Questioning the Answers

When Certainty Ceases to Make Sense

Raging Rivers and Ruby Slippers

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The night after I found out that I lost my job, a friend came over with McDonald’s ice cream sundaes in hand. I opened a bottle of wine and we ate ice cream, drank wine, and talked. 

He was great, holding nothing but a positive outlook on my situation, while still validating what I was feeling. 

I truly did have the same positivity, but it was battling against all of the raw emotions that were still churning about. Having him there helped tease it out and give it the air it needed to grow a bit stronger.

At one point, we started talking about the need to take steps. To not sit around and wait for something to look right or feel safe. And to not refrain from taking a step due to the uncertainty of how it could possibly lead to something beneficial.

It reminded me of the story in the Bible when the Israelites cross the Jordan River. He wasn’t familiar with it, so I found a copy of the Good Book, fumbled through it until I found the passage in question, and read it to him, specifically calling attention to the fact that it says the river was at flood stage. “Then it says, ‘…as soon as their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing…'”

He got all excited. “What a great metaphor!”

We chewed on how powerful it was, taking a brief moment to acknowledge that it didn’t matter to either of us if the story “really happened” because its power is found in the truth of the  illustration: The water didn’t stop flowing until the people stepped into it.

We talked about the tendency for us to stand at the edge of our metaphorical rivers and wait for the raging waters to stop flowing before we step away from the safety of the shoreline. 

In other words, we stand alongside a situation and wait for it to look safe or for an obstacle to be removed before we move forward. But only in moving forward – only in stepping into what looks impossible or like it may even harm us – can the obstacle be overcome. 

It was a great conversation and held potent relevancy as we discussed our lives and our futures.

Shortly after, I was reflecting on the conversation and it reminded me of a story I wrote as a late teenager. 

It’s no secret that The Wizard of Oz has always been one of my favorite films. Many people don’t pay attention to the fact that when Dorothy begins her journey down the yellow brick road, there’s also a red brick road adjacent to it. In the story I wrote, Dorothy didn’t have a contingent of little people singing a song about which road to follow, so she got confused and took the red brick road by mistake (in her mind, this made perfect sense because it was the same color as the coveted ruby slippers that she’d been given).

I haven’t read the story in forever so I’m fuzzy on the details, but at one point Dorothy ends up at the witch’s castle with her life on the line and she gets chased to the turret atop one of the castle towers. Desperately trying to avoid being caught, she climbs out a window and, while precariously perched high on its ledge, stares at another tower across the way. 

Unable to turn back, she gazes down at the ruby slippers on her feet, musters up as much courage as she can, and cautiously steps out into the air. The slippers begin to glow vibrantly as something forms under her feet to keep her from falling. 

She hesitantly takes the next step onto thin air, fully supported as a walkway forms beneath her. The walkway continues to extend itself – but only as far as each step that she takes; it never extends out in front of her. 

Fear sets in as she hears her pursuers. She looks back to see them starting to climb out the window after her, causing a paralysis that steals her focus and courage. The walkway begins to erode under her feet and she feels herself losing control, but once she regains focus and moves forward, it solidifies and she gets to the other tower and through the window. She turns back in time to see the walkway dissolve, and I’m guessing that her chasers probably fell to their demise.

When I penned the story, I had no real concept of the notion of deliberately stepping into nothingness with only the trust that somehow things will be okay. I certainly wasn’t familiar with any biblical stories to that effect (though there may have been some other influence that middle-age has caused me to forget). But interestingly, even though I don’t recall many details of the story, that scene has always stuck in my mind with arresting clarity.

A couple nights ago, my kids and I were watching Onward, Pixar’s latest flick, and there was a very similar scene. There were no ruby slippers, of course, but there was a magical staff. 

I’ll be honest. I had a brief response of internal indignation that my scene – my 30-year-old scene living on faded pages tucked away in an old Pee-Chee in my office – had been repurposed by Pixar. 

Okay, so it was more like indignation mixed with excitement (“See, I actually do have good ideas!”) and a dash of regret (“Aww, I shouldn’t let my stuff just fall by the wayside…”), along with a quick battle of scarcity vs. abundance (“If I don’t hurry and get my other ideas out there, they’ll be used up by someone else and then what?” “Wait, no, the pie is big enough for everyone. There’s plenty to go around. Plus, this scene is different enough from mine.”). 

It’s amazing – and slightly exhausting – how much can go through your mind in a split second.

Anyway, I quickly refocused so I could absorb the scene. 

As I watched the Pixar character take his steps, I thought about what the scene was representing. I also thought about Dorothy in the story that I wrote decades ago. And about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River thousands of years ago.

And I thought about how stories can serve as fantastic, nonthreatening illustrations of powerful truths that can have enormous significance in our lives.

Of course, it’s one thing to watch these things on a screen or read them on a page. It’s something else when we’re faced with these situations in real life. 

