| May 24, 2009 | Wrestling with Doubt, Certainty and Faith Reverend Jane Bramadat |
Meditation
"During a time of civil war in Korea, a certain general led his troops through province after province, overrunning whatever stood in his path. The people of one town, knowing that he was coming and having heard tales of his cruelty, all fled into the mountains. The general arrived in the empty town with his troops and sent them out to search the town. Some of the soldiers came back and reported that only one person remained, a Zen priest. The general strode over to the temple, walked in, pulled out his sword, and said, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who can run through you without batting an eye." The Zen master looked back and calmly responded, "And, I sir, am one who can be run through without batting an eye." The general hearing this, bowed and left." from the Zen tradition, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart.
Commentary: Do not think about this story, be absorbed in it.
Sermon
My sermon title this morning is one of the phrases I hear myself saying as I explore my own religious journey. 'I spend a lot of time wrestling with doubt, certainty and faith......
It is strange the images and metaphors that come to each of us as we try to explain what matters in our lives. I remember a time when I lived in London, Ontario and was driving to Syracuse in New York State to attend a Saint Lawrence District Board meeting. I noticed the logo on a large truck ahead of me on the I-90. It said, Dick Simon Trucking and there was a picture of some kind of furry animal holding up a sign. As I drove closer I realised that the animal was a skunk and that the sign read, "Sweet Simon can help you." Well that blew me away. I am still trying to imagine for what purpose anyone would use a trucking company with a skunk for a mascot. Maybe it was used for garbage and skunk odour would mask the smell. Maybe there's a new craze for 'eau de skunk.' It was definitely an image that has stayed with me!
Then it occurred to me that perhaps for some, my image of wrestling with doubt, certainty and faith is just as perplexing.
Let me see if I can explain it.
First of all listen to these words by Clinton E. Scott, one of our recent Universalist ancestors. He said:
Doubt
We live on a frail bridge of knowledge that spans
the wide chasm of our ignorance.
The veil of mystery when drawn aside opens yet
upon vaster realms of the undiscovered.
Inquiring minds dig deep beneath the surface
of truths already known.
The farmer with [a] plough turns the lifeless sod
to find the living soil beneath the
barren stalks of former harvests.
Doubt is the tool that burrows beneath the stubble
of outworn maxims and clears the way for new insights,
truths, and fresh certainties.
For doubt and truth are not in conflict.
Each leads to the other: they are one,
even as the river and the sea are one."
from Promise of Spring, by Clinton Lee Scott, a UUA Meditation Manual, 1976
Doubt and certainty, I believe, are both fairly basic requirements for a practicing Unitarian*Universalist. Actually, having both doubt and certainty are part of the human condition. But in a larger context I believe that for those in more orthodox religious groups the plan is to work to get rid of doubt so that true revelation can be seen clear and clean. Not so for Unitarians and Universalists, at least in my experience. For myself I see wrestling with doubt as a lifelong activity and a way of keeping me healthy, alert and paying attention to what is going on. Wrestling with doubt is a part of my religious condition - living as I do within a meaning framework that is not nailed down; that accepts uncertainty as part of the ongoing picture. It is one way to describe what I am doing when I am living out my Unitarian Universalist principles.
This does not mean that I never experience certainty - I experience it regularly! My children and some friends would probably comment that I can be a little too certain on some occasions.... But regardless, I am certain that the seven UU religious principles*
provide a framework for my behaviour and that they are deep enough and wide enough to contain my values and insist that I live them out through my actions. And I call this way of being, of living in the world, 'faith' because faith is, for me, the activity of seeking and composing meaning in the most comprehensive dimensions of my experience.
For me, one of the challenges of my religion is to create an oasis [a clearing] of purpose or significance in a forest of randomness and chaos. I have not chosen a path with well-developed signs to get there; instead, my way is down a track that asks me to clear out the brush, make any signage I require and use my life compass of reason, intuition and humour to set my direction, - it is a direction that will result in satisfaction for mind and spirit, challenge of body and soul, and also the location of good friends and heartfelt meaning.
As Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken" says,
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I want and need to find a way to make a difference in my own life and in the larger world as well. I want and need to celebrate the good and the possible in the midst of all the violence, distrust and stress. I want and need to do this with honesty and integrity and joy. I know I am simply trying to do what everyone else is trying to do - trying to release the sacred hiding within the secular, or the miraculous from within the mundane; attempting to find meaning that strikes a resonance for me, a clear tone in my heart, in my mind, in my spirit - not unlike the tone that our meditation bell makes each week.
