Tag: mystery

If you missed the first two parts of this series, find them here: part one, part two.

The Harmony of Certainty and Mystery

Certainty can be a wonderful thing, galvanizing our will and bringing clarity. It can help us make decisions, set appropriate boundaries, and navigate difficult trials in our lives. Certainty can also be destructive, putting horns on our stubbornness, cementing our biases, and closing us off from the beauty of new perspectives.

In contrast, mystery is an admission to ourselves that we don’t have it all figured out. It leaves our spirit wide open to novel discoveries.

There are many ways I could approach the balance of these two, but let’s focus on what we call religion.

As a cleric for over three decades, part of my weekly task was to write and deliver sermons. In the tradition I formerly followed, this meant using Hebrew and Christian scriptures as a springboard. In retrospect, it pains me to see that my default practice was to traffic in certainties. What was my purpose, I reasoned, if I didn’t send people home from Sunday worship with principles for their lives?

Let me be clear. Certain truths from the aforementioned scriptures are eternal and, to me, indispensable for our human journeys. Here are just a few, voiced by prophets, evangelists, and Jesus himself.

• Do not return evil for evil.
• Love your neighbor as yourself.
• Have compassion for all human beings, including the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, and the stranger.
• Focus on your own shortcomings rather than those of others.
• Realize that you can have all the accoutrements of this world, but if you don’t have love, you have missed life’s greatest treasure.
• Don’t worry, for it can’t add a single meaningful hour to your life.

No matter what you believe about spiritual matters, surely you agree that these guidelines could help all of us fashion a kinder, more inclusive planet. My point, once again, is that certainty can be helpful if it shapes us into mature human beings.

However, staying with this topic of religion, let’s shift to how certainty can also wreak havoc. Here are just a few of the ways.

• Believing that our version of truth must be adopted by all people for their “salvation.”
• Clinging to anthropomorphic images of a deity.
• Citing scripture from our chosen tradition to undergird homophobia, misogyny, or nationalism.
• Adopting a sense of superiority over others because of our beliefs.

These are toxic fallouts when one’s certitude becomes fossilized into consciousness, unmoving and impermeable.

Mystery, an acknowledgment that there is more out there than we ever imagined, can crack this bias. In one of my former books, Invitation to the Overview, I wrote about an image that still turns my thoughts from certainty to mystery. Here it is.

Among our galaxy’s billions of stars, I know there are other marvels, dramatically evident in Hubble Telescope photos. That unique instrument allows the absorption of light which has traveled for countless light years. In a particular picture, its focus was a tiny spot about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. What did it discover? Not just thousands of previously uncharted stars, but many new galaxies, some of them grander than our own. To coin an old hippie phrase: doesn’t that blow your mind?

In his Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, the late James Fowler gave a name to the highest level of spiritual maturation in his theory. He called it Universalizing Faith. This is when we are no longer hemmed in by differences in religious or spiritual beliefs. We learn to see beauty in the images and myths that others hold sacred. We adopt the truths that are helpful for us and leave the rest. We regard all human beings as worthy of compassion and deep understanding. 

Can you imagine a world where this is the norm, supplanting our divisive violence?

In another of my books, The Smile on a Dog: Retrieving a Faith That Matters, I invited people from diverse walks of life to share how their spiritual perspective had evolved over time. One of them is an esteemed colleague named Rebecca Blackwell. I realize this is from a Christian perspective, but I believe the truths are applicable to all of us. Here is what she said (in italics).

For the last 52 years, I’ve been on a journey that took me from the solid ground of Christian Fundamentalism to the misty mountaintops of whatever kind of Christian I am now.

The journey has required that I leave some things behind on the trail. I had to let go of certainty, fear, and shame. As my load lightened, I discovered a deep freedom, a peace that passes all understanding, a closer connection with God/The Sacred and the confidence that nothing can separate me from the love of God that permeates the cosmos.

I took the first step on this journey in 1972 when, at age 18, I walked away from the church I grew up in. I could no longer abide their sexism, patriarchy, narrow-mindedness and fear-based way of life. Since they taught me that they were the One True Church and the God they proclaimed was the One True God, that left me with nowhere to go. So, I did not affiliate with any church.

About ten years into my exodus, I began to notice that even though I had left “church,” I was still praying (though not in a hands-folded, head-bowed kind of way), and I was missing a spiritual community. Could it be that God was bigger than I had been led to believe? I took what felt like a huge risk and began exploring other churches.

The willingness to explore and to say “maybe” to new experiences or ideas, and to trust my instincts and intuition (which I believe are the way Spirit speaks to us), have been key to this journey. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to the Presbyterian Church (USA); I said “maybe” and then “yes” to the Charismatic movement. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to seminary and ordination in the PC(USA); I said “maybe” and then “yes” to yoga, meditation, Reiki and other practices. I said “maybe” and then “yes” to seeing God at work in the deep dimensions of other faiths.

