Creating Our Own Happiness
Wayne Coyne - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
I was sitting in my car at a stoplight intersection listening to the radio. I was, I guess, lost in the moment, thinking how happy I was to be inside my nice warm car. It was cold and windy outside, and I thought, “Life is good.”
Now this was a long light. As I waited, I noticed two people huddled together at the bus stop. To my eyes, they looked uncomfortable; they looked cold and they looked poor. Their coats looked like they came from a thrift store. They weren’t wearing stuff from The Gap. I knew it because I’d been there.
This couple seemed to be doing their best to keep warm. They were huddled together and I thought to myself, “Oh, those poor people in that punishing wind.”
But then I saw their faces. Yes, they were huddling, but they were also laughing. They looked to be sharing a good joke, and, suddenly, instead of pitying them, I envied them. I thought, “Huh, what’s so funny?” They didn’t seem to notice the wind. They weren’t worried about their clothes. They weren’t looking at my car thinking, “I wish I had that.”
You know how a single moment can feel like an hour? Well, in that moment, I realized I had assumed this couple needed my pity, but they didn’t. I assumed things were all bad for them, but they weren’t and I understood we all have the power to make moments of happiness happen.
Now maybe that’s easy for me to say. I feel lucky to have fans around the world, a house with a roof, and a wife who puts up with me. But I must say I felt this way even when I was working at Long John Silver’s. I worked there for eleven years as a fry cook. When you work at a place that long, you see teenagers coming in on their first dates; then they’re married; then they’re bringing in their kids. You witness whole sections of people’s lives.
In the beginning it seemed like a dead-end job. But at least I had a job. And frankly, it was easy. After two weeks, I knew all I needed to know, and it freed my mind. The job allowed me to dream about what my life could become. The first year I worked there, we got robbed. I lay on the floor; I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think I stood a chance. But everything turned out all right. A lot of people look at life as a series of miserable tasks but after that, I didn’t.
I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we’re actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for, or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.
This I believe.........
Moderator: Fist and Faith
I Agree With A Pagan
Arnold Toynbee - London, England
June 18, 2010
Arnold J. Toynbee was the author of the monumental “A Study of History,” a 12-volume analysis of world civilization. Toynbee was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conferences at the end of World Wars I and II. He also served as director of studies at the Royal Institute for International Affairs for several decades.
I believe there may be some things that some people may know for certain, but I also believe that these knowable things aren’t what matters most to any human being. A good mathematician may know the truth about numbers, and a good engineer may know how to make physical forces serve his purposes. But the engineer and the mathematician are human beings first—so for them, as well as for me, what matters most is not one’s knowledge and skill, but one’s relations with other people. We don’t all have to be engineers or mathematicians, but we do all have to deal with other people. And these relations of ours with each other, which are the really important things in life, are also the really difficult things, because it is here that the question of right and wrong comes in.
I believe we have no certain knowledge of what is right and wrong and even if we had, I believe we should find it just as hard as ever to do something that we knew for certain to be right in the teeth of our personal interests and inclinations. Actually, we have to make the best judgment we can about what is right and then we have to bet on it by trying to make ourselves act on it, without being sure about it.
Since we can never be sure, we have to try to be charitable and open to persuasion that we may, after all, have been in the wrong, and at the same time we have to be resolute and energetic in what we do in order to be effective. It is difficult enough to combine effectiveness with humility and charity in trying to do what is right, but it is still more difficult to try to do right at all, because this means fighting oneself.
Trying to do right does mean fighting oneself, because, by nature, each of us feels and behaves as if he were the center and the purpose of the universe. But I do feel sure that I am not that, and that, in behaving as if I were, I am going wrong. So one has to fight oneself all the time, and this means that suffering is not only inevitable, but is an indispensable part of a lifelong education, if only one can learn how to profit by it. I believe that everything worth winning does have its price in suffering, and I know, of course, where this belief of mine comes from. It comes from the accident of my having been born in a country where the local religion has been Christianity.
Another belief that I owe to Christianity is a conviction that love is what gives life its meaning and purpose, and that suffering is profitable when it is met in the course of following love’s lead. But I can’t honestly call myself a believing Christian in the traditional sense. To imagine one’s own church, civilization, nation, or family is the chosen people is, I believe, as wrong as it would be for me to imagine that I myself am God. I agree with Symmachus, the pagan philosopher who put the case for toleration to a victorious Christian church, and I will end by quoting his words: “The universe is too great a mystery for there to be only one single approach to it.”
Arnold Toynbee - London, England
June 18, 2010
Arnold J. Toynbee was the author of the monumental “A Study of History,” a 12-volume analysis of world civilization. Toynbee was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conferences at the end of World Wars I and II. He also served as director of studies at the Royal Institute for International Affairs for several decades.
I believe there may be some things that some people may know for certain, but I also believe that these knowable things aren’t what matters most to any human being. A good mathematician may know the truth about numbers, and a good engineer may know how to make physical forces serve his purposes. But the engineer and the mathematician are human beings first—so for them, as well as for me, what matters most is not one’s knowledge and skill, but one’s relations with other people. We don’t all have to be engineers or mathematicians, but we do all have to deal with other people. And these relations of ours with each other, which are the really important things in life, are also the really difficult things, because it is here that the question of right and wrong comes in.
I believe we have no certain knowledge of what is right and wrong and even if we had, I believe we should find it just as hard as ever to do something that we knew for certain to be right in the teeth of our personal interests and inclinations. Actually, we have to make the best judgment we can about what is right and then we have to bet on it by trying to make ourselves act on it, without being sure about it.
Since we can never be sure, we have to try to be charitable and open to persuasion that we may, after all, have been in the wrong, and at the same time we have to be resolute and energetic in what we do in order to be effective. It is difficult enough to combine effectiveness with humility and charity in trying to do what is right, but it is still more difficult to try to do right at all, because this means fighting oneself.
Trying to do right does mean fighting oneself, because, by nature, each of us feels and behaves as if he were the center and the purpose of the universe. But I do feel sure that I am not that, and that, in behaving as if I were, I am going wrong. So one has to fight oneself all the time, and this means that suffering is not only inevitable, but is an indispensable part of a lifelong education, if only one can learn how to profit by it. I believe that everything worth winning does have its price in suffering, and I know, of course, where this belief of mine comes from. It comes from the accident of my having been born in a country where the local religion has been Christianity.
