Of one thing in my life I am certain, there is no certainty. Although humans like to believe in certainty – in truisms, dogma, rules, and order – life continually has a way to show us that there is no certainty. Sister Joan Chittister says. “The problem is that certainty seduces us. It enables us to believe that what is said to be true is true because someone else said so. It simply cuts off thought…And yet we yearn for it with a passion.” We want to believe that what we have been taught or told is true, that we can count on the rules, the dogma, the theology unfailingly. Last week in central Texas was a case in point.

Average February temperatures in our area hover in the sixties for the highs and the forties for the lows. Last week the temperatures never got over freezing for three days. We had a constant drizzle that coated the trees with at least a half inch of ice. Now that the ice has melted there are downed trees and branches everywhere. There was no particular reason as to why hundred year old oaks fell along with branches from my ten year old crepe myrtle, why one tree was destroyed and others lost a few branches. There was no rule, no discernible reason that determined which tree lived or died.

What happens to us when there is no discernible reason for what occurs in our lives? What happens in the dark night of our souls when the rules have failed us?  What happens when the rules don’t fit our lives anymore? What happens when the things that we truly believed don’t work? We have been taught to believe that if we follow the rules, life will always be easy. Go to school, work hard, marry well, go to church, love God; then everything will be okay. Then something happens that doesn’t fit the narrative. A special needs child, serious illness, divorce, death, war, natural disasters. “But,” you say, “I followed all the rules. I am a good person. Why did this happen to me?”

The truth is that life is not certain. But it is in this very uncertainty that we learn to trust that the Divine holds us and loves us in spite of the world falling apart around us. It is in the darkness that we find new growth, new strength that we didn’t know we had. It isn’t in following the rules or the dogma that allows us to grow to our full potential, but rather in asking questions and opening ourselves to seeing the world a little differently that we find our strength and our wholeness.

The people in power desperately want the populace to believe in the rules. It is what keeps them in power. Their mantra is be compliant; don’t ask questions; follow the rules; believe the dogma, even when it doesn’t make sense in your life, even when it doesn’t seem the loving thing to do.

I say, “Question everything. Look at the rules with new eyes. Embrace the darkness. Be open to whatever comes.” Everything is not black or white, right or wrong, us or them. Nothing is certain. Everything is in flux. And that is the nature of life itself.

Barbara Garland
February, 2023