In recent weeks, on Mondays at 9pm, BBC Four has been showing some quiz programmes from years gone by. Programmes from, some would say, a golden age of television – Call my Bluff, Face the Music, Going for a Song. Programmes which were about the quiz itself, not the host and contestants as so often seems to be the case nowadays.
Also deep within BBC iPlayer you’ll find a single episode of Ask the Family, hosted by the inimitable Robert Robinson (he of Call my Bluff too).
One of the rounds of that programme was the mystery object. 
Where a close up photograph of a day to day item, often taken at an unusual angle, was gradually revealed and it was for the participating families to guess what it was.
One could say that the photo on this blog post is a mystery object – and I wonder if you can guess what it is. And what it’s called.
Life is often about mystery. Full of things we don’t understand. Faith can be much the same.
Indeed, it is somewhat of a mystery to me that I choose to believe. The logical, rational and pragmatic sides of me would not in themselves believe that the virgin birth or the resurrection actually happened. And yet, exactly 45 years ago last week, I came to my own understanding that if Jesus was also God (and not simply an ordinary human being) then why not?
Similarly, many struggle with those many aspects of ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ ‘Why did God let that happen to me – or to you?’ ‘Why does God not answer our prayers?’ ‘Why does God not stop the wars, famine, earthquakes etc etc?’ And yet, are we perhaps too quick to ‘blame’ God when things go wrong or don’t work out how we want. It’s complicated. It is at times a mystery.
So in order to understand what this particular mystery object is we perhaps need to see a bit more of it…
… and to understand more about it. That which is not obvious to the eye. That which is hidden. That which gives us insight in to its ‘mystery’… to see the bigger picture.
Doing so sometimes helps in understanding those same mysterious aspects of life and faith. Not to hold solely to the view which only shows part of the picture.
To understand that as in many aspects of both life and faith, as WH Auden put it, ‘There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.’
To endeavour as best we can, within the limitations of human insight and knowledge, to seek to see God’s view of the bigger picture. For that is one which, like the object shown, can shine light in to and upon the mysteries of our life and faith.
The mystery object is a Cresset Stone. Its cup-shaped hollows, each being used to hold a quantity of tallow and a wick, were burned to produce light. These were lit the early hours of the morning when monks came to their first service. This particular one is at Brecon Cathedral.
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