LAO TZE, the ancient Chinese philosopher, once told about a man who dreamed he was a butterfly. When he awakened, he didnʼt know if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
Have you ever been at a place in your life where you werenʼt sure about what is real and what is only illusion? If you say no, you probably arenʼt very observant, because most of us arrive at such a place many times in our lives. It's like a spot to which we keep returning when our normal anchors to social reality, such as love and faith and friendship, arenʼt holding very well. For some of us, it's what Yogi Berra once called “déja vu all over again.”
Actually, this recurring sense of uncertainty is good for us, because it allows us to rethink things and decide what we really believe. If we donʼt ever challenge what we have accepted as the truly real in our lives, we canʼt grow beyond who we already are and reach any important new positions.
Churches and religious organizations that treat doubt and uncertainty as if they were anathema may grow because they appeal to people who donʼt like the sound of an uncertain trumpet, but I wouldnʼt want to belong to any of them because I would always think of them as ships that never leave the harbor to sail out into the deep and risk everything in a storm. If I remember the New Testament correctly, Jesus and his disciples were always riding out storms. |