Today I read an article stating with surprisingly clear detail, the identification of the infamous D.B. Cooper. If you aren’t familiar with notorious 1970’s plane heists, Cooper (his alias) was a man who jumped out of a plane headed for Seattle after acquiring $200,000 from it’s cargo in 1971. For years, many have constructed theories on what happened to him, but ultimately, he disappeared without much evidence to his real identity. Apparently, according to an extensive study of letters, a veteran named Robert Rackstraw is believed to be the long sought criminal.
Besides being one of the most interesting crimes in American history (and something I have been moderately interested in since studying about it in my dilapidated high school library), it is also an interesting case study on the desires of humans. When I saw the article, I was excited to see the story again in the public view, but as I continued, I felt a part of me rooting for it to be found untrue. Locked away in the dark corridors of my spirit, there is a desire for cases like these to remain a mystery.
Why?
Do I root for the “bad guy”?
Am I a “Bad Guy”?
I don’t think I am alone. There is something in us that longs for the unknown. When we are young, the world is explained to us through consequences and rewards – ultimately what is just. If you commit an illegal act, whether it is stealing a cookie or a car, you will be punished. This is how life works. Or so we are told. Yet, it doesn’t take long for us to see that their are always outliers to this rule. Somethings remain mysterious, innocent people are punished, and sometimes D.B. Cooper makes off with a quarter of a million dollars.
It really is a mad, mad, mad world.
My faith reinforces this for me. Grace, a mystery in its own right, is found to be both unfair and unexpected. We are all the mysterious thief parachuting in the night. Our deeds, however unwholesome, are found to be dealt with an innocent cross. Unfair. Unjust. There is much mystery in the matters of faith, and this is how we like it. No one can explain the mystery of God. Deep down, no one wants to. We cling to the mystery because it gives us something to root for; something to forever learn. Grace makes rich men beggars, and beggars kings. In this mystery, we find ourselves clinging to the unknown.
Today, embrace what you don’t know. Root for the mystery.
Matt simon blog 