KristyWes

Faith & Certainty

Anne Lamott writes the following in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith:

"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me - that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."

I read this yesterday and immediately thought of Frank, a guy that my friend, KT, and I met on Friday night and subsequently journeyed with on a seemingly-endless subway ride. How we came by Frank's acquaintance is a long story, but I will say that someone's uncle, an aerial advertising business, and a bar in the Lower East Side figured prominently.

We had been introduced to Frank by the aforementioned uncle, who noted that we all shared a common interest in the Bible. However, Frank's repeated references to the 144,000+ "elect," secret Bible codes, and peoples whom "God hates" tipped me off that perhaps Frank had a different sort of faith than me.

Frank's beliefs were further elucidated as the three of us left the LES and headed north on the 6-train. His matter-of-fact tone left no room for debate and he barely paused to let us ask questions; he spoke rapidly of 9-11 conspiracies, annual pagan retreats attended by major world leaders such as Tony Blair, concentration camps being built in Indiana, and exegesis of the Book of Revelation which foretold that 95% of the people currently on the subway train with us would not survive the coming destruction.

This last topic caused quite a few of the people on the train to turn and stare at us, as Frank was not exactly whispering. Thankfully our stop was next, and we quickly took our leave of Frank, amidst his promises to send us links to websites that would further explain these ideas.

What bothered me most, as I thought back over our encounter, was not the ideas themselves (though they were troubling) so much as the way Frank presented them: as unquestionable. Had he personally attended a pagan retreat with Tony Blair or known anyone who had? No. But his certainty of their existence was absolute, and his attitude clearly suggested that anyone who didn't know about the retreats (and everything else he spoke about) was stumbling in ignorance.

I thought, If Frank's demeanor is indicative of the "truth," then give me ignorance any day. It wasn't winsome. And it scared people on the subway! In his focus on & certainty of these conspiratorial facts and doomsday prophecies, faith, hope & love seemed absent from his message and worldview.

I'm not really sure how to conclude, except to say that my encounter with "certainty" last Friday led me to resonate with what Anne Lamott wrote above about faith. Certainty seems often to be dogmatic - a clinging to facts and precepts above all else, and prone to stagnation. Whereas perhaps faith is more responsive, flexible - stemming from and being rooted in the Living God, it is itself living. Certainty calls for you to be either all in or all out; faith makes statements like "I believe, help my unbelief" possible, lets us be messy, allows us to wade into God.

However, of all this I am not yet certain. :) I still have some more thinking to do.