So I also thought – perhaps most importantly – about myself and how I hope that each time life brings me to the edge of another raging river, I’ll have the confidence I need to step into the water.

False Evidence Appearing Real?

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When I first heard the trope that the word fear stands for “false evidence appearing real,” I was in my 20s. I remember being distinctly intrigued and trying to recall stories that seemed to embody the notion, but nothing particularly noteworthy came to mind. 

My sphere at the time consisted largely of other single men and women in a tight-knit faith community. Our social calendars were packed, our cares were few, and our lives seemed fairly insulated from the types of things in life that can tend to invoke fear on any kind of significant level. 

Living with a faith that acknowledged God could do things like part seas and raise people from the dead, coupled with a strong social circle that also acknowledged these things, gave me a sense of security. It allowed me to traipse through the days, months, and years with an assuredness. A courage, of sorts. 

Little did I know that this so-called courage came largely from the fact that I had a rather carefree life. It certainly wasn’t due to navigating fear myself. Nor did I have people around me confronting the types of situations that could potentially reveal whether or not fear was, indeed, false evidence appearing real. 

Flash forward to a few years ago when I was in the middle of the most frightening (and heart-wrenching) period of my life.

“You’ve done a great job of constructing your life in a way that allows you to try to maintain control.” 

I stared at my therapist, unsure how to respond. 

She was right. I really had. 

Was it intentional? Nope. 

Was I even aware of it? Absolutely not, which is why I stared at her like a deer in headlights as I processed what she said.

Interestingly, in those earlier years as my 20s came to a close and gave way to my 30s, not only was I not learning how to effectively navigate fear in my life, but something else was going on. 

In many ways, I was actually becoming a more fearful person. 

Fear can be a subtle thing, so of course I didn’t realize what was going on. 

And since I claimed to trust a God who’s in the business of doing miraculous things, I certainly didn’t think that I was silently gripped by fear at some level. 

But as it turns out, nothing taught me to fear more than my religion did. 

Perhaps a bold statement, but for me, it was absolutely true.

Maybe it was the evangelistic tract I saw as an impressionable kid that showed an angel throwing a man into a lake of fire because his name wasn’t written in the Book of Life.

Maybe it was when I was an insecure teen wrestling with my sexuality and someone prayed to cast the demons out of me.

Maybe it was the fateful night when I was 22 and attending a Bible study that ended when a well-meaning young man looked in my eyes and posed the question, “So if you got hit by a bus and died on your way home tonight, where would you go?” (“hell” being the correct answer, naturally).

Maybe it was the subsequent years of hearing about the dangers of sin, the dangers of becoming lukewarm in my faith, the dangers of impure thoughts and lust and sexual temptation, the dangers of straying from the straight and narrow, the dangers of false teachings and false doctrines, and the dangers of falling away from the faith. 

And why were all of these things so dangerous? Because ultimately they precluded the biggest danger of all – the danger of hell. 

So yeah, fear was real for me. 

Now it’s not like it was present in any kind of conscious daily way that impacted things like going to work or enjoying a vacation, but it was there.

And those messages from within the heart of my faith community certainly weren’t the focus of every conversation or teaching or sermon. But more often than not, they were the subtext. And that subtext was pervasive. 

So perhaps even more destructive than having all of this going on at a conscious level, it had taken root deep within. At a subconscious level.

It’s no secret that our subconscious beliefs have enormous power in our lives. Our subconscious is behind the wheel. The captain of the ship, so to speak (for those of you familiar enough with the movie Jaws to remember the line “Hooper drives the boat, Chief,” we could rephrase it a bit for our purposes here and say that our subconscious drives the boat). 

And it’s true. 

It’s why people repeat unhealthy patterns in their lives over and over even though they know it’s unhealthy and despite their attempts to make choices to the contrary. It’s because of subconscious beliefs, programming, hardwiring.

If there’s fear rooted in there, it’s absolutely going to impact us in ways that we won’t even realize. 

“You’ve done a great job of constructing your life in a way that allows you to try to maintain control.” 

Of course. Of course I had. Because maintaining control creates certainty. Certainty creates security. And security is what alleviates our fears. 

But it’s all an illusion.

There’s much to be said about fear. How it works. What it triggers inside of us. The energy it creates. How far-reaching it can be. How hard it can be to identify.

And, for sure, it’ll affect each of us differently depending on our individual stories. 

For now, I’ll just say that in the years leading up to that moment in my therapist’s office, I’d been fortunate enough to start seeing the role that fear had been playing in my life. More specifically, the role that religion had played in hardwiring fear within me (this clarity came in small part thanks to a fascinating book called How God Changes Your Brain). 

I had started dismantling the unhealthy beliefs that had taken root. And I’d begun the work of embracing different beliefs that allowed new neural pathways to start forming in my brain.

That’s not to say that the place life was taking me wasn’t still terrifying. It absolutely was.