Another belief that I owe to Christianity is a conviction that love is what gives life its meaning and purpose, and that suffering is profitable when it is met in the course of following love’s lead. But I can’t honestly call myself a believing Christian in the traditional sense. To imagine one’s own church, civilization, nation, or family is the chosen people is, I believe, as wrong as it would be for me to imagine that I myself am God. I agree with Symmachus, the pagan philosopher who put the case for toleration to a victorious Christian church, and I will end by quoting his words: “The universe is too great a mystery for there to be only one single approach to it.”
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
This I Believe
Chris - South Portland, Maine
Entered on June 21, 2005
I have come to believe in miracles…
Little gifts, really… presented like life rings in the midst of disaster.
You see, my mother was sad;
Always crying, drinking, eyes at half mast;
Even trying to kill herself when nothing made sense.
I was born to make her happy… and to keep my father married to her.
I kept her company, listened to her secrets, kept away the silence.
Yet in the midst of that craziness, I was given little gifts of being well loved.
Like wonderful old, gravely-voiced Corky, who worked in the shoe department at a behemoth store in downtown Fort Wayne. While my mother shopped, I would play at Corky’s side or hide under the mile-high counter as she waited on customers. How was it that I was never in the way? And in the breaks, Corky would pull me up into her lap as I recited my latest rhyme or cracked her up with a hundred knock-knock jokes. She was my never satiated audience of one. When I was with Corky, I was the very best and only.
And there was Charlotte: an odd, overweight woman of unknown age with missing teeth, a young son and a mother who lived with them. That was their family. They looked poor, talked loud, frequently used the wrong words and, unlike my family, did nothing to try to look any different than they were. Oh, yea, and Charlotte loved kids, including me – a teenager! Somehow, she would look right past all the stuff everyone else thought was me and talk to me like she knew what was inside. She made me do crazy things and didn’t care when I soaked her with the hose at the car wash. I secretly admired her more than just about anyone I knew. Very secretly, for she was the butt of many jokes at my house. But I knew she was better than us – ’cause at my house I couldn’t breathe, but when I was with Charlotte, it was like my lungs opened right up and gulped down the freshest, happiest air I ever knew.
Even the good days with my mother still evoke a deep longing in me. Our long drives in the car with the predictable stop for hot chocolate and “grown up” conversation, our delight every time “Alley Cat” came on the radio and, as dusk lowered the shades, I would curl up on the seat next to her, my head in her lap and the low rumble of the road escaping beneath me as she hummed in her rich, deep alto voice. That sound – no, that sensation – vibrated through my body as if the angels themselves had come from the depths of the warm earth and wrapped their arms around me.
So the little gifts are given.
In the confusion of craziness, in the midst of disaster, help always comes. It can seem fleeting for sure, but help always comes.
And we survive.
And we remember.
And we thrive.
Chris - South Portland, Maine
Entered on June 21, 2005
I have come to believe in miracles…
Little gifts, really… presented like life rings in the midst of disaster.
You see, my mother was sad;
Always crying, drinking, eyes at half mast;
Even trying to kill herself when nothing made sense.
I was born to make her happy… and to keep my father married to her.
I kept her company, listened to her secrets, kept away the silence.
Yet in the midst of that craziness, I was given little gifts of being well loved.
Like wonderful old, gravely-voiced Corky, who worked in the shoe department at a behemoth store in downtown Fort Wayne. While my mother shopped, I would play at Corky’s side or hide under the mile-high counter as she waited on customers. How was it that I was never in the way? And in the breaks, Corky would pull me up into her lap as I recited my latest rhyme or cracked her up with a hundred knock-knock jokes. She was my never satiated audience of one. When I was with Corky, I was the very best and only.
And there was Charlotte: an odd, overweight woman of unknown age with missing teeth, a young son and a mother who lived with them. That was their family. They looked poor, talked loud, frequently used the wrong words and, unlike my family, did nothing to try to look any different than they were. Oh, yea, and Charlotte loved kids, including me – a teenager! Somehow, she would look right past all the stuff everyone else thought was me and talk to me like she knew what was inside. She made me do crazy things and didn’t care when I soaked her with the hose at the car wash. I secretly admired her more than just about anyone I knew. Very secretly, for she was the butt of many jokes at my house. But I knew she was better than us – ’cause at my house I couldn’t breathe, but when I was with Charlotte, it was like my lungs opened right up and gulped down the freshest, happiest air I ever knew.
Even the good days with my mother still evoke a deep longing in me. Our long drives in the car with the predictable stop for hot chocolate and “grown up” conversation, our delight every time “Alley Cat” came on the radio and, as dusk lowered the shades, I would curl up on the seat next to her, my head in her lap and the low rumble of the road escaping beneath me as she hummed in her rich, deep alto voice. That sound – no, that sensation – vibrated through my body as if the angels themselves had come from the depths of the warm earth and wrapped their arms around me.
So the little gifts are given.
In the confusion of craziness, in the midst of disaster, help always comes. It can seem fleeting for sure, but help always comes.
And we survive.
And we remember.
And we thrive.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
The Value of the Middle
Cande Iveson - Columbia, Missouri
January 27, 2012
I was born in the middle, geographically speaking, in the heart of the country: Missouri. In my six-year-old head, I could play it all out: our house in the middle of town; my town in the middle of the state; my state in the middle of the United States; the United States in the middle of North America; the pattern extending out to the farthest reaches of the starry universe. As a child, being in the middle seemed somehow extraordinary, magical, fabulous—the best place to be.
Growing up, I came to understand that the middle was also a place between two opposing points of view.
And in the last few years this middle ground hasn’t been so comfortable. I’ve even doubted whether there was a real middle, or just an empty space between extremes. There seemed some pervasive expectation that sufficient force would persuade people in the middle to choose, picking one extreme over the other. It felt like an English speaker trying to communicate with a non-English speaker: If they don’t understand you the first time, speak louder—as if clarity comes from volume alone.
Add the implication that those in the middle were somehow flawed, weak or indecisive and you have bleak times indeed!
Today, I reject this implication and, confidently, I reaffirm my belief in the intrinsic value of the middle. I can be (and am) a political independent with Democratic and Republican friends, social and professional. I comfortably hold some deep and traditional religious values within the context of my more freethinking faith tradition. In matters of public policy I am soundly liberal (soft-hearted) and fiscally conservative (hard-headed). I am a patriot without a flag decal. I am a true believer in things that I can’t see and I think faith is all about doubt. None of these strike me as contradictory.
