This is a very short little piece of my spiritual heart at the moment. My friend asked me to get up in church and share it and I'm so mad that because I am just an emotionally vulnerable person, my darn voice gets shaky and I have to pause and cry throughout the whole thing. It makes me so mad because I want to speak these words with clarity and looking out at everyone with ease. I guess that's why writing is so well suited for folks like myself, the words do the talking, not my shaky little heart.
I wish I could stand and say that I know with certainly more things than I actually feel I do. There is safety and peace in knowing some things, or lots of things, and so, although many of the things that seemed so certain to me at other points in my life now simply reside in the hopes and beliefs part of my heart, I have not given up the search and wrestle for knowing more.
In that vulnerable, frightening and exhilarating place where you realize you are so small and how could you really know anything? In that space, where everything feels stripped away, I've realized that when I put my mind and spirit to the task, I do know how to listen, and what I'm hearing so often is a voice that is far more noble, loving and selfless than I know how to be. I heard a voice that told me to run to Thea when she'd snuck up a wooden staircase and was about to fall. I heard a voice that encouraged me to look for a job on craigslist one night (which I never have done before or after), and found and got my dream job teaching art to low-income children.
I believe these are guidances from Heavenly parents, who both love me very much, even in my undeserved state. The most lovely Beings who certainly must know the inner workings of my greatest happiness. I know that the love I have been endowed with for the tiny nursery children I teach each week is something greater than myself, and so for now, that is enough. That joy is a privilege and it keeps me believing. Believing and hoping for what, I'm not even sure. It turns out that surety, absolute certainty can be a dull place to linger at times. I am interested in the ups and downs, in the extremities of a spiritual life. Some people have colloquially referred to my state as a 'crisis of faith', and indeed there are times in my myopic life that it does seem that way, but the deeper I get into knowing hardly anything for sure, the more vibrant those moments of spiritual affirmations become. It is a good place to be, and I wouldn't exchange my experience.
2 comments:
I feel such a kinship with you when you write like this. I don't like the term 'crisis of faith' either. I'm not in crisis. I'm searching and yearning.
I love having someone like you to articulate what I cannot, and so beautifully.
I'm afraid to leave comments on blogs that belong to people I haven't met, but I actually have met you. I even attended your wedding reception with the man who became my husband, an old high school pal of yours.
I check your blog often and am so excited when you have a new post for me to read. Even though I've met you but don't know you, I like you.
Over the last year I've tried to classify a wide range of ideas into three columns: Believe, Hope, and Know. The list of Knows is surprisingly brief, and the Believes and Hopes quite lengthy. Sometimes a single idea fits into two or three columns. I'm not sure if this has been a healthy exercise, and I've backed off it because the complex things recently and miraculously became simple to me again. But in the process I learned that saying "I believe ______" is actually a great declaration of faith and is often more accurate than stating, "I know ______."
Sometimes I feel a little lost amidst the platitudes shared in Fast and Testimony Meeting. However, I think a lot of people say "I know" but really mean "I believe." They just don't care about precision of language like I do.
Believing requires bravery; something you clearly have in abundance.
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