the curse of certainty

“Like the body craves oxygen, the mind is desperate for certainty. It believes that without a safe foothold on reality, it will die.  But the fascinating thing is that the illusion of certainty is exactly the opposite of safety because it hardens and narrows the vision to make everything fit its own scope. Then when new information arrives which would be its ally, the mind pushes it away in favor of the leaky life raft to which it clings, sinking all the while beneath the waves of change.  In fact, the only antidote for this is to embrace 'I don’t know' so deeply that a powerful, dynamic safety emerges. This is like learning to surf so well that a tsunami wave shows up as a challenge to test our mastery.”

                                                                                  Jacob Nordby

____________________________________________

God deliver us from certainty

Oh we love it for sure

That sense that we know what is true

Know what is right

But certainty is seductive

We love its safety, its power

We love to stand, firmly planted in our certitude

And certainty is dangerous

It is a perilous thing

To believe that what we think we know

Is certain

Unchangeable

Objective

When we wrap ourselves in certainty

Ugly things happen

We get rigid

Stuck

Arrogant

Blind

And perhaps worse

Sometimes we become hard

Cold

Even cruel

It is not that there are not things we can be certain about

I am certain there is something bigger than myself

In which I participate

I am certain that this something, or someone, is Love

Beyond that I feel I need to keep open

I need to admit that here is so much I do not know

And be open to God’s new thing

For God is always doing a new thing

Moving us forward

In a creative, pervasive evolution

So that the truth we cling to today

May be what we are called to let go of, tomorrow

We have a living God

Who offers a living Word

Scary

We may have to rethink the use of power

Rethink the role of women

Rethink sexual orientation

Just as we have rethought left handers

Mixed fibers

Shell fish, and more

I do not have faith in laws, and rules

I do not have faith in tired ideologies

I am really not certain about much

Except in the power of Love

And my need to let go of my certainty

And go with God where God leads

So to those who are certain Trump is God’s chosen

Those who are certain climate change is not real

Those who are certain, women must be subservient

Those who believe LGTBQI people are sinners

Those who believe that God’s favorite time in history was the 1950’s

Those who believe that power is meant to be used

Those who believe that “they” are the enemy

To those who know their more liberal agenda is “the way”

To those who believe they know the mind of God

To those who are certain

I offer the gift of uncertainty

Instead of holding fast to certainty

Grab hold of faith

Faith in a living God

Faith in a God who is woven into the fabric of our being

Faith in a God who is constantly revealing new truth

Faith in a God who is constantly doing a new thing

Instead of holding fast to all our little certainties

Let us grab hold of the big certainty

That God will work in big ways, and small

In ways we understand, in ways we don’t understand

In ways that are old, in ways that are new

It ways that will confuse

And frighten

And ultimately amaze

To bring love into our hearts

And heaven to earth