Saturday, October 24, 2009

Honest Doubts

Sharing doubts when doubts confront from within or without are ways of honestly acknowledging what's actually going on inside. Even though sharing a doubt or two or more is scary and sometimes scandalous, it ultimately takes much less energy than maintaining uncertain certainties built on sands shifting beneath our intellectual and emotional feet. When we refuse to acknowledge any uncertainty, but instead stand steadfast against any questioning inquiries, internal or external, we mount up with wings of Dodo's, flapping furiously against the forces of nature itself. Nature, like the God who created it, has rules that govern how things work. When something or someone goes against those rules, eventually they pay the price. Either they pay it quickly and relatively painlessly, or they keep trying to prove themselves right and everything and everyone else wrong, and the price keep rising. Eventually, the impulse to control reality on our terms causes the flightless Dodo to try to fly off a cliff to "prove" it can. While it is often said that nature abhors a vacuum, nature also abhors fools who refuse to learn they're fools. The one who acknowledges a doubt or two or three knows enough to hold back from the cliff's edge. Paying attention to the reality surrounding us and the reality inhering within us gives us an opportunity to consider that maybe, just maybe, I might be wrong. This is wisdom.

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