Monday, January 21, 2013

Let Us Embrace Uncertainty

Being Uncertain


Padre Blazon to Dunstan Ramsey in
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

"My own idea is that when He comes again, it will be to continue His Ministry as an old man. I am an old man and my life has been spent as a soldier of Christ, and I tell you that the older I grow, the less Christ's teaching says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when he was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems never to have known .... Am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forward with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years."


YES!!!   For now, uncertainty is a word I want to embrace, not banish. It's the bedrock of the logical scientific attitude, doubt, things are maybe not the way they seem to be, or are said to be, will not be the way they are forecast to be. When we seek a result, we find it isn't where we have gone to find it, maybe doesn't exist anywhere. Seeking a particular result, we live in the anxiety of not getting it yet. We cannot be at peace, as we could be, just following a path, interested to see where it leads. Being certain about my next step, uncertain about where this path leads. The excitement and aliveness of that. Seeking a result, I tie myself to words which may not be the truth of present circumstances, or what could be coming. I'd rather forget seeking results, and just aim to follow the path, discern the signs, be faithful to those, and take with gratitude whatever results lie on that path...Ride my bike into the unknown!!

No comments: