MATCHING FAITH & DOUBT

Psychologist Erich Fromm snatched the truth from out of our lives when he said: "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." The funny thing is how many certainties we've arrived at without one iota of evidence. Simply sheer intuition...!

Intuition is as essential to our survival as strong arms and fast feet. On the other hand, it often tugs us into all-too comfortable certainties. Absolute convictions with which we go through life like a leopard does with its spots. No need to question them, for they are us.

Among the certainties some of us have grown up with and eventually out of: bacon & eggs are good you...don't swim right after eating...BB guns will poke out your eyes...wait till next year....oh and Aunt Margaret is only drinking that stuff for her cough.

OK, so we survived such little certainties. But there are larger ones: you can't defy the law of gravity...you can never go faster than the speed of light...America: love it or leave it....if I can dream it I can do it.

Certainty and uncertainty, faith and doubt, they stand together in our lives. But shoulder to shoulder, not toe to toe. They are not the natural enemies they seem to be. Yes, we live with faith in what we have reasonably come to believe, but always with enough doubt to question even what we most believe. It is precisely why our world honors such believing doubters as Abraham, Jesus, Mohamed, DaVinci, Beethoven, Van Gogh, Newton, Einstein, Buffet and Gates. Not to mention virtually every bright-eyed valedictorian at this spring's graduation ceremonies.

The human spirit has been demonized by thinkers from Calvin to Nietzsche, glorified by everyone from Norman Vincent Peal to Oprah Winfrey. Somewhere in between these extremes lies the truth. A persistent truth by which we hold fast to our certainties, but just as often re-test whether they are still able to carry our weight.

Onward....