If I were smart enough to figure it out, then I could prove it to you. And there’d be no argument.

If it were small enough for me to see it all at once, then it wouldn’t be big enough to be the mystery that it is.

If words could describe it, then a book would explain it. So far, nothing really has come close.

If I were big enough to put my arms around it, it wouldn’t big enough to make me, to hold me, and to mold me. It’s smaller than an atom, yet the whole cosmos is a mere atom within its vast body.

I can’t figure it out. I can’t prove it to you.  I can’t tell you what it is. I can’t see it, not the whole thing. And I can’t put my arms around it.

Yet I’ve a feeling that its mystery is as real as I am. That though it can’t be seen, it has more substance than that before my eyes. That the illusion lies before me, even though everything around me shouts that I have it all wrong.

It’s nameless, and yet it has all names. It’s the silence that underlays words. I can’t give it to you, yet it’s the greatest gift.

It’s as far from my understanding as the most distant reaches of the universe. Yet it’s closer to me than I am to myself. It’s alien to me, yet it’s my very being.

I search for it everywhere, only to find it was never lost. And so, to stop searching is the only way to find.

I open my mind to it.

I open my heart to it.

It’s always right here.

It’s always right now.

I have slept in its passing

Yet awaken to discover that, beyond time, I’ve never slept at all.

I have journeyed to distant reaches

Yet arrive to discover that, past all space, I’ve never left my home.

© 2020 by Michael C. Just