This I Believe
The below is the product of an Adult Religious Education workshop held at my church, based on the popular NPRsegment "This I Believe". It was presented at Neshoba Church on October 16th and will eventually appear on the church website, whenever I get around to publishing it.
I believe in Truth. Yes, that's "Truth" with a capital "T". I'm not speaking of some vague, spiritual notion; I mean the one objective, demonstrable reality. I don't deny the importance of more subjective, lower-case "truths", the stories and metaphors we tell ourselves and each other to make sense of our world, but I firmly believe in the primacy of the Truth we share. I have often heard it said that "there is more than one way of knowing", but I disagree. There is only one way of knowing, and that is through experience. It doesn't have to be our own, but it is only through experience, and through deliberate reflection on experience, that we can come to understand the universe and our place in it. Anything else is nothing more than wishful thinking, or, dare I say, delusion. That's not to say our delusions don't have their place, but I believe it's vitally important to remember that's exactly what they are. We should never turn our backs on what is true and real in favor of what is comfortable and convenient. I will always prefer an inconvenient, unpleasant Truth over a comforting delusion.
I believe the universe is comprehensible. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is nothing more than the accumulation of causes and their effects, stretching back in an unbroken chain to the very dawn of time. We live in a universe of great mystery and wonder, and mystery should be sought out and celebrated. But mystery and ambiguity should never be preserved for their own sake. Mystery is an opportunity to learn, and to grow, and to discover something more about our reality. Mystery is born of ignorance, not of ineffability. There are certainly questions we don't have the answers to, and there are questions to which we'll never have the answers, and there are questions we can never answer. But there are no questions without answers. And there certainly aren’t questions we aren't meant to answer, or things we’re not meant to know. Such a notion presupposes the existence of an "arbiter of meaning" in the cosmos, and I believe there isn't one.
I believe in accidents. The universe never had us in mind, because the universe doesn't have a mind. Our world and our lives are the result of a string of quantum events, cosmological circumstance, and basic chemistry. There is no design. We might say we're insignificant in the Grand Scheme of things, but even that is inaccurate. There is no Grand Scheme. We are accidents; but we are not mistakes. And our existence is made all the more precious because of it. I believe the universe has no ultimate meaning or purpose or reason for our existence. And that means we're free to create our own. We do so, not within the boundless infinity of a cold, indifferent universe, but within the social sphere of our relationships, both with each other and with our world. It is within this much smaller arena that we find purpose and meaning and consequence. We may never have real, lasting impact on our universe-at-large, but the impact we have on individual lives, and on our world, can be profound. That's where I look for meaning and purpose.
Because I believe in people. We are all gentle, hopeful, noble creatures. And we are all selfish, greedy, savage beasts. Which aspect of our dual nature we choose to embrace and nurture is forever our choice. We have a shared responsibility for our world, our future, and for each other, and we can do far more together than we could ever hope to alone. What we do today may not resonate beyond our own insignificant little mudball, it may be forgotten in 1000 years, or in 100. So what? It may be remembered tomorrow. It may make a difference today.