Being in the middle is more than not being something else. It is not just a non-extreme, a non-position, but has its own, legitimate, truth.
I also believe that there are a huge number of other people in the middle. Just like me they have felt jaded, excluded, isolated, helpless. They don’t see themselves, their values, reflected in either extreme. They see the focus on extremes as a tug-of-war offering limited positive outcomes. A taut rope either breaks in the middle or one side prevails, leaving a significant percentage of players in an untenable heap.
I believe it is possible for a strong middle to break this stalemate with strong values, clear insights, resistance to extreme choices and sheer numbers. I believe in a radical, activist middle that will restore our sense of balance, and I am ready to participate. I believe that being in the middle can, once again, seem extraordinary, magical and fabulous—the best place to be.
thisibelieve.org/essay/4996/
Cande Iveson - Columbia, Missouri
January 27, 2012
I was born in the middle, geographically speaking, in the heart of the country: Missouri. In my six-year-old head, I could play it all out: our house in the middle of town; my town in the middle of the state; my state in the middle of the United States; the United States in the middle of North America; the pattern extending out to the farthest reaches of the starry universe. As a child, being in the middle seemed somehow extraordinary, magical, fabulous—the best place to be.
Growing up, I came to understand that the middle was also a place between two opposing points of view.
And in the last few years this middle ground hasn’t been so comfortable. I’ve even doubted whether there was a real middle, or just an empty space between extremes. There seemed some pervasive expectation that sufficient force would persuade people in the middle to choose, picking one extreme over the other. It felt like an English speaker trying to communicate with a non-English speaker: If they don’t understand you the first time, speak louder—as if clarity comes from volume alone.
Add the implication that those in the middle were somehow flawed, weak or indecisive and you have bleak times indeed!
Today, I reject this implication and, confidently, I reaffirm my belief in the intrinsic value of the middle. I can be (and am) a political independent with Democratic and Republican friends, social and professional. I comfortably hold some deep and traditional religious values within the context of my more freethinking faith tradition. In matters of public policy I am soundly liberal (soft-hearted) and fiscally conservative (hard-headed). I am a patriot without a flag decal. I am a true believer in things that I can’t see and I think faith is all about doubt. None of these strike me as contradictory.
Being in the middle is more than not being something else. It is not just a non-extreme, a non-position, but has its own, legitimate, truth.
I also believe that there are a huge number of other people in the middle. Just like me they have felt jaded, excluded, isolated, helpless. They don’t see themselves, their values, reflected in either extreme. They see the focus on extremes as a tug-of-war offering limited positive outcomes. A taut rope either breaks in the middle or one side prevails, leaving a significant percentage of players in an untenable heap.
I believe it is possible for a strong middle to break this stalemate with strong values, clear insights, resistance to extreme choices and sheer numbers. I believe in a radical, activist middle that will restore our sense of balance, and I am ready to participate. I believe that being in the middle can, once again, seem extraordinary, magical and fabulous—the best place to be.
thisibelieve.org/essay/4996/
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
The Imperfect Traces Left by Human Hands
T. Susan Chang - Leverett, Massachusetts
I am a child of the digital age, but I believe in analog.
I love the hiss and pop of vinyl, and the black splotch in the corner when a movie changes reels. I enjoy the hushed, uneven ticking of a windup watch. I love handwriting.
I believe in analog because it captures the imperfect traces left behind by human hands — smudges and echoes that can’t disappear with the touch of a delete key.
I didn’t always feel this way. In 1985 my sister returned from Germany with a CD player, the first any of us had ever seen, and I marveled at the slick, featureless disc. I officially went digital in college when I bought my first computer. Mine was a Macintosh with two floppy drives and no hard drive. My boyfriend bought me 1 MB of RAM for my birthday and presented it to me in a jewel box.
Some years later, I found my husband on the Internet. It was 1997 and we were in the vanguard of the cyber-dating scene. We swapped e-mails for a whole month before meeting, which most people found outlandish. We were on the cover of a book. I went on Oprah. We married in a year, left the city and found a house on realtor.com.
But something was changing in me. As the world went digital and the Matrix movies played to packed houses, I found myself drawn to fountain pens, clothbound books and bargain-priced LPs.
One night the fuses blew and my husband and I had to choose between light and music for our one remaining outlet. We opted for music and sat close together in the darkness as the worn out needle brought Art Pepper back from the dead, his saxophone weaving cracked tapestries of sound.
Today I am a food writer. I live in the realm of the tactile, which could be the last stronghold of the analog world. I think that taste, smell and touch are like the armies of the resistance, hiding underground while their flashy audiovisual siblings take the world by storm.
Sometimes, my husband and I hold hands and scan the sky for constellations, roughly sketching the seasons as they pass overhead. “Is it November already,” we ask each other when Orion rises into view. It’s a way of keeping time, inexact at best, but it’s a better reminder than the digital alarm clock that wakes us each day at 5 a.m.
When my husband and I first met online a decade ago, we were digital, virtual and filled with instant certainty. But today, our actual lives are analog by nature. We live in the country, where dial-up is standard and sometimes progress just puts its feet up and takes a nap. We live our lives based on his best guess and mine.
Maybe the digital revolution, like an irrational number, will never come to an end. But for me there will always be a place for the whisper, the crackle, the shades of mottled gray. For the sake of my own imperfect soul, I believe in analog.
T. Susan Chang - Leverett, Massachusetts
I am a child of the digital age, but I believe in analog.
I love the hiss and pop of vinyl, and the black splotch in the corner when a movie changes reels. I enjoy the hushed, uneven ticking of a windup watch. I love handwriting.
I believe in analog because it captures the imperfect traces left behind by human hands — smudges and echoes that can’t disappear with the touch of a delete key.
I didn’t always feel this way. In 1985 my sister returned from Germany with a CD player, the first any of us had ever seen, and I marveled at the slick, featureless disc. I officially went digital in college when I bought my first computer. Mine was a Macintosh with two floppy drives and no hard drive. My boyfriend bought me 1 MB of RAM for my birthday and presented it to me in a jewel box.
Some years later, I found my husband on the Internet. It was 1997 and we were in the vanguard of the cyber-dating scene. We swapped e-mails for a whole month before meeting, which most people found outlandish. We were on the cover of a book. I went on Oprah. We married in a year, left the city and found a house on realtor.com.
