Lent, Days 4 & 5: Knowledge
With our first Lenten feast day on Sunday, I had the opportunity to hang on to my day-four Lenten stone and consider it some more.
“Knowing,” it said; which, to me, meant
complete knowledge of the reality underneath my experiences; and/or
comprehension of Divine Reasoning behind my circumstances; and/or
prescience about what events are yet to come in my future.
Saying these expectations aloud—as it often does—helps to frame the impossibility of them. But even while acknowledging their loftiness, my heart still spent (honestly, spends: present tense) a great deal of time yearning after them.
The past two days had me wondering: maybe it's actually the not knowing that is the true gift. (It seems to be given to me in double-measures.) What if a certain amount of ignorance is beneficial for humans in order to lean into growth, trust, courage, mystery, creativity, and risk? For my personality, not being able to calculate the odds or predict the outcome often allows me to step quicker and further into curiosity, otherwise, I’m paralyzed, obsessing over all the unknowns.
About 18 years ago, I had a conversation with a mentor about this very subject that has stuck with me all this time. She was listening to me verbally process a job move from the public to the private school system. I was laying out my pros and cons and found them equally matched. This dear woman suggested that I take the risk and turn over the unknown stone to see what was beneath it. I lamented that I couldn’t see the future to know if I’d be making the right choice and she wisely countered with: “If we knew everything that was ahead of us, we’d never get out of bed in the morning.”
I think not knowing what will happen in my life gives me the gift of “what-if, ”releasing me to experiment and explore. On a macro level, I wonder if this practical lack of future knowledge is daily offering us a second gift: a familiarity with and growing endurance for the larger, more existential not knowing.
Working from an assumed premise that we humans are not the highest power in the universe, it appears that knowing is a gift reserved for the Something(s) bigger than us. Who knows if we will someday, finally, at last, gain the “knowing” we pursue, crave, grasp for, and fight over. But while we are here on a finite plane (as all the death around us seems to suggest), trying to find our place in a system that requires cooperation with others, may I suggest: the pursuit of too much knowledge, or at least certainty about the knowledge we’ve gained, seems to interfere with our ability to coexist.
For reasons many of us are daily trying to comprehend, our knowledge has been fragmented across time, space, and species. There are exciting places of congruence that we humans arrive at from vastly different starting points, but unfortunately, there are also certainties held by cultures and religions that are king for time (often accompanied by violence), and inevitably replaced by some other certainty of a newer era. I’ve often heard it said that every generation thinks it has cornered the market on truth—and as open-minded as I try to be, it’s hard not to fall into that rhythm of belief, myself.
All this contemplation occupied my day 4 of Lent. When I wrote the word “knowing” on my Lenten stone, I intended to represent that I was carrying the burden of wanting to know what was going to happen with me and my family—especially in terms of our church and work situation. I wanted to know what to expect communally and financially. I am tired of waiting to let it all happen to me; I don’t want to be blindsided. It seems like an innocent request, to be given even a tiny clue as to the train that is coming. For me to release this “stone” would mean to try to live into this current moment instead of keeping my head in the clouded future, using all my emotional and physical energy to strain to see through a fog that is not going to lift.
This commitment to leaning into trust and pouring focus into the now led me to contemplate other areas where knowledge pulls me away from these same things. Yesterday especially, I felt very aware of the many places where parts of my community have or are now intersecting due to folks switching denominations, churches, friend groups, or philosophies and connecting with each other in new places and new ways. My past self would feel tender and nervous when folks exited my philosophy to embrace another. I grew up believing that agreement to the same set of knowledge, belief, or perspective is the Prime Directive for relationships. So to find myself unaligned on some big and important ideas with folks I love and respect is pressure on a muscle I’m only newly exercising–it still needs strengthening.
I realized that to set down the burden that is knowing is a bit bigger than previously intended. It also means for me to relinquish control over the spiritual journeys and narratives of others in my life. It is an opportunity for me to continue to explore the practical ways I can spend relational energy in both listening to other perspectives and experiences, and responding in ways that protect and support that person’s dignity and the value of their story.
I think there is a burden part of “knowing” and a joy part of “knowing.” The pursuit of knowledge is a deep and abiding joy for me. I love to share perspectives, make connections, and explore the roots of ideas and philosophies. I have found this work of investigation to be fruitful and enlivening. It has increased the depth and breadth of my ability to see, deepened my love for the Divine, and enriched my participation in the world. Knowledge is truly a gift that gives exponentially. I want to lean into the joy part and release the burden–which is to say, relinquish the parts that lead to anxiety about the unknown, and control or dogmatism. I want my pursuit of knowledge to be a gift received and given to others.
Today, I take this stone that represents knowledge and paint it gold as a symbol that in right pursuit, it is a precious gift. May this serve as a reminder that knowledge should be sunshine, not fog, and as I chase it, the knowledge I seek and acquire should emanate and expand that light to the world around me.
