Certainty is a Security Blanket...

Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.

Cheryl Strayed

I often ask people I Zoom with about what they want - from me, for their life, to change. It’s a serious question. Here are some of the answers I have heard this past month:

I want to get my kids back from social services.

I want to lose weight so that I can feel good about myself.

I want to save my marriage.

I want to escape my marriage.

I want to travel again.

I want to find my one true love.

I want a job so that I can move out of my parents’ house.

I want to express my passion through a job that fulfills me.

I want to take a nap or sleep through the night again.

I want my brother to talk to me.

I want my mother to not be dead so that she can see me grow up.

Sometimes I feel like the best thing I can do for others is to scavenge through their memory banks and haul out moments of joy to remind them that life is not always about what is missing. Sometimes I feel like the hardest thing I do for others is to hold up a mirror while yelling (in my head), “Do you see this? This here? Are you paying attention? You are not going to get your kids back if you keep smoking crack. Is really and truly the most important thing about you how much you WEIGH for god’s sake?” On and on my questions go. Questions I ask myself on days when how much I weigh does indeed feel like the measure of my worth. Questions I ask myself about why my baby brother and I no longer speak. Questions I ask about so many of the people I have cared about who are no longer with their loved ones - lost to life in ways that feel….preventable, unnecessary, a mistake.

It is good to dig for joy; it is also important to dig deep and confront ourselves about our notions of truth, reality, and certainty. I’m told by people who study such things that certainty is not a sign of wisdom or even maturity. It’s more like a security blanket we use to protect ourselves from hard truths and painful feelings. Let’s crawl out from under the oppression of our certainty and see what God might be willing to do for us.

Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.

American proverb of unknown origin