But something was changing in me. As the world went digital and the Matrix movies played to packed houses, I found myself drawn to fountain pens, clothbound books and bargain-priced LPs.
One night the fuses blew and my husband and I had to choose between light and music for our one remaining outlet. We opted for music and sat close together in the darkness as the worn out needle brought Art Pepper back from the dead, his saxophone weaving cracked tapestries of sound.
Today I am a food writer. I live in the realm of the tactile, which could be the last stronghold of the analog world. I think that taste, smell and touch are like the armies of the resistance, hiding underground while their flashy audiovisual siblings take the world by storm.
Sometimes, my husband and I hold hands and scan the sky for constellations, roughly sketching the seasons as they pass overhead. “Is it November already,” we ask each other when Orion rises into view. It’s a way of keeping time, inexact at best, but it’s a better reminder than the digital alarm clock that wakes us each day at 5 a.m.
When my husband and I first met online a decade ago, we were digital, virtual and filled with instant certainty. But today, our actual lives are analog by nature. We live in the country, where dial-up is standard and sometimes progress just puts its feet up and takes a nap. We live our lives based on his best guess and mine.
Maybe the digital revolution, like an irrational number, will never come to an end. But for me there will always be a place for the whisper, the crackle, the shades of mottled gray. For the sake of my own imperfect soul, I believe in analog.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
I Am Jedi (And a Quarter Irish)
Montana - Broomfield, Colorado
Entered on April 25, 2010
When I was four years old, my dad and I went to go see the re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope in theaters. The whole place was packed full of people with swords made of blue plastic that were holstered in utility belts fastened around their hooded bathrobes. The people there, who were mostly one size and shape (short and quite large around the middle), were gathered in large groups on the sticky theater floor eating red licorice, drinking highly caffeinated beverages that were the color of radioactive waste, and playing games involving dice with 20 sides or more and hardcover books that they kept referring to as “the manual”. The minute I entered the theater, I caught everyone’s attention. They looked at me as if I was the Baby Jesus, and they were the Wisemen about to give me gifts of gold. They all proudly nodded at me as I walked by. It was my initiation into their “Galaxy Far Far Away”. And I was accepted into it without having to travel a single Parsec.
As we walked to our seats, I turned to my dad and asked, “Dad, what’s a Trekkie?” Without a moment of hesitation, he answered, “A misguided soul who is about as useful as Darth Vader’s inhaler.” I pretended like his answer made sense, and took my seat next to George Lucas’s doppelganger. I probably looked more out of place sitting next to him than a Vulcan on a Millennium Falcon.
As I waited for the movie to start, I watched two cloaked men fight each other with plastic swords, listened to a joke that started with the line, “A Paladin and a Priest walk into a canteen…”, and sat by while a group of men with goatees talked about “The One Ring to Rule them All” (which I assumed was just a clever way of saying you were getting married) and a game called “Warcraft” (which I thought involved Elmer’s Glue and construction paper). I was so happy, I thought I’d died and gone to Cloud City. Sure, I didn’t understand a single thing that was happening, but it didn’t matter. Because for the first time in my life, I was finally accepted as the eager little nerd I was. Surrounded by Nerf Herders and Jedi Knights, I felt like this was the only place I ever needed to belong to. And I was right. Because it’s impossible to be alone when you’re so accepted by so many. This is why I believe in The Force.
Montana - Broomfield, Colorado
Entered on April 25, 2010
When I was four years old, my dad and I went to go see the re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope in theaters. The whole place was packed full of people with swords made of blue plastic that were holstered in utility belts fastened around their hooded bathrobes. The people there, who were mostly one size and shape (short and quite large around the middle), were gathered in large groups on the sticky theater floor eating red licorice, drinking highly caffeinated beverages that were the color of radioactive waste, and playing games involving dice with 20 sides or more and hardcover books that they kept referring to as “the manual”. The minute I entered the theater, I caught everyone’s attention. They looked at me as if I was the Baby Jesus, and they were the Wisemen about to give me gifts of gold. They all proudly nodded at me as I walked by. It was my initiation into their “Galaxy Far Far Away”. And I was accepted into it without having to travel a single Parsec.
As we walked to our seats, I turned to my dad and asked, “Dad, what’s a Trekkie?” Without a moment of hesitation, he answered, “A misguided soul who is about as useful as Darth Vader’s inhaler.” I pretended like his answer made sense, and took my seat next to George Lucas’s doppelganger. I probably looked more out of place sitting next to him than a Vulcan on a Millennium Falcon.
As I waited for the movie to start, I watched two cloaked men fight each other with plastic swords, listened to a joke that started with the line, “A Paladin and a Priest walk into a canteen…”, and sat by while a group of men with goatees talked about “The One Ring to Rule them All” (which I assumed was just a clever way of saying you were getting married) and a game called “Warcraft” (which I thought involved Elmer’s Glue and construction paper). I was so happy, I thought I’d died and gone to Cloud City. Sure, I didn’t understand a single thing that was happening, but it didn’t matter. Because for the first time in my life, I was finally accepted as the eager little nerd I was. Surrounded by Nerf Herders and Jedi Knights, I felt like this was the only place I ever needed to belong to. And I was right. Because it’s impossible to be alone when you’re so accepted by so many. This is why I believe in The Force.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
I Could Be Wrong
Allan Barger - Palm Springs, California
I believe in uncertainty. I believe that the four words “I could be wrong” should be etched above every schoolroom, house of worship, political assembly hall, and scientific laboratory. Uncertainty is an odd creed, but I find it deeply spiritual, combining humility and a deep respect for the mysteries of God and life. It’s not an easy creed.
My conversion to uncertainty came from my life. As an evangelical Christian and a pastor, I spent years trying to reconcile my religious certainties with the certain fact that I was gay. I tried being not gay for almost twenty-five years only to find I had simply been wrong. It didn’t help, and it didn’t stop. In the process I hurt myself, and worse, I hurt others. Sometimes, no matter how certain I am, life and God hand me a different message. This was my hardest lesson in uncertainty. I didn’t lose faith in God, but I certainly lost faith in certainty.
