Away With Certainty

I find myself, lately, lingering a little longer than I had inteded on my sofa while I listen to my daily inspirational or educational podcast or audiobook, staring at the screensaver on the TV (a nifty Amazon Firestick feature). It's just a loop of photographs of some of the most breathtaking places around the world. Captions pop up in the bottom left corner of the screen to put a name and location to the image. I think there are a few different montages, but they all eventually repeat like a music playlist.

It comes on after some toddler cartoon sits long enough on pause because my son's interest has inevitably moved on to other things. But my eyes linger on these pictures and my mind wanders.

It may sound like a frivolous activity, but it has been a sort of outlet for taking in the world without being able to actually go out and experience it first hand. But, more than that, it has been almost a sort of meditation for me these days. I occasionally seek out more on YouTube. Aerial photos of tiny villages nestled among the coldests mountains. Scenes of Buddhist monks sharing a meal crowded at one long table. Some of these photos bring me nearly to tears.

As I'm taking in all these incredibly moving images I hear echos of the voices of so many who have either directly or inderectly tried to give me a comforting answer in times of doubt and uncertainty, "How can you look at all of this and not be certain?"

But when I look at these photos, closer with each time they come around, and think about all of the minute details that make up each scene, all of the chaos and tension and disaster and adaptation that had to happen to make these environments as they are when captured in these singular moments, my question in response is, "How can you look at all of this, I mean really look, and be certain?" And now more than ever I wonder...

Why would you want to be?

At one point, the thought scared me. The position of uncertainty felt vulnerable and unprotected. The ability I had to meet every argument presented to me with "but what about this?" felt isolating and lonely. For a lot of my adolescent life, my belief and my place of worship and my faith community was my source of belonging when I felt like I didn't belong anywhere else. In college it was my validation when it seemed like everyone else had worldviews and life experiences that seemed to contradict mine.

Now, as I look at those photos, the thought that there is no way to contain all of this in my - or anyone else's - limited understanding, is the most profoundly hopeful and exciting thought I have encountered in my life. I have never felt more freedom or a greater sense of empowerment than I do in the acceptance that I am totally uncertain of the complex reality of what was, is, and will be.

So I emplore you, don't be sad for me. Don't be afraid for my soul. Don't feel pressured to prove or explain or protest because of these things I'm saying.

Because what I have gained from my uncertainty is a boundless freedom to love the world and to love those in it. An understanding that my individual perspective can never make me more worthy of love and acceptance than anyone else. A belief that I am also completely worthy and capable and free to receive all of the beauty, hope, power, and love that the universe has to offer. 

And in my freedom I feel more inspired, more responsible, and more capable than ever to connect with those surrounding me in a deeper, more empathetic, and more compassionate way.

And with this freedom, I am able to return to look at my roots, to come face to face with the seemingly solidified, unmoving ideologies that formed me in my youth, to read and listen to the words that, at a time felt like an ultimatum, and to draw from them a full breath of completely new air. 

Not in the words themselves, nor in the checklist of rights and wrongs, nor the ritual of returning week after week to get the new lesson from the certified lesson-giver. But in the story. In the driving force that brings all the stories together. Underneath all the human incoherence, I find the pattern that the source of light tears down cities built on violence and corruption, the source of love frees slaves, the source of hope tells the high priests to step aside and listen to the opressed. And it is the narrative that has played out over and over on a loop throughout history, beyond the pages of any single book. 

Where I once encountered a brick wall I have found a stream of flowing water that cleanses the earth of its stains and brings with it new hope, that swells and floods when it is time to wash away the decaying structures of inequality, of hatred, of violence and injustice that cannot withstand the test of time, and brings the buried, the voiceless to the surface. And, instead of a compartment to keep me sheltered from the influences of an evil world, it is a channel, among many channels, flowing out from the greater river that is the hope we can all have in the source off all life, all good, all love and all peace.

So you want to call that Great River God? So you are most compelled by the story that Jesus is the one true connection you have to that river? I have no quarrel with you. I feel no need to break down your world view or to pick apart your theology. If this brings you to drink in to pour out, to recieve love so that you can give love, to desire beauty for others in the way you desire it for yourself, then I still consider us, you and me, to be of one heart. I pray you feel that too. 

But if your certainty is a solid brick box that throws out anyone who questions its walls, that rebukes anyone who finds love and harmony and meaning in something beyond its confines, that drives its its inhabitants to violence and murder, advocates the fear or hatred of people groups, and allows a sense of superiority over anyone outside of it, I refuse to allow myself to be persuaded by your judgements. And if this is you then please, I beg of you...

Try letting go of certainty. Try sitting in uncertainty. See where it takes you. When science or history or sensation transcend your belief structure, when a revelation in the vastness of the universe and the infinitely small nature of our existence in time and space tear down those walls, instead of clinging with increased violence and agression to the remains, try, even if just for a moment, to let go, to float away with the flood. To feel the effects of its waters rather than telling yourself they are inherently evil. You don't have to be afraid. You probably will be for a moment. But if you truly believe and hope in the goodness, the greatness, and the absolute perfect love and power of the source of all things, you have no reason to be afraid. 

If it is truly there, it will always be there. With or without you. But always waiting for you.