When a Tender Breath encompasses my doubt and my terror, wisdom emerges.
Wisdom, for me, is when unknowing rests into trust.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt
When a Tender Breath encompasses my doubt and my terror, wisdom emerges.
Wisdom, for me, is when unknowing rests into trust.
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"Wisdom, for me, is when unknowing rests into trust"
ReplyDeleteIs this the beginning of faith?
Yes, this trust in unknowing and not having to know seems to be what the word faith is offering us. It is a growing capacity to trust beyond our currently limited sense of possibility. (This limited sense of possibility - commonly a kind of cynicism - is learned procedurally, most often before we have access to language.) Faith as trust in unknowing (breathed tenderly deeper than words) is the portal through which we are introduced to another dimension, grounding outside of a well-learned hopelessness. Rooted in this deeper dimension we begin to experience new options, the possibility of possibility, and transformation.
ReplyDeleteKent
Ok, so what about when your trust and faith seem inadequate, is it enough to trust in faith? My faith, another's faith, Christ's faith? Would you suggest that all we truly need (I'm separating what I think I need from what I might, in reality, need), is in fact in that bedrock unknown Holding?
ReplyDeleteI love the idea and beauty of the thought that a Tender Breath can indeed wrap around my doubt and terror (add in pain, disappointment etc). But wisdom needs to be more than letting go, it surely involves the right word and action for any given situation, joyous or otherwise. What happens in the living of our lives?
Ah yes, this "living of our lives," that's the real difficulty. Please know Sarah, that I'm not great at answers. What I'm slowly catching on to over the years is that - and this is a psychological as well as a spiritual perspective - most of us are missing an adequate sense of Holding, the deep resonance and regulation that comes from being with someone bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind when we're in over our heads. This is, of course, the stuff of early childhood and I'm continually amazed at how many of us have gapping holes in our lives when it comes to an experience of this necessary regulation. A child who knows the deep holding of a fully regulating caregiver is living "inside" of what we would call "faith." It isn't a word, it's an experience.
ReplyDeleteSo, for people like you and me, when we get in over our heads (doubt, terror, pain, disappointment, etc.) we're suddenly swimming in waters that are too deep and too tumultuous. We're also returning to the "scene of the crime" - re-experiencing the lostness of no regulation when we required regulation.
Fortunately, deep regulation in the here and now is what the life of prayer and daily meditation have to offer. "I'm really not so capable now and I need help. I open myself to the healing and Presence I most need in this moment. I am open to the healing of every belief and every memory - recognized and unrecognized - that currently blocks my trust in your love and healing." (Who's the "your" in that sentence? Part of why I'm finding myself drawn to my Christian roots even while I have huge difficulties with how Christianity is often taught and practiced is the underlying recognition that there is always One who is available and fully present to each of us . . . with deep affection. As my good friend Fr. Philip Marshall describes the core message of the Gospel: "You matter and you matter absolutely.")
More and more I'm aware of prayer/meditation as entering into Mystery, entering into an ungraspable, non-copyrightable, un-ownable Presence and allowing something of a download/upgrade of my currently limited capacity for trust and peace. I'm not saying I understand how any of this happens, but I no longer believe that my intellectual understanding is required. I'd hate to have to wait for science to figure all of this out before I give my body-in-crisis an opportunity to simply open to what I most need. More and more I'm willing to trust the Hidden Wisdom of the universe to offer what I most require - in tenderness and love, precisely like a loving parent offers love to her child.
More and more I'm willing to trust the fractal nature of this Mystery we wake up within each day.
I see that. My experience of God, mercifully, was totally separate to any other human experience, explanation or evangelism. So the sense of being held on to when i had no strength to hold on is powerful. Like you, I have little sense of community in the experience of 'church' and theology as it is generally represented. However, it is this practise of meditation/prayer that I am not so sure about. Maybe it is the busi-ness of what is going on in my just under the surface layers that drown out the responses from beneath that I would so love to hear. Maybe that is what I need to trust in more. The ability that if I pay more attention I will eventually hear that small still voice that has always been whispering to me. I shall persevere.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Kent, I have been mulling over your response and I want to thank you for not feeling great at answers, it's actually in the middle of the conversations about what matter most that we help each other to our own answers. I like that.
ReplyDelete