I was sitting one morning in my office, where I should be working, instead reading Alan Watt’s “The Wisdom of Insecurity” over a cup of coffee and enjoying the view of downtown Buckhead in Atlanta. My AirPods were in ear, a playlist of classical guitar rolling through song after song of veritable white noise for reading.
I am beginning Watt’s book as part of some rabbit-holing I’m doing on two of my favorite authors, Richard Rohr and Clay Christensen, cite. I know, odd pairing, a monk and a Mormon business guru, but that’s for a different story. The foreword of Wisdom is a treatise on the difference between belief and faith. Belief, Watt’s says, is a clinging “where the believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes.” Faith, he counters, is a letting go, ungrasping of preconceptions. “If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run.” Restated, to have “running water” you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God.” Reread that last bit. I did, four times before the levity of the truth began to sink in.
As I pondered this fathomless truth, an easter egg appeared in my AirPods: a classical rendition of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” performed by Pedro H. Da Silva and the Academy of St. Martins in the. Field.
It was a revelation.
George’s masterpiece of modern pop music appeared unadorned of his mournful, hopeful lyrics and it was a revelation. The true genius of the music he wrote was revealed. The lyrics are all about the promise of a new day, a new season, a new hope:
Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter
Little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright
And yet the impact of Harrison’s studies in his newfound faith, Hare Krishna, can be found in the chord progressions throughout the song. The song is built on a pentatonic scale, five notes per octave and ascend from E to C# as the song begins. Hope in the flat pick of Harrison’s guitar. You can hear the sun rising above the ocean on a cloudless day on a sandy beach. So in accord with his hopeful lyrics. But the revelation comes in the bridge which is an ascension from C to E7: as surely as the sun rises, it will set again. The entire composition seems to be written as an ode to his faith that as surely as the sun rises, it will set. And as surely as it sets, it will rise again. However this is a faith in the surety, not a belief. The syncopation, the chord progressions are at once assuring and mildly disconcerting.
Much as Watt’s argument for faith over belief is disconcerting. And assuring. Life is too big to be bottled in beliefs. Because beliefs become certainties and certainties always lead to tragedy (I could spend pages on how this occurs, but simply ponder our government’s certainty that there were WMDs in Iraq and start doing your own rabbit-holing on how certainties lead to tragedy). Religion of any kind loses its way when it clings to doctrine instead of having faith in the God it worships. For me, the God in whom I have faith came to earth in the form of Jesus. But it is only faith that I have in the hope Jesus brings. Not certainty. Hell, I’m not even certain any of it is true. But my experience seems to largely match what the Man said, so I’m choosing to have faith.
Yet most of us, well me, spend our lives clinging to a belief that the future in this life can be made certain and it is most decidely not. Tragedy happens. I know that all too well. My son was born with a disability and died tragically, choking on aspirated food, when he was 22. And yet and still I attempt to construct a life that guarantees me happiness. Watts argues, rightly, that my construction is in vain. My search for a God that will ensure me a certain life full of only gifts and never tragedies is a myth. C.S. Lewis captured it in a children’s book:
“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
As long as we cling to certainty, we cannot find faith. Certainty cheapens faith. It conjures a world where every tragedy has an intended purpose, denying us the reality of what is truly in front of us in the now. Our mortal coil indeed has an end. Our parents, our friends, our children die and are longer with us. It stings, it aches, it itches in a place that nothing and nobody can scratch. And to salve that with a bromide that “don’t worry, they’re with God now” only goes so far.
Which returns us to Watts, who seems to be urging us to face life in the now. Don’t avoid pain, embrace it. “For whosoever would save his soul will lose it”, Jesus tells us. We struggle with this verse as it hits at the motivation for our tendency toward religiosity: control. We cannot save our souls, only God can.
That is a painful realization. Bad things can and will happen. We can’t stop them. We can’t validly explain their purpose and frankly attempting to explain them is just a way of avoiding their pain. Every attempt to avoid that pain is an attempt to save our own souls. And paradoxically, we cannot truly know joy unless we’ve known pain.
Pain and joy: they are like the rising and setting of the sun. We can only truly appreciate the rising of the sun when we’ve seen it set and lived through the dark night of the soul. And we can only truly appreciate the setting of the sun if we have a faith that it will indeed rise again.
They are like the ascension of chords, only appreciated fully by the hearing of a descension. They are like the Resurrection, only appreciated fully in a truer understanding of the Crucifixion. More on that in a different post. Meanwhile…
Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo,
Here comes the Son, and I say
It’s alright