With each exploration that resulted in “yes” (and not all of them did), my heart grew more expansive, my faith more inclusive. So, where am I today? I consider myself a Christian, though I hold few of the traditional doctrines (heaven, hell, penal substitutionary atonement and others are gone), and the doctrines I do hold have been significantly re-shaped. My conviction is that the Mystery at the heart of the universe is infinitely knowable through a variety of means. The Bible (especially the stories of Jesus) is the organizing narrative for wrapping my head and heart around this Mystery, and so I call this Mystery “God” and “Christ.”

Should you be on a spiritual journey of your own, I offer the following aphorisms and suggestions in the hope that they will help you.

• Faith is a journey, not a trip. There is no precise road map, no timetable, no certain destination…the journey IS the destination.
• Hold everything lightly.
• Don’t confuse God with any church or religious institution.
• Your convictions don’t have to make sense or be logical/systematic to be true. Embracing paradox is the heart of wisdom.
• Read and study widely…history, spiritual biographies, theology, faith stories, poetry, and great literature.
• Find some traveling companions, including people of different faiths or no faith at all; people who will talk, walk, think, and sit with you. A good Spiritual Director is an invaluable traveling companion.
• Trust your inner wisdom, no matter where and how it leads you…it is the voice of the Spirit.

Learning to balance certainty and mystery is not just about spiritual development. It impinges on every aspect of our daily lives. Here are just a few, and I’m sure you could offer others from your life.

• Learning in our marriages to balance what we know of our spouses with the mystery of who they are becoming.
• Parenting with a grasp of good child rearing practices, while still respecting that our children have unique destines far outside our imaginations.
• Being open in our vocations to a balance of training with updated knowledge.

It’s a beautiful thing when you witness someone surrendering to the realization of mystery or uncertainty. Here’s another episode from my long and winding career.

I was teaching a class on parenting using a curriculum I thought was helpful. The participants were a varied group of individuals who shared a desire to raise their children with the best practices available.

Among the attendees was an active-duty Army colonel stationed at a nearby base. He was “squared away” as they say in the military. Everything about him was tightly buttoned, including his opinions about our subject material. He had an answer for every aspect of parenting, citing his success in raising three children who excelled in both academics and sports.

Frankly, I wondered why he was there. Did his ego need to hold court and garner admiration? Then, slowly, I saw the cracks emerge, primarily through comments made by his wife who was also part of the course. She alluded to friction between her husband and their oldest son, a boy who would soon leave the family nest and go off to college. When she spoke, you could see the stiffness in her husband, as if he wanted to silence her but was afraid to make a scene.

In the final session of our time together, we took turns summarizing the high points of what we had learned. I was deeply gratified as I heard each person’s reflections, confident that the study aids and our shared experience would create healthier families.

When it came time for the colonel to share, he was uncharacteristically quiet. Then, unexpectedly, his face began to quiver with emotion.

“I’ve learned…” he tried to speak, emotion overcoming his words. He gathered himself to start over, like a soldier trying to come to attention. “’I’ve learned that you can have all the answers and still not know how to fully love someone.”

At that point, he began to shake as he broke down in tears. It’s hard to describe what happened next. It was as if an inner tension held by our entire group found its release. Numerous people got up to surround the colonel and lovingly placed their hands on his shoulders. I expected him to rebuff their gestures with his usual self-assurance. Instead, he placed his own hands on theirs with gratitude.

In that moment I thought of a beautiful verse from the Christian New Testament. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:2)

 I’ll never know what ultimately happened to the colonel and his family, especially in parenting his oldest son. But I like to think that his newfound openness and vulnerability birthed a healing season in their relationship.

Practice

Take time today to practice the suggestions in this chapter. Sit and draw to mind some of the truths you hold dear, the lessons you’ve learned that have the weight of certainty. Bring an appreciation for them into the present. Then allow a non-fearful sense of mystery about what you might learn in the future be equally present. Please remember that even though doubt is useful, it is often accompanied by fear. The mystery we are talking about is not a manifestation of doubt. It’s a benign realization that there is more fullness, more joy, more fascination yet to be discovered in your life.

Here are some affirmations you can repeat.

1. I have learned some beautiful truths from my faith and life experience (name them here).
2. Alongside these certainties, I celebrate that the universe still has so much to teach me, new knowledge that will enrich my life. This unknown is beckoning me with its warm embrace.

As you fuse these aspects of certainty and mystery into this present moment, remember this:

Heaven is here. There is nowhere else.
Heaven is now. There is no other time.

Part four of this series will post on June 15