My commitment to uncertainty grows today because I see an appalling excess of certainty around me. It seems to me that certainty visits a great many evils upon the world. I see religions lose their humanity because they are certain they know divinity. Some commit acts of terror and others acts of political intolerance all in the name of God. I watch political certainties create inflexibility in the face of changing information and situations. I see scientific researchers sidelined by other scientists when their theories challenge the scientific orthodoxy—sidelined not because they lack sound evidence but because accepting their evidence means rethinking cherished certainties. It’s human to resist uncertainty. I resist it myself. But when my certainties are in overdrive, I act as if the truth will die if I can’t make you see it and then I can do terrible things. I need uncertainty to keep me humble.
Some ask me if it’s crippling to always question myself. I find it uncomfortable, but not crippling. I act with more confidence if I know in my heart that I’m willing to abandon my certainties if the facts, or the outcomes, turn out wrong. Today, as a teacher and a research analyst, I have certain knowledge. I’m also pretty certain what I want for my children and grandchildren. I’m politically active because I hold certainties about human equality, democracy, and spirituality. I’m certain of a great many things, but I embrace uncertainty because it makes me a better person. I do make mistakes; it’s part of being human. The real error is to be too certain to see my mistakes. Certainty becomes a prison for my mind. Humble uncertainty lets the truth emerge. That’s why I believe in uncertainty—but I could be wrong.
Allan Barger - Palm Springs, California
I believe in uncertainty. I believe that the four words “I could be wrong” should be etched above every schoolroom, house of worship, political assembly hall, and scientific laboratory. Uncertainty is an odd creed, but I find it deeply spiritual, combining humility and a deep respect for the mysteries of God and life. It’s not an easy creed.
My conversion to uncertainty came from my life. As an evangelical Christian and a pastor, I spent years trying to reconcile my religious certainties with the certain fact that I was gay. I tried being not gay for almost twenty-five years only to find I had simply been wrong. It didn’t help, and it didn’t stop. In the process I hurt myself, and worse, I hurt others. Sometimes, no matter how certain I am, life and God hand me a different message. This was my hardest lesson in uncertainty. I didn’t lose faith in God, but I certainly lost faith in certainty.
My commitment to uncertainty grows today because I see an appalling excess of certainty around me. It seems to me that certainty visits a great many evils upon the world. I see religions lose their humanity because they are certain they know divinity. Some commit acts of terror and others acts of political intolerance all in the name of God. I watch political certainties create inflexibility in the face of changing information and situations. I see scientific researchers sidelined by other scientists when their theories challenge the scientific orthodoxy—sidelined not because they lack sound evidence but because accepting their evidence means rethinking cherished certainties. It’s human to resist uncertainty. I resist it myself. But when my certainties are in overdrive, I act as if the truth will die if I can’t make you see it and then I can do terrible things. I need uncertainty to keep me humble.
Some ask me if it’s crippling to always question myself. I find it uncomfortable, but not crippling. I act with more confidence if I know in my heart that I’m willing to abandon my certainties if the facts, or the outcomes, turn out wrong. Today, as a teacher and a research analyst, I have certain knowledge. I’m also pretty certain what I want for my children and grandchildren. I’m politically active because I hold certainties about human equality, democracy, and spirituality. I’m certain of a great many things, but I embrace uncertainty because it makes me a better person. I do make mistakes; it’s part of being human. The real error is to be too certain to see my mistakes. Certainty becomes a prison for my mind. Humble uncertainty lets the truth emerge. That’s why I believe in uncertainty—but I could be wrong.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
We Are All Stardust
Kimberly Woodbury - New Haven, Connecticut
I remember an article about a group of astrophysicists who sent a probe deep into space. They sent it to a place so far away that you would expect only bottomless silence. And instead they found waves — sound waves that they traced all the way back to the Big Bang.
I believe that those sound waves carry the borning cry of the cosmos. That a whisper from God’s lips created all that is and all that was and all that will be, and that that whisper set it into motion in a cataclysm so great that 14-billion years later those sound waves still echoes through a world without end.
My father used to tell me that I was stardust. It wasn’t until I was grown that I learned that he stole the line from Joni Mitchell. But it’s still true. Every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle that ever was came into being with that whispered word of God. And they are all still here, circulating through the universe and binding us to each other through all of time and space.
I believe that I will, during my lifetime, inhale seven of the very same molecules of air that were exhaled by the incarnate Christ. I believe this because I did the math. I really did.
It’s where the energy came from, too –- from God’s great cataclysm. All of the energy born at the dawn of creation still dances through the universe. Energy, traveling on different wavelengths, changing from gamma rays to x rays, to heat and to light. We say that God is light, and imagine celestial illumination — a ray of light, a ray of hope, the eye-light of a newborn savior, carrying God’s love directly into human hearts. I do believe that this is so.
But I also believe that God is a like a single photon, a particle of light so mysterious that it makes me think of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: We can never know exactly both its position and its composition. If we try to hold onto a photon, to slow it down enough so that we can really see it, we find that we have, in our grasping, lost the very thing we sought to hold. I think I do this to God when I try to make Her small enough to understand.
I believe that those sound waves are a siren call of invitation. Invitation to remember that we are all stardust and that we are all connected, each to each. Invitation to let go and to follow a dancing wave to the edge of mystery, where the God who is among us waits in bottomless silence.
Kimberly Woodbury - New Haven, Connecticut
I remember an article about a group of astrophysicists who sent a probe deep into space. They sent it to a place so far away that you would expect only bottomless silence. And instead they found waves — sound waves that they traced all the way back to the Big Bang.
I believe that those sound waves carry the borning cry of the cosmos. That a whisper from God’s lips created all that is and all that was and all that will be, and that that whisper set it into motion in a cataclysm so great that 14-billion years later those sound waves still echoes through a world without end.
My father used to tell me that I was stardust. It wasn’t until I was grown that I learned that he stole the line from Joni Mitchell. But it’s still true. Every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle that ever was came into being with that whispered word of God. And they are all still here, circulating through the universe and binding us to each other through all of time and space.
I believe that I will, during my lifetime, inhale seven of the very same molecules of air that were exhaled by the incarnate Christ. I believe this because I did the math. I really did.
It’s where the energy came from, too –- from God’s great cataclysm. All of the energy born at the dawn of creation still dances through the universe. Energy, traveling on different wavelengths, changing from gamma rays to x rays, to heat and to light. We say that God is light, and imagine celestial illumination — a ray of light, a ray of hope, the eye-light of a newborn savior, carrying God’s love directly into human hearts. I do believe that this is so.
