knowing, and unknowing

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

                      

It’s a good quote!

As to where it came from?

 

It is variously attributed to Plato (in the Republic)

and to Socrates

 

I’ll vote for Socrates, but it has been close to 50 years

since I read Plato and Socrates in college

 

what I do know is that I do not know

not for sure

where the quote came from

 

and I am sure as well

that this is one of many things I do not know

 

indeed I spend most of my times these days

in my dotage, wandering around in the valley of unknowing

 

I love knowing

I want to have the facts and have the knowledge

for I have always believed that knowledge is power

 

although in this post factual world that belief has lost some of its luster!

I may know “for a fact” that something is true

but if others are passionately convinced that the truth is not true,

the power of the truth is functionally diminished

 

perhaps this is why I have always been a student

working my way through two full majors in my undergraduate years

(English literature and Philosophy)

then through an M.Div, and then a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min)

and then, finally, through a Masters in Mental Health Counseling

 

I want to know how things work

I want to know how to do things

I want certainty

I want to be able to wrap my head around things

and be able to control and accomplish!

 

anyone with me?

 

and then, as I pursue knowledge of Sacred

as I try to get to know God

I am led into the valley of unknowing

 

into a hazy darkness

where I cannot see

but must cautiously feel my way

 

creeping, uncertain

 

its wonderful!

 

because in that valley

I am forced to let go of control

let go of my preconceptions

my knowledge, my arrogance,

me

 

and experience

something I cannot explain

cannot wrap my head around

but can receive

 

and feel

and experience

 

and paradoxically

know

 

ah, how often does Sacred / God

call us out of our places of comfort

out of those well-defined places

we create for ourselves

 

ah, how often are we called to leave

the confines of what we can understand

into the desert

like Abram

like Moses

like Ruth

 

into that bigger space

that scarier place

into the unknown

 

which is the only place

where we can truly

know