Doubt

On Sunday (1/12/14,) I wrote that our assistant rector had said that we find God by being vulnerable.  Sunday afternoon I was reading a book in which the author twice dropped the line, "Doubt is how you find God." Unless I missed something, it really never went anywhere directly, but the line really piqued my interest. In one day, more than one way to find God. Or, is it really the same?

Doubt implies that we don't know, at least not for sure. Maybe we think we know, but we don't trust what we know.  This whole thing about listening to guidance: how can we know; I mean, really...for sure?  Is what we think we are getting real, or isn't it?  Most often when I ask for guidance, I say, "Give me a sign--a real clear sign that even I can get." My silent prayer is to make it so definite that there will be no confusion.

For years, my guidance came strong and clear...and often almost immediately.  In recent years, not so much.  What I get is muddled, or I get contradictory guidance, and I don't know which is true.  In truth, I don't think the guidance was any more clear before: I think that I had less mind chatter.  Less to muffle the messages. 

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, author of A Stroke of Insight, is a Harvard-trained MD, who studied brains.  At 37, she had a massive stroke that disabled the left side of her brain for weeks.  She couldn't talk, and the mind chatter stopped.  When she was forced to live in her right brain (some might say she was in her right mind,) she says she experienced complete and utter peace.  She was aware of people and events around her, only no matter what happened she was peaceful. 

I believe that no mind chatter = no doubt.  If we can still the mind, the messages come strong and clear.  In that place of peace, we are probably more vulnerable than anywhere else, and at the same time we know we are completely safe. I have never had a time when I clearly followed guidance that things didn't work out. They didn't always work out the way I would have liked or a way that was easy, but they worked. 

Back in the day when the messages came strong and clear, I didn't question; I just followed.  I didn't allow doubt: I allowed God.  Oh, if my left brain became engaged, usually through questioning of some other person, doubt would bubble up...and quickly.  I would find my vulnerability almost instantly in the doubt.  In truth, I think that was when I really became vulnerable, but I just couldn't see that the second-guessing was what created the vulnerability.

The image that comes to me is of an egg in boiling water.  I think that the doubt and vulnerability are like the boiling water that keep things stirred up. Yet the moment the water is pulled away from the heat source, and the boiling stops, the egg drops to the bottom of the pan instantly. All is still. The egg lies there in the quiet water, easy to see and touch.  As long as our mind chatter keeps things boiling, we can't pay much attention to God.  When we still, it is like the water calming. It is almost as if God is in the middle of the doubt and vulnerability, and all we have to do to find it is calm to know.

Science has taught us that what is real is what we can touch, feel, see, or hear. Yet, most religions have some concept of God as mystery--that which cannot be known.  For most of us, we feel most vulnerable when we don't know.  Caught in the conundrum between what we have learned academically and what we know in our hearts, doubt boils around God.  The mystery brings doubt and vulnerability...and peace and clear guidance.  It is all in the same pot.  Which will get my attention?  I am confident that when I can still the doubt and be comfortable with the vulnerability, I will find God.  And when I do, I will find the complete and utter peace that Dr. Taylor found. There I will find the answers.