But I also believe that God is a like a single photon, a particle of light so mysterious that it makes me think of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: We can never know exactly both its position and its composition. If we try to hold onto a photon, to slow it down enough so that we can really see it, we find that we have, in our grasping, lost the very thing we sought to hold. I think I do this to God when I try to make Her small enough to understand.
I believe that those sound waves are a siren call of invitation. Invitation to remember that we are all stardust and that we are all connected, each to each. Invitation to let go and to follow a dancing wave to the edge of mystery, where the God who is among us waits in bottomless silence.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
New Possibilities And New Realities
Jonathan - Warwick, New York
As a painter who has faced blank canvases for more than 35 years, I have come to believe that whether or not we write, paint, draw, sculpt, dance, act, sing, or play music, we are all the artists of our own lives. Our blank canvases are the hours of our days, our paints are our thoughts and feelings, and our energy is our inspiration.
Sometimes we choose our own colors and sometimes circumstances choose our colors for us. Sometimes we use our artistry to serve those around us and sometimes we use it to preserve ourselves. Sometimes our efforts bring us fame and fortune and sometimes our creativity goes unrecognized except by those close to us, those we love and those who love us. And yes, sometimes we work in complete isolation. This is the way it is for artists.
Years ago, standing behind the great painter Norman Rockwell as he painted a picture of the general store in Menemsha, Massachusetts, a picture which appeared, not long afterwards, on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine, I learned that being an artist involves the ability to create a private space for one’s self where one can focus intently and work at one’s own pace even when one is surrounded by others. This is a skill we can all use in today’s complex and sometimes overwhelming world.
Years ago, observing artist Alexander Calder, the inventor of the mobile, interact with a group of students, I learned that being an artist involves being engaged with one’s community and the individuals in it in a natural and unpretentious way. This, too, is a talent we can all use in today’s world, a world in which the modalities of our interactions with others are often defined by the media stream rather than by our own best instincts.
Years ago, watching my mother gaze longingly at the paintings she had done before she “gave up art” to raise a family, I learned that denying one’s creative impulses can lead to sadness and depression. This is also something useful to remember in times like these when the lessons of the past threaten to destroy our hopes for the future.
Being an artist is about imagining new possibilities and creating new realities. I believe that the nature of tomorrow’s reality, balanced as it is on the fulcrum of history, will depend on whether or not each of us responds artfully and creatively to the challenges we face today. I believe that the more we exercise our personal and social artistry, the more likely it is that we will enjoy a fully realized future.
Jonathan - Warwick, New York
As a painter who has faced blank canvases for more than 35 years, I have come to believe that whether or not we write, paint, draw, sculpt, dance, act, sing, or play music, we are all the artists of our own lives. Our blank canvases are the hours of our days, our paints are our thoughts and feelings, and our energy is our inspiration.
Sometimes we choose our own colors and sometimes circumstances choose our colors for us. Sometimes we use our artistry to serve those around us and sometimes we use it to preserve ourselves. Sometimes our efforts bring us fame and fortune and sometimes our creativity goes unrecognized except by those close to us, those we love and those who love us. And yes, sometimes we work in complete isolation. This is the way it is for artists.
Years ago, standing behind the great painter Norman Rockwell as he painted a picture of the general store in Menemsha, Massachusetts, a picture which appeared, not long afterwards, on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine, I learned that being an artist involves the ability to create a private space for one’s self where one can focus intently and work at one’s own pace even when one is surrounded by others. This is a skill we can all use in today’s complex and sometimes overwhelming world.
Years ago, observing artist Alexander Calder, the inventor of the mobile, interact with a group of students, I learned that being an artist involves being engaged with one’s community and the individuals in it in a natural and unpretentious way. This, too, is a talent we can all use in today’s world, a world in which the modalities of our interactions with others are often defined by the media stream rather than by our own best instincts.
Years ago, watching my mother gaze longingly at the paintings she had done before she “gave up art” to raise a family, I learned that denying one’s creative impulses can lead to sadness and depression. This is also something useful to remember in times like these when the lessons of the past threaten to destroy our hopes for the future.
Being an artist is about imagining new possibilities and creating new realities. I believe that the nature of tomorrow’s reality, balanced as it is on the fulcrum of history, will depend on whether or not each of us responds artfully and creatively to the challenges we face today. I believe that the more we exercise our personal and social artistry, the more likely it is that we will enjoy a fully realized future.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
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Linna Heartbooger
- Are you not a sine qua non for a redemption?
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:17 pm
- Been thanked: 1 time
Love that scrap of a line..lorin wrote:Jonathan - Warwick, New York
...Our blank canvases are the hours of our days...
...Sometimes we use our artistry to serve those around us and sometimes we use it to preserve ourselves. Sometimes our efforts bring us fame and fortune and sometimes our creativity goes unrecognized except by those close to us, those we love and those who love us. And yes, sometimes we work in complete isolation...
Also, that last guy, Atticus, sounds like my dad.
You can't be quite certain whether the guy was intending to joke around or say something profound.
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
The Beauty of Aging
Debi Knight Kennedy - Haines, Alaska
A year ago or so I was walking on the beach and picked up a big, somewhat battered old seashell. I immediately thought of it as a Grandmother shell. I put it in my backpack and brought it home. As the weeks went by and summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter, I kept picking up that shell, turning it over and over. Running my hands and eyes over its contours, noticing its frailties, its strengths. And I kept pondering why it felt so good to me. It was soft and weathered. It was worn right through in places. The holes intrigued me.
On a recent snowy winter morning, as I sat quietly sipping my tea, I witnessed a lovely vision. There was the Grandmother shell, sitting in its regular place on the windowsill, looking almost regal, I thought. Then through the steam of my tea I saw the soft, low, serene winter light shining through the holes in the shell. The wear, the tear, the thinning was allowing the light to shine through. It was a simple moment. A moment that is still with me. For in that moment, I came to understand why this shell had such great meaning to me.
The Grandmother shell was teaching me to appreciate the beauty of aging. Aging naturally, aging with grace, aging with all your wrinkles intact. I believe that there are lessons to learn that are just not available within the fullness of youth and all its glory. To be sure, youth is filled with its own unique lessons, not to be denied or belittled. But there is a certain humility, a humbling that comes with the wrinkles, the graying, the thinning hair, thickening waist, and sagging breasts.
