Those who believe there is more to come: more to our experience of existence than the life of which we are presently aware, have ways of being distracted from our paths which differ from the commonly held but mistaken belief that following our dreams can be put on hold.
We know that our ultimate dream: the dream that encompasses all that is worthwhile, disperses and discards all that is worthless, and which is the fulfilment of all our deepest desires, is more than just a dream. It is The Dream; it is God’s own dream for mankind sown and germinated within each one of us; His plan for us; our source of life, our reason for being, and our destination.
It is through our understanding that our worldly tomorrows will not always be there that we can see – however nebulous and however vague its outline – that our future is a greater reality than the anticipation of a sequence of tomorrows.
As the years of experience accumulate, all of us will become increasingly conscious of our own mortality. We may feel the same, regardless of age, and even when we notice the increasingly grey hair, the loosening skin, the aches and pains which linger instead of leaving quickly and completely, we do not readily convert our superficial knowledge of the fact that life in this world will come to an end into a full realization of the inevitability and finality of our physical decline leading to death.
At some point, I presume, we all reach a point where this changes: where reality can no longer be evaded: where truth catches up with our lack of awareness, our avoidance, or our denial. But I cannot begin to imagine how this might feel to a person without even the vaguest hint of belief in some form of continuance of existence after all trace of physical life has gone. No assumptions can be made; with a whole lifetime spent seeing all things from that viewpoint the end may be a continuation of lifelong acceptance and contentment born of knowing that this is simply how it is.
My own inability to imagine that situation stems from the fact that I find it impossible to grasp how anyone can live through an entire lifetime with such a belief without developing at least some degree of doubt. I regard doubt as to the existence or otherwise of God as being as universal as mankind’s sinfulness. Both, within ranges that extend far beyond any single person’s capacity to comprehend, are quite simply part of us. They are inevitable consequences of our individual and collective imperfection, the existence and costly influence of which is undeniable, whether we believe the story of our beginnings as told in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis, or any of the other creation stories from around the world, or if we believe in nothing beyond the “reality” of this life.
Lives can be blighted, stunted or shrivelled by the confusions and fears caused by not keeping these two universal veins separate. They are both embedded in our very nature: they pulse and flow through us as surely as does our lifeblood, and just as our blood is constantly being cleansed by some of the essential organs of the body, and returned to the heart and lungs for re-oxygenating and redistribution, so our doubts as well as our sins need repeatedly to be returned to the heart of our being, the source of life, for cleansing, for renewal, and for the harmonizing of all aspects of our lives.
We must never regard our doubts as sinful. We do not sin when we doubt.
We should try to regard our doubting as becoming conscious of an ever-present lifeline: something which speaks of how much more we can yet be than whom or what we are today.
And that same lifeline threads through veins leading to the source of answers in the hearts of even the most defiantly unbelieving of atheists. Signs of its presence there flicker occasionally in spite of what may be considerable efforts to keep it out of reach and out of sight; and such moments themselves can cause considerable confusion. I suspect there is far more going on beneath the surface of such people than is ever likely to be outwardly shown.
One such recent public occurrence found Prof. Richard Dawkins declaring his non-belief in God as being “6.9 out of 7”. This estimation of his own disbelief allows room for more than 14,ooo among every million declared atheists to not only grasp the lifeline but to be brought all the way into a living relationship with God. I give him considerable credit for having made known his own deceptively large margin for error. It was an expression of the doubt that will continue to play its part in every one of our lives.
( The whole debate can be watched here: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/nature-human-beings-and-question-their-ultimate-origin-video )
The lifeline takes us back to our very roots. As expressed in Genesis, to when ‘the man and his wife heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day’; to a time when the wonder and simplicity of walking had not been separated from the miracles of creation and from a consciousness of being in constant communion with the Source of Life. But what did their disobedience lead them to do?
‘ they hid from God among the trees of the garden. But God called to the man. “Where are you?” he asked.’
(Genesis 3:8-9)
Sin and doubt will follow us all the days of our lives, but whatever our past mistakes, and however great our weaknesses may be, God still wants to share our walks with us,
However disbelieving, and however insurmountable our doubts, He still calls to each of us just as He did to Adam: “Where are you?”
May we never be so afraid that we hide from Him, least of all when having already ventured out to enjoy the wonders of His creation.
It can be equalled, but there is no place better in which to meet with Him than among trees. They would rather not grow at all than aid us in our separation from Him, and at the very least they can speak of a hope living at the heart of all struggles and countering our temptations not to persevere; even to the smallest doubts in the hearts of atheists.
“At the timberline where the storms strike with the most fury, the sturdiest trees are found.”
“The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.”
(Authors unknown)