But deep down, I had an assurance like never before that things were going to be okay. I didn’t need to be gripped by fear. I could allow myself to feel it, but instead of being paralyzed by it or trying to move away from it, I could step into it. 

Would I say that “false evidence appearing real” is an accurate summation of fear? 

My experience in recent years would lead me to say yes. 

That said, I’m far less impressed by clever acronyms than I was as a twenty-something, so it’s unlikely that I’ll start evangelizing this one.

The Voice of God

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Photo credit: High Park (license)

Since last fall, I’ve been volunteering in a theology class at a local university. As one of several people facilitating small groups for the class of about 70 freshmen, I was asked this past week to share something that struck me from the current text we’re reading, a book called Dangerous Wonder by Michael Yaconelli.

There were several things from the first few chapters that resonated, from the idea of Jesus being a rule breaker to a whole discussion about the necessity of having a faith that dares to ask questions. For sure, the idea that our questions can make others uncomfortable to the point of silencing the one asking the questions hits very close to home.

But what struck me the most was actually in the introduction, where the author says “There is, deep within all of us, a voice. It speaks to us continuously, knocking on the door of our consciousness. When we are children, the voice is very loud, shattering our awareness with overwhelming clarity… It shouts to us with a whisper… This voice of our childhood is the voice of wonder and amazement, the voice of God…”

It’s a beautiful idea; one that I believe is powerfully true.

He continues, “One sad day, we are aware of an absence. We can no longer hear the God-voice, and we are left with only silence – not a quiet silence but a roaring silence. We did not want to stop hearing God’s voice. Indeed, God kept on speaking. But our lives became louder. The increasing crescendo of our possessions, the ear-piercing noise of busyness, and the soul-smothering volume of our endless activity drowned out the still, small voice of God.”

So we go from living in a space of beautiful and mysterious clarity to an unfortunate pseudo-reality, reeling in a sea of deafening noise and being drowned by life itself.

And finally, “Most of us cannot say when it happened, we only know that it happened. When we became aware of the absence of God’s voice, there were a thousand deaths within us.”

A thousand deaths within us.

A haunting statement.  It lingered with me.

As I pondered the notion of God’s voice being drowned out, I realized that for most of my life, it wasn’t busyness, possessions, the noise of life, or endless activity that were my problems, even though I’ve been steamrolled by those things at various times.

For me, religion had drowned out the still, small voice of God.

I didn’t realize it when it was happening, of course, but I can look back and see that I allowed doctrine, dogma, revered or respected spiritual leaders, and even scripture to drown out the voice of God in my life.

The idea of scripture taking precedence over the voice of God in one’s life can be a tricky thing in evangelical America, where the Bible isn’t merely affirmed as critical, but is often revered as the ultimate authority.

For example, a few years ago, I was sitting in church and the pastor was talking about the need for us to be more in touch with the Spirit, but he promptly insisted that the Spirit will never lead us to do something that isn’t “biblical.”

He then urged the importance of relying on the counsel of others to decipher whether the voice of God that we’re hearing is actually the voice of God.

On the surface, that might sound reasonable. I actually adhered to such logic for years, but it’s problematic.

And this kind of thinking has the potential to lead to a thousand deaths within us.

I suspect the reason we can be leery of the voice of God – particularly when others are hearing it – is because we want control.  We want to uphold the status quo.  We want things to be simple and tidy and to fit into our understanding of what’s true and right and acceptable.

But God doesn’t work that way.  If anything is biblical, that is.

Seriously.  If we learn anything from the Bible, it should be that the Bible was never meant to be the thing.

Five times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus starts a teaching with “You have heard that it was said…”  In other words, “You have heard that it was biblical…”

And then he goes on to explain how the people had missed the mark and it was time for them to move to a new place of understanding.

Huh?  But how can the divinely authoritative Word of God miss the mark?

I love the story in Acts 10 when Peter falls into a trance and has a vision about animals that are impure and unclean. A voice tells Peter to kill and eat, but Peter – being the good, devout Jew that he is – responds with righteous indignation, “Surely not, Lord!”

Peter was responding the way his religion had used scripture to say he should respond.  How God expected him to respond.

In modern Christian terms, we could say that he responded biblically to something that was unbiblical. Good for him. Peter/God: one. Satan: zero.

But the story doesn’t end with Peter’s righteous indignation. It ends with a transformation of Peter’s thinking and understanding.

It’s a fantastic representation of our desire to cling to what’s familiar – all the while using the Bible to insist we’re doing what God expects – even though we’re clearly being called to let go of an old way of thinking and move in a new direction.

If anything represents the falsity of the notion that God won’t ever lead us in a direction that’s not “biblical,” it’s the Bible itself.

I encouraged the class of impressionable and good-hearted prospective leaders to always listen for the voice of God and to take great care not to let it get drowned out by anything around them… especially religion.

As I write this, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes, which is attributed to thirteenth-century poet and Sufi mystic Rumi. “There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”

Great advice, Rumi.

Great advice.