I tried to find this oasis, this clearing, in the religion of my birth and it did not work for me. It seems to work for millions, but it did not for me. I couldn't seem to stop asking questions. I needed to know why? and When? and How is that possible? Of course I was learning that I was one of those nonconformists who wasn't satisfied with answers that do not encourage endless clarifying questions.
When I finally found this religion I discovered my work had only begun. I was expected to discover for myself, not only the answers but learn how to ask my own questions. Mind you, I was not alone, there were others with me, but their journey was not identical with mine. That was when the wrestling with doubt started. At first I would think I understood something just to have it disintegrate in front of me. Often it wasn't more information I needed, it was more insight. Fortunately most of this activity was internal wrestling so it wasn't all that messy or undignified! Although I will admit to you that the picture that came to my mind was that of a sumo wrestler not in top condition but one with determination, slowly and decisively wrestling with doubt and certainty, rather than just an ordinary kind of mud wrestling!
What sort of wrestling was I doing? While I am telling you about some of my wrestling, ask yourself: 'just what would be the doubts and the certainties with which I would be wrestling?
'
For example: I was asking myself about truth - how would I know if I had found a piece of truth? What if a good friend found a piece of truth that contradicted my truth? How much proof is enough, for me to accept a concept? Is factual, scientifically-proven data the only path to truth? How do I explain/accept non-rational experiences that seem outside the time/space continuum yet have opened me up to numerous epiphanies? What are the limits of my tolerance? How do I learn to appreciate, even to love, those I don't like?
How many people can I dislike before I become intolerant? How will I know when I have abused the act of compassion by allowing it to degenerate into pity? How can I provide balanced, empowering, joyful, transforming, intellectually-stimulating worship/programming for a group of Unitarian Universalists who include everything from secular atheistic humanists to mystics, theists, Buddhists and Christians? And just where do I find my spiritual satisfaction?
It is not that the wrestling produces no answers. It does. Daily. It is just that, like Tai Ch'i and other physical or mental disciplines, I must keep doing it over and over again to keep my mental, moral and spiritual muscles supple and ready to engage at any moment.
I ask you now, to think back to the reading I shared with you during Meditation - about the general and the Zen Master in Korea.. It was, of course, a metaphor. It has many meanings and I do not pretend to have intuited all of them, but at least one of them has to do with being willing to recognize and state one’s truth without fear. There are many ways to tell the truth, but there are fewer ways to keep one’s own integrity...and without integrity the truth does not ring clear. But I found this story complemented the wrestling image quite well. Both acknowledge the necessity of struggle before truth is reached. Both imply that courage will be required and respected.
That is, having to do or say painful or scary or difficult things in order to live up to what my reason and my conscience said were, for me, the right action. This is never easy; but when I do the difficult things, I always sleep well afterwards. I would like to be able to tell you that I am always in right relationship with truth and people...but I can’t. But I can tell you that the more I risk the doing and the telling of truth, the easier it gets.
And we need to risk because often in our lives there are strong, negative messages going around in our heads from our past, like: 'don't trust anyone you don't know'; or, 'I can't be blamed for anything because I have been so abused'; or, 'God does not love me because I did something I have been told is unforgivable'...the list is endless...
But if we wrestle honestly with these sorts of rigid, closed, conceptual enemies we will find that they can be warmed, reshaped...I believe the new word is 'morphed'... by the passion of one’s conviction; they can be wrestled to the ground - often, simply by the power of our integrity. We can find ourselves, being able to say, like the Zen master: 'And I, sir, am one who can be run through without batting an eye.'
Or to put it another way: 'and I, dear life/fate/power, am one who can stand up to doubt, wrestle with certainty, use my faith to overcome defeat. In fact, it empowers me, it affirms me. To question life means to engage with life and not to accept anybody else's ready-made answers. And pieces of truth are always the reward.
Closing Words
If you wrestle with doubt, struggle with certainty, and live in faith every day, then pieces of truth will affix themselves to your mind, heart and spirit and will then spiral out through you, into the present and the future. jmrb
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*Our Seven Religious Principles
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
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