I believe that Mother Nature knows what she is doing. As I see her softening the faces of my friends, my family, and myself, I am growing to love every wrinkle and every silver hair. I am coming to know that I don’t know everything. I am beginning to listen. I am learning to laugh, a lot, with abandon. I am learning how to receive as well as to give. I am learning how to love myself—just the way I am.
When I was a young woman, the only love I understood came from outside of myself. It came in the form of a powerful need, along with the need to prove myself, the need to be heard and respected. Looking back, I can see that I was full of so many needs, there wasn’t much room for anything else. Certainly not self-love. What I didn’t know yet was that it is pretty darn hard to love someone who doesn’t know how to love herself. I’m not really sure how I learned that lesson, but I suspect aging has something to do with it.
And now, with that little gem in my pocket, I am finally learning how to just be. Not do. Nothing to prove. Just be.
Now, I feel soft, a little worn. And with that humbling comes the possibility of allowing the light to shine through, now that I am able to let it in.
Debi Knight Kennedy - Haines, Alaska
A year ago or so I was walking on the beach and picked up a big, somewhat battered old seashell. I immediately thought of it as a Grandmother shell. I put it in my backpack and brought it home. As the weeks went by and summer turned to fall and fall turned to winter, I kept picking up that shell, turning it over and over. Running my hands and eyes over its contours, noticing its frailties, its strengths. And I kept pondering why it felt so good to me. It was soft and weathered. It was worn right through in places. The holes intrigued me.
On a recent snowy winter morning, as I sat quietly sipping my tea, I witnessed a lovely vision. There was the Grandmother shell, sitting in its regular place on the windowsill, looking almost regal, I thought. Then through the steam of my tea I saw the soft, low, serene winter light shining through the holes in the shell. The wear, the tear, the thinning was allowing the light to shine through. It was a simple moment. A moment that is still with me. For in that moment, I came to understand why this shell had such great meaning to me.
The Grandmother shell was teaching me to appreciate the beauty of aging. Aging naturally, aging with grace, aging with all your wrinkles intact. I believe that there are lessons to learn that are just not available within the fullness of youth and all its glory. To be sure, youth is filled with its own unique lessons, not to be denied or belittled. But there is a certain humility, a humbling that comes with the wrinkles, the graying, the thinning hair, thickening waist, and sagging breasts.
I believe that Mother Nature knows what she is doing. As I see her softening the faces of my friends, my family, and myself, I am growing to love every wrinkle and every silver hair. I am coming to know that I don’t know everything. I am beginning to listen. I am learning to laugh, a lot, with abandon. I am learning how to receive as well as to give. I am learning how to love myself—just the way I am.
When I was a young woman, the only love I understood came from outside of myself. It came in the form of a powerful need, along with the need to prove myself, the need to be heard and respected. Looking back, I can see that I was full of so many needs, there wasn’t much room for anything else. Certainly not self-love. What I didn’t know yet was that it is pretty darn hard to love someone who doesn’t know how to love herself. I’m not really sure how I learned that lesson, but I suspect aging has something to do with it.
And now, with that little gem in my pocket, I am finally learning how to just be. Not do. Nothing to prove. Just be.
Now, I feel soft, a little worn. And with that humbling comes the possibility of allowing the light to shine through, now that I am able to let it in.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
-
aliantha
- blueberries on steroids
- Posts: 17865
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
- Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe
Awesome. 
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
https://www.hearth-myth.com/
The Simple Joys of Life
Kris Hansen - Afton, Minnesota
Entered on August 15, 2005
My assistant was dressed in a pink baseball hat, Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas, a bright orange apron, garden gloves, and two right-footed frog boots. In my jeans and sweatshirt, I felt plain and underdressed. Despite the differences in our uniforms, we cooperated nicely to get the basil seeds planted in the plastic six-packs. I placed the seeds into shallow depressions in the soil, and my daughter patted them gently, singing a quiet lullaby to the tiny flecks.
Watching her crumble the soil through her fingers and listening to her questions about the social needs of seeds in dirt (Do they get lonely?), I wondered if this project would have any lasting effect on her. When she grows up, will preparing soil and planting seeds be something that she anxiously awaits every spring like I do, checking the progress of the daffodils and crocus in her yard to make certain that life is returning to the ground? Will there be any lasting effects on my daughter from this time shared, hovering over dirt on a cold March morning?
We had eight trays to plant, and her attention lasted through five. Unable to resist the temptation of the LEGO vehicles her brother was building, my assistant stood up, brushed the dirt off her hands and onto the floor, announcing that she was all done gardening. As I swept up the dirt that her abrupt abandonment had scattered across the floor, I wondered if it had been worth it, investing thirty minutes preparing and cleaning up a project for a shared ten-minute gardening experience.
The answer didn’t hit me until hours later, talking with my own mother, a Minnesotan who spends her winters in Arizona. As winter waned and spring approached, her enthusiastic reviews of the desert warmth in Tucson were sounding tired and bored. In contrast, her queries about the progress of my crocus and primrose were pointed, even desperate, too excited for polite conversation. While I was planting basil with my daughter, she was scanning the seedlings in the Arizona garden centers, hedging her bets about which ones would have the stamina to travel north and survive to give her Minnesota garden a jump-start.
We are alike, she and I; we share joy in the first greens of spring, the love of planting and the satisfaction of growing and harvesting. What I realized is that I learned those things from her. I was learning it when I was four, digging holes with a cast-off trowel in the freshly tilled soil of her garden. And I was learning it during the hundreds of times we walked through the yard, celebrating each pea blossom and tomato as a masterpiece created, a treasure found.
I don’t know if my daughter will enjoy gardening when she’s my age. She may not be interested at all. But there’s a chance that she will find the same quiet joy in a garden that I do.
This I believe: time spent sharing the simple joys of my life with my children—including sweeping potting soil off the floor—is a worthwhile investment even if the end result isn’t guaranteed.
Kris Hansen - Afton, Minnesota
Entered on August 15, 2005
My assistant was dressed in a pink baseball hat, Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas, a bright orange apron, garden gloves, and two right-footed frog boots. In my jeans and sweatshirt, I felt plain and underdressed. Despite the differences in our uniforms, we cooperated nicely to get the basil seeds planted in the plastic six-packs. I placed the seeds into shallow depressions in the soil, and my daughter patted them gently, singing a quiet lullaby to the tiny flecks.
