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Being Certain about Uncertainty

Feb 20, 2013 | Spirituality

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions, then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death. ~ Mary Jean Irion, from Yes, World: A Mosaic of Meditation

I am certain these words were written for me. I need their deep-breath-ness: when desire seems foolish, far away, and graspy; when not being sure is both ghost and muse.

I am certain these words are the only ones I can offer others when deep breaths are needed but hard to come by: when blows, disappointments, and heartaches buffet; when not being sure seems the only dependable thing.

And though I am loathe to admit it, these words remind me that not being sure is the only way to experience faith, hold on to hope, and believe in love. I’m certain of it.

None of this is pretty, or easy, or even sane. But then, few things of deepest passion and lasting value ever are.

*****

I type these words praying they are true; that the hard things of life – in mine and others’ – are the very things that invite the certainty of faith’s reward. I’m not sure . . .

And maybe that’s the key. Letting go. Loosening my grip. Deep breaths. Allowing uncertainty and un-sure-ness to carry rather than bearing the intolerable burden of demanding answers or assurance.

*****

Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent . . . Faith is not a series of gilt-edged propositions that you sit down to figure out, and if you follow all the logic and accept all the conclusions,  then you have it. It is crumpling and throwing away everything, proposition by proposition, until nothing is left, and then writing a new proposition, your very own, to throw in the teeth of despair . . . Faith is not making religious-sounding noises in the daytime. It is asking your inmost self questions at night and then getting up and going to work . . . Faith is thinking thoughts and singing songs and making poems in the lap of death.

This Father’s Day

Jun 17, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

I find myself in a sort of a gray place today. Granted, it’s the Seattle area and the skies are often as they look today: filled with clouds, overcast, chilly. But it feels like more than that.

It’s Father’s Day. My daughters are with their dad – and, therefore, not with me. A new experience this year. Maybe that’s part of it.

In an effort to shift to a brighter or at least clearer space I spent some time reading the liturgy of the week. I came across this excerpt from The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware. It touched the gray and invited some grace-filled shafts of warmth and sun…

The actress Lillah McCarthy describes how she went in great misery to see George Bernard Shaw, just after she had been deserted by her husband.

 

I was shivering. Shaw sat very still. The fire brought me warmth…How long we st there I do not know, but presently I found myself walking with dragging steps with Shaw beside me…up and down Adelphi Terrace.

 

The weight upon me grew a little lighter and released the tears which would never come before…He let me cry. Presently I heard a voice in which all the gentleness and tenderness of the world was speaking. It said: “Look up, dear, look up to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Whatever his faith in God or lack of it, Shaw points here to something that is fundamental to the spiritual way. He did not offer smooth words of consolation to Lillah McCarthy, or pretend that her pain would be easy to bear. What he did was far more perceptive. He told her to look out for a moment from herself, from her personal tragedy, and to see the world in its objectivity, to sense its wonder and variety, its “thusness.” And his advice applies to all of us.

However, oppressed by my own or others’ anguish, I am not to forget that there is more in the world than this, there is much more.

I bought more flowers for the front porch yesterday. When I got up today I spotted them as I picked up the Sunday paper. They made me smile. I bought a few more when I went to the grocery store this morning – wanting even more of their color, their warmth, their reminiscent glimpsing of Eden. They permeate the gray and offer me heaven in the hear and now. As will my daughters when they return from their time with their dad. As will my parents and my brother as they visit here this afternoon. As will even gray skies as I recognize their Creator.

How like God to speak through George Bernard Shaw to Lillah McCarthy. And to me – on Father’s Day. “Look up, dear, lookup to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Indeed, and not just in the heavens, but all around.