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I teach going beyond belief to a vulnerability to Mystery. However, to go beyond belief, we must exercise the capacity to believe. We cannot integrate belief in a healthy diversity if we abdicate the social responsibility of belief. If we throw out the map or do not take a map seriously, then, we are untrue to the responsibility to apply wisdom to the many choices available in belief and practice. So, radical pluralism is soft, easy beliefism in the denial of enculturated absolutes. And, likely, radical pluralism could only be so rampant in a culture so pampered by an over-emphasis on "indivual" liberties.
The need for groundedness in a particular faith path was made clear to me in an experience walking a Labyrinth. I had been teaching the need for compassion and dialogue among the different world religions. I had studied different faiths and had engaged in practices from the faiths for several years. I had risked my reputation and support by integrating this knowledge within my work as a pastor. Walking the Labyrinth on a Saturday morning in Ocala, Florida, the Spirit impressed on my heart, clearly, a message. I was told that the best way for me to relate to persons of other faith paths was to go deeply into my own faith path. I was assured that commitment to my tradition did not entail a denigration or lack of respect for the truths in other faith paths.
I, then, realized that healthy diversity and compassion among different faith paths must arise out of an uncompromising commitment to our individual paths. I realized that I needed a stronger commitment to my own Christian faith, from which to meet others who seek God in different ways. It was time for me to focus more on realigning myself more clearly with Christianity, even though it was a different version than that of my childhood. I had been transformed to a more open Christian appreciation of the universality of Christ. However, that in no way excused me from alinging wholeheartedly with those who follow the particularity of Jesus Christ, even as I follow the fulness of Grace in that particularity of the Word.
A social construct of Reality arises from the consciousness of a people. The consciousness is like a mental sieve through which we see. This mental sieve is essential to us, for it provides the filter through which to articulate the Mystery, as well as to relate with persons of other systems. Mentalism occurs, however, when the Mystery is reduced to the projection of Truth into the human articulations. However, a social construct provides a more or less logical and faithful sieve through which to experience our not-knowing and connect with others and God in Love.
Likewise, divine inspiration does not entail that the sieve is a full exposure of the Truth. Rather, the inspired construct is still formulated in social categories and can only intimate at the full Truth. Therefore, for example, my fellow Christians can fully embrace the divine inspiration of Scripture and, likewise and reverently, approach the Bible as a divine-human book. In this process we appreciate all aspects of the Scripture, even those that seem to contradict higher expressions of the Truth.
So, not-knowing is not simply a cognitive admission of the limitations of human thought or the systems in which we live. Skeptics can admit such, as well as agnostics. Rather, not-knowing, as taught by contemplative mystics, arises out of humbleness through recognition of the Immensity of Mystery, of God, our Creator. To admit the limitations of our systems and their articulations of Truth is a reverent and surrendered act of loving vulnerablity to the Spirit.
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The contemplative path and its practice of Beginner’s Mind nourishes not-knowing, for it leads us to know directly, in unmediated fashion, the Mystery beyond human thought. Others feel this contemplative not-knowing, or what Christian mystics have called Divine Darkness, as an intellectual humbleness. The feel around contemplatives is of connection to the Mystery and utter humbleness before God, as well as deep contentment, profound joy, simple presence, and marked sensitivity to the sufferings of Creation. This feel is much different from the sensation around those in varied domains of expertise, who focus on mastery of subject matter. In contemplation we submit all knowing to the Mystery, and the mastery of information is surrendered to the annihilation of the demand to know in the Living Flame of Love. We might sense at times that we know little, or we might sense that about all we can say is that "I know God is." This marked inability to speak forth what one knows in depth is a sign of the purging of reliance on human knowledge and a being led into deeper experience of unmediated Love.
When we sit in Silence, we are practicing giving up the control that we often wield through thought and word. We might be surprised, if we were honest, at how subtly we use ideas and words to control those around us. This guardianship of word and thought results in defending ourselves against our own limits, the reality of the Mystery, and leads to our seeking to control others. This control arises from fear of realizing that we might not be right. In claiming that knowing is an act of profound faith, we can miss the faithfulness that leads to the humbleness of not-knowing.
Many persons in religion, for example, make the error of equating not-knowing, or Divine Darkness, with lack of faith. They think not-knowing is simply ignorance or a refusal to believe. No! Not-knowing is profound knowledge that makes one immediately aware of the ineptness or lack of comprehensiveness of what one thinks he does know. The contemplative is led through knowing, not to abdicate knowing, but to the grace of a faithful not-knowing, infused with graciousness, vulnerability, and openness to others, as well as to Mystery. Knowing in much religion becomes a substitute for true intimacy. Contemplative not-knowing is a way to deepening, true intimacy.
Persons brought up in religion can experience experiences related to the oft intolerance of not-knowing in religious groups. Persons can have a crisis of faith when their faith is challenged by new ideas and other ways of viewing Reality, which differ from the majority in the faith communion. Then, many who have serious doubts about aspects of their faith or who have had experiences that do not fit the accepted norm hide in frustrated silence. Ultimately, what happens is growth of a culture of duplicity, not so much by lying but simply not telling. Loving openness is lost in such conformity, as more persons begin to have experiences that challenge the norm. Leaders press for more dogmatic conformity, while any perceived deviance is pressed more underground, resulting in a threat to the diversity essential for deepening trust and fellowship. Finally, in more fundamentalist groups, fundamentalists can turn on other fundamentalists, as what is true becomes progressively whittled down to the supposed original core.
In such group processes, persons hide out, protecting themselves from being labeled “unclean” by those who seem to know. Likewise, the rich expansion of possible new ways of seeing and the many different experiences possible for persons are lost in the silence. This culture of silence shuts off from the larger communion a contribution much needed to help the group expand its own repertoire of speaking and living the faith.
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