Watching her crumble the soil through her fingers and listening to her questions about the social needs of seeds in dirt (Do they get lonely?), I wondered if this project would have any lasting effect on her. When she grows up, will preparing soil and planting seeds be something that she anxiously awaits every spring like I do, checking the progress of the daffodils and crocus in her yard to make certain that life is returning to the ground? Will there be any lasting effects on my daughter from this time shared, hovering over dirt on a cold March morning?
We had eight trays to plant, and her attention lasted through five. Unable to resist the temptation of the LEGO vehicles her brother was building, my assistant stood up, brushed the dirt off her hands and onto the floor, announcing that she was all done gardening. As I swept up the dirt that her abrupt abandonment had scattered across the floor, I wondered if it had been worth it, investing thirty minutes preparing and cleaning up a project for a shared ten-minute gardening experience.
The answer didn’t hit me until hours later, talking with my own mother, a Minnesotan who spends her winters in Arizona. As winter waned and spring approached, her enthusiastic reviews of the desert warmth in Tucson were sounding tired and bored. In contrast, her queries about the progress of my crocus and primrose were pointed, even desperate, too excited for polite conversation. While I was planting basil with my daughter, she was scanning the seedlings in the Arizona garden centers, hedging her bets about which ones would have the stamina to travel north and survive to give her Minnesota garden a jump-start.
We are alike, she and I; we share joy in the first greens of spring, the love of planting and the satisfaction of growing and harvesting. What I realized is that I learned those things from her. I was learning it when I was four, digging holes with a cast-off trowel in the freshly tilled soil of her garden. And I was learning it during the hundreds of times we walked through the yard, celebrating each pea blossom and tomato as a masterpiece created, a treasure found.
I don’t know if my daughter will enjoy gardening when she’s my age. She may not be interested at all. But there’s a chance that she will find the same quiet joy in a garden that I do.
This I believe: time spent sharing the simple joys of my life with my children—including sweeping potting soil off the floor—is a worthwhile investment even if the end result isn’t guaranteed.
-
Linna Heartbooger
- Are you not a sine qua non for a redemption?
- Posts: 3896
- Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:17 pm
- Been thanked: 1 time
Thank you, lorin!
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
I Agree With A Pagan
Arnold Toynbee - London, England
I believe there may be some things that some people may know for certain, but I also believe that these knowable things aren’t what matters most to any human being. A good mathematician may know the truth about numbers, and a good engineer may know how to make physical forces serve his purposes. But the engineer and the mathematician are human beings first—so for them, as well as for me, what matters most is not one’s knowledge and skill, but one’s relations with other people. We don’t all have to be engineers or mathematicians, but we do all have to deal with other people. And these relations of ours with each other, which are the really important things in life, are also the really difficult things, because it is here that the question of right and wrong comes in.
I believe we have no certain knowledge of what is right and wrong and even if we had, I believe we should find it just as hard as ever to do something that we knew for certain to be right in the teeth of our personal interests and inclinations. Actually, we have to make the best judgment we can about what is right and then we have to bet on it by trying to make ourselves act on it, without being sure about it.
Since we can never be sure, we have to try to be charitable and open to persuasion that we may, after all, have been in the wrong, and at the same time we have to be resolute and energetic in what we do in order to be effective. It is difficult enough to combine effectiveness with humility and charity in trying to do what is right, but it is still more difficult to try to do right at all, because this means fighting oneself.
Trying to do right does mean fighting oneself, because, by nature, each of us feels and behaves as if he were the center and the purpose of the universe. But I do feel sure that I am not that, and that, in behaving as if I were, I am going wrong. So one has to fight oneself all the time, and this means that suffering is not only inevitable, but is an indispensable part of a lifelong education, if only one can learn how to profit by it. I believe that everything worth winning does have its price in suffering, and I know, of course, where this belief of mine comes from. It comes from the accident of my having been born in a country where the local religion has been Christianity.
Another belief that I owe to Christianity is a conviction that love is what gives life its meaning and purpose, and that suffering is profitable when it is met in the course of following love’s lead. But I can’t honestly call myself a believing Christian in the traditional sense. To imagine one’s own church, civilization, nation, or family is the chosen people is, I believe, as wrong as it would be for me to imagine that I myself am God. I agree with Symmachus, the pagan philosopher who put the case for toleration to a victorious Christian church, and I will end by quoting his words: “The universe is too great a mystery for there to be only one single approach to it.”
Arnold Toynbee - London, England
I believe there may be some things that some people may know for certain, but I also believe that these knowable things aren’t what matters most to any human being. A good mathematician may know the truth about numbers, and a good engineer may know how to make physical forces serve his purposes. But the engineer and the mathematician are human beings first—so for them, as well as for me, what matters most is not one’s knowledge and skill, but one’s relations with other people. We don’t all have to be engineers or mathematicians, but we do all have to deal with other people. And these relations of ours with each other, which are the really important things in life, are also the really difficult things, because it is here that the question of right and wrong comes in.
I believe we have no certain knowledge of what is right and wrong and even if we had, I believe we should find it just as hard as ever to do something that we knew for certain to be right in the teeth of our personal interests and inclinations. Actually, we have to make the best judgment we can about what is right and then we have to bet on it by trying to make ourselves act on it, without being sure about it.
Since we can never be sure, we have to try to be charitable and open to persuasion that we may, after all, have been in the wrong, and at the same time we have to be resolute and energetic in what we do in order to be effective. It is difficult enough to combine effectiveness with humility and charity in trying to do what is right, but it is still more difficult to try to do right at all, because this means fighting oneself.
Trying to do right does mean fighting oneself, because, by nature, each of us feels and behaves as if he were the center and the purpose of the universe. But I do feel sure that I am not that, and that, in behaving as if I were, I am going wrong. So one has to fight oneself all the time, and this means that suffering is not only inevitable, but is an indispensable part of a lifelong education, if only one can learn how to profit by it. I believe that everything worth winning does have its price in suffering, and I know, of course, where this belief of mine comes from. It comes from the accident of my having been born in a country where the local religion has been Christianity.
Another belief that I owe to Christianity is a conviction that love is what gives life its meaning and purpose, and that suffering is profitable when it is met in the course of following love’s lead. But I can’t honestly call myself a believing Christian in the traditional sense. To imagine one’s own church, civilization, nation, or family is the chosen people is, I believe, as wrong as it would be for me to imagine that I myself am God. I agree with Symmachus, the pagan philosopher who put the case for toleration to a victorious Christian church, and I will end by quoting his words: “The universe is too great a mystery for there to be only one single approach to it.”