Truth found in Ignorance vs The Bliss of Blind Certainty

Aren’t the old meant to understand more? Old and wise, that is what we were promised.

As for me. 48 and clueless; and all the wiser for it.

Let’s start with the big stuff; we should always start with the big meaty stuff, especially when faced with a Sunday roast. 

Faith, God, the big “why” we are all here, where we came from and where we return to. To quote Rob Bell, “the thing behind the thing behind the thing”.

In my teens I radiated certainty. 

The Church of England proclaimed the truth on a Sunday morning. I swallowed the bread, wine and doctrine and was thankful. If I lived well I’d make it to heaven when I died. Deferred joy and no need to grow or challenge myself in any spiritual sense. 

Then came the messiness of life and choices and other people’s views, eloquently argued. Certainty waned, replaced by a hunger to find something more substantial. I needed the chewy meat of roast chicken to replace the broth of my youth.

Like a blundering explorer meandering through an uncharted land, my search has taken me to hills and valleys I could never have imagined. The in-depth study of the Bible now accompanied with studies of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

My world view is all the richer for this perspective. My spiritual growth all the more profound.

In my thirties I did return fully to my Christian roots. I joined a newly formed evangelical church. Simply the finest worship I have ever experienced and the closest model to perfect community you can imagine.

I preached and loved every single person there with all my heart. Even the unlovable. 

Ultimately though the church went the way of all institutions and became poisoned by its own desperate demand for survival. 

It lost it’s pure heart and with it it’s wisdom and impact. Power and money are dangerous and deadly drugs.

To lose something so pure and loving hits like bereavement. The scars leave me wiser but pained. “All wise men walk with a limp” a good friend once told me.

The lesson, hard learned, is that our spiritual journey is our own. I am fortunate enough to have friends from many religious traditions and none, all of whom are my teachers. It is no surprise then that my own practices and frames of growth now draw on many traditions.

I have a strongly held practice of daily meditation, frequent yoga practice and a fundamental belief that the teachings of radical love evident throughout the Bible are essential for us to form the type of world we might view as heaven. I also know that these radical teachings are shared across all of the major religions. It just so happens that I am most familiar with those from Christianity.

The faiths have so much in common, so much to unite us; it seems perverse then that they are responsible for so much division.

While I am still challenged and moved by the radical nature of Jesus’ love I also wince at the hatred and superiority some attribute to the Bible in the name of faith. 

In my own, deeply personal experience, it is when I have been most certain that I have grown least. The process of searching, exploring has created the space, insights and inspiration to grow.

There are stars in the sky, constellations, so distant, dim and beautiful that they can’t be seen if you look directly at them. To see them you have to look at the dark gaps between. 

Certainty has only ever led me to be stagnant, the still quiet voice of my spirit has led me to exploration of the highest mountains and the deepest valleys. Ignorance contains the sweetest truths.