Religion bore me, raised me, bathed me in its bliss of assurance and terror of significance, and gently tucked me in a dark room with doors closed to the bustle of outside voices that might share their secrets.
Before I spoke a word, my mind knew the name of Christ and trembled at its sound. But did it? Could I have possibly comprehended as an infant the plunging depth of the universe and time? Could I have grasped the burden we each carry to discover life’s essence, journeyed down the path of mystery, and emerged on the other side, enlightened, by the time I could consume carrots whole?
There is a strange misconception that in the rising dawn of our lives, we wretchedly and helplessly know nothing, then our knowledge suddenly skyrockets and we all at once know everything. Our parents, in their loving and gentle ways, profess truth as if they’ve unlocked it, not as if they are still finding it. The church, in an effort to guide, teaches us simply the answer to the world’s secrets, but not the equation.
A lover finds her husband radiant and exciting on the day of her wedding, but never knows the depths of his soul, the way time pushes and pulls at his heartstrings, the tinkerings that drive him to madness, and the shimmering light that brings him home until the last days they spend together. She may study him and ask every question she can conjure for an entire year, but there are no shortcuts to truly understanding the great complexities of a human being. If we multiply this great complexity by one million, we have not even come close to the wondrous profundity of life itself. Thus, we can assume, that even at the end of our days, we will have not come close to the conclusion of our own purpose, or the existence of God.
We should move forward in our search for meaning, not with the preconception that we are practicing what we already know, but that we are leaping off our past revelations toward the massive mystery ahead. We should assume that despite our research and hours spent thinking, we still know nothing. Like goldfish in a tiny bowl, we can’t even see what’s in the rest of the house, nonetheless, what is in the rest of the universe, or what the universe has to say.
We may press onward, pray, read, open our minds to new ideas, question the ones we once held and make changes, but never say that life has revealed its essence to us.
This daily act of submissive humility keeps us curious students of the earth’s mysteries and eager listeners of the Great Divinity. We will never grow bored or lonely while the waves of the sea still churn and the lush needles of the redwoods rustle, drawing us inward, beckoning us to ask them questions.