The Gift of Uncertainty
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by Janet Lane
Certainty is a thorny issue in religion. We humans have sought it in signs, moving words, transcendent states and in authorities. We want something solid to ground us, to orient us in a world where much happens that we do not understand. Some have preferred blind faith—a trust without justification. All of us live at the murky boundary between knowing and doubt.
Personally, I have come to think that full certainty is overrated. Doubt brings us closer to truth. Our beliefs evolve and improve as our knowledge improves. In exchange for the anchor of certainty we get something far more fulfilling: wonder. Wonder is the gift of uncertainty, for it allows us to discover the richness of life beyond our limited perspectives.
Albert Einstein said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” The wondrous, the mysterious, is the province of the scientists and the mystic. It opens to us if we become like Nietzsche’s Cosmic Dancer—willing to leave the safety of our known world and thoughts in order to explore the unknown as the one who lives with one foot in the realm of the certain, and the other in the uncertain. It is a dance of wonder.
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