Faith and Certainty

I would not know what to do with myself if there were nothing more to learn.  It occurred to me today that I might be forever a student of interesting things.  It occurred to someone else today that I ought to be happily paired with a Dom Priest.  (Do we know any ordained priests in the world?  I am no Christian, but I am Christ-Curious.)  And then, I began to think of everything that I knew of Christianity, because someone that I care about was hurting.  Surely, there would be comfort from her faith.  Surely there would be some magic word that would unlock the rush of soothing balm.  The problem with faith is that there is no certainty; and the problem of certainty is that it removes the blessing of faith.  This is the problem of Eve:  choosing certainty over faith.  And this is the healing restoration of Mary: believing instead of knowing; choosing Gabriel's word over the condemnation of just about everybody else in her life.  Mary's faith erases the original sin of Eve's certainty.  Jesus does for the world what Adam failed to do.  Christianity, therefore, abides; and Adamism died a quiet death shrouded in obscurity.

Personally, I live a life that I believe separates me from appetitive beasts in the world.  I strive to make decisions based on logic ("Live and let live") or self-sacrifice ("More for thee than me") as opposed to making decisions based on fear, hunger, or anxiety-avoidance.  I do not always succeed, of course; but I do strive.  What is my motivation? To separate myself from the appetites of the beast.  In other words, boobs and cocks are funny and adorable, but let's talk about important things like God and the nature of love.  While I'm bound in rope and hanging in a stone dungeon, listening to the Olympics.

I have felt hunger.  I have felt need.  I have felt as though the world were blessed and I had been cursed.  I have felt alone under a dark sky, and my face pelted with debris hurled by a screaming wind. And, I have turned around to look at where the wind was going.  It must be going somewhere extraordinary, because it carries everything there with it.  My thoughts, the red sky, even clouds are curious.  I know so much, and I seek to know so much more, and I remember the person who first shaped me and how well he controlled his appetite.  Even at his hungriest, he shared with me.  Even at his lowest, he spoke kindly to me.  Even feeling the most fear he had felt, he touched my hand tenderly.  When reduced to his most basic, primal self, even he did not growl and grunt like an angry ape: he closed his eyes gently and composed himself before uttering a word.  And so my model abides.  He made me, and he shapes me still, just as wind and water and fire made rock and shape it still.  Everything is in flux.  Everything, if you let it, grows.

I know how good it feels when wind blows me so strongly that I just go with it, not fighting it but letting myself be pushed along.  It is almost like flying.  I know how good it feels when the sun shines during a sun-shower of raindrops and hail.  I know how good it feels when I tiptoe over stone and grass and dirt, and then stand in the water and close my eyes.  It is another way to feel like I am in the right place.  I do not know God at all, and I do not know the amazing architect of the natural world.  I submit myself to the whimsy of wind and the life-force of water; to the passion of fire and to the steadiness of grounded earth.  I kneel before a clever man, and I myself have no certainty.  I have no need or hunger.  I know only that I wish to learn, and to keep learning, until I am no longer here.

(Many thanks go to Sir Will for taking me to this extraordinary Scottish place for some extraordinary picture-taking.  Loch Haven is just another reason why I love Second Life so much, and Sir Will is one more excellent human being that I am lucky to know.  I am truly blessed by my family and my friends.)