloaked time.” Physically, many wear masks; spiritually, we have questions, even doubts, when so much of what to expect in our world, lies shrouded In mystery, in the vicissitudes of the years, the ups and downs of everyday life.

 

But, having said this, what is all the permanence we need? It is what Michael is saying:

 

“When you seek your answers from the Holy Spirit and not this world, you will gain discernment; you will find understanding, an overwhelming feeling that only God can give us. It is not judgement. It is wisdom in a cloaked time, an enlightenment that gives no traction to our own fearful, negative thoughts. Embrace mystery and the faith you need will be there, even in cloaked, troubled times.”

 

We turn to God for the five-year plan, permanence. He smiles so lovingly, that knowing smile, as He reminds us of DAILY manna and of His DAILY bread. God’s bias is toward relationship between us and Him, something the five-year plan would set awry. One thing is NOT a mystery. God may be a mystery to us, but we are not a mystery to Him. He knows us and well understands that, should He give us this five-year plan, we would quickly tuck it right into our spiritual pockets and then check back with Him five years later…for the next five-year plan and so on.

 

God will always shepherd a path that avoids the good in order for us to be on a spiritual trajectory toward the great.

 

When I was a young lawyer, I used to complain to my wise supervisor that each of my cases had a problem. One day, he said, with a kind smile, “Jill, every case has a problem. It’s the problem cases that make you. It’s the problems in cases and in life that are opportunities for greatness.”

 

Our beloved friends, let’s do what Michael says and embrace this cloaked time, this season when we are called upon to face problems with “a faith that is patient with mystery.” In doing so, we will see and seize upon this life of uncertainty, of mystery. And, yes, in the process, it is just possible, if not even probable, that we will, indeed, that we will truly, for the glory of our Lord, leave the realm of the good and, hallelujah, achieve greatness.