The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. I think it was Ann Lamott who said that. It's wonderfully helpful. Even when we really really want to know something right now. Even when we want to know what to do about something that's driving us crazy, or we want to know how to change a circumstance, how to fix something or stop the throbbing of a painful situation. To want to learn how to be patient with life's uncertainties and unknowables is a wise yearning. In fact, if you have that yearning it's probably a sign that you have the capacity to grow in it. The three lectio readings for this week are perhaps a little 'perplexing, but as Stephen Batchelor points out right out of the gate, sustaining perplexity is part of the practice.
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As mindful awareness becomes stiller and clearer, experience becomes not only more vivid but simultaneously more baffling. The more deeply we know something in this way, the more deeply we don't know it. Such unknowing is not the end of the track: the point beyond which thinking can proceed no further. This unknowing is the basis of deep agnosticism. When belief and opinion are suspended, the mind has nowhere to rest. We are free to begin a radically other kind of questioning. The task of dharma practice is to sustain this perplexity within the context of calm, clear, and centered awareness. -Stephen Batchelor
Do not give up then, but work away at it till you have this longing. When you first begin, you find only darkness, and as it were a cloud of unknowing. You don't know what this means except that in your will you feel a simple steadfast reaching out towards God. Do what you will, this darkness and this cloud remain between you and God, and stop you both from seeing God in the clear light of rational understanding, and from experiencing his loving sweetness in your affection. Reconcile yourself to wait in this darkness as long as is necessary, but still go on longing after the One whom you love. For if you are to the feel the Presence and see God in this life, it must always be in this cloud, in this darkness. -The Cloud of Unknowing
We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our competence, a personal failing. Seen this way, the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives. -Rachel Naomi Remen
