Date: I can’t remember
Tags: self-trust
From my early twenties and into my thirties, I have dared, to varying degrees in different seasons, to wander away from the shores of all that I thought I knew to be true. Given that I was heavily indoctrinated as a child to believe in fundamental Christianity as the ultimate reality, and that the consequence for rejecting that axiom is eternal torture and damnation, this exploration has been one of intense trepidation and ambivalence. To wander from the shores of belief is, after all, the ultimate sin.
However, I have never been able to deny the unease I have felt in the depths of me in my attempts to digest the doctrines I’ve been handed.
On what grounds can I attribute to them validity as ultimate truths? When I consider the fact that some of these precepts are not in resonance with my own constitution, and some are downright offensive to my soul, I’m compelled to make a choice between trusting myself or trusting what I have been told is true.
And on what grounds has this truth been established? I am told that it is on the basis that a certain book has been written by the hand of God and thus delivered to humanity as the infallible and ultimate law and expression of our Creator.
My life has been an exploration into the validity of this claim, and this venture has required that I “lose sight of the shore” of the axioms on which I once stood with such certainty.
In these last few years I have wandered further than ever before, and have faced some of my deepest fears along the way. I have experienced profound doubt in the quest itself, ever called back to the shore, where at least I was certain of some things. Now I wander into the unknown, a deeply destabilizing place to be.
But on this journey, as I grow paradoxically comfortable with being uncomfortable, I am finding my footing on a new sort of shore (or perhaps I’m learning to walk on water).
I am learning to reside in the unknown, to embrace uncertainty, and to allow myself to revel in the journey itself.
As soon as I relinquish the desire for comfort, all things become endurable.
The seas calm and the clouds break open to reveal a fresh sun, seen from a new vantage point - from a place somewhere very far from the shores of certainty.
Quote
“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time” - Andre Gide
Quote
“He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Links to
Manmade Structures & Freedom of Thought