I just finished reading my friend Leanne Coppen’s blog on living with breast cancer and it brought to mind a quote that I dearly love from the play Hamlet, by you-know-who.
The quote comes from the Dane himself in Act I, Scene V. Hamlet’s friend Horatio has just made a comment about the strange circumstances surrounding the events of the evening, namely Hamlet’s behaviour and the Ghost of Hamlet’s father showing up at the castle.
In response to Horatio’s confusion, Hamlet says:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
(I have also seen it written as “there are more things between heaven and earth”, which I like better.)
I often think of this quote when things in this world seem, as Horatio put it, just too “wondrous strange” for words. Leanne’s recent blog mentions Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, who wrestled crocodiles but was killed by a stingray and if that is not wondrous strange I don’t know what is.
I especially love the quote because it allows room for so many mysteries. I can dream up anything, imagine anything and everything, but there will still be more. There will still be things for which I don’t have the answers. My thinking is limited!
I’m okay with that today. Because despite the fact that I am a person who likes to have all the answers I have come to accept that which lies far beyond my ability to know stuff. This is the realm of the Spirit. And the realm of the Spirit is limitless, boundless, and wondrous strange.
My philosophy about the way things are just doesn’t cut it. What I see and what I know (or what I think I know) is just a tiny little piece of the larger puzzle. There is so much more than I can imagine, so much more to the experience of life than what I can make of it.
Isn’t that marvelous? Isn’t that mystifying?
Perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s terrifying for some. For me, it’s like a balm. A healing balm.
Inspiring Message of the Day: When life has become boring old life, drudgery, slogging, dragging life, find something, anything, to restore your sense of wonder. Embrace the mystery!
