"Doubt Your Doubts" by Reverend Tom Capo preached on 3/20/2022

 Readings

The first reading is from the Christian Gospel of John 20: 24–25; this scene occurs after Jesus’s death, when he has appeared to the apostles.

24 But Thomas …one of the twelve [apostles], was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

The Second Reading is from the Leaping Loon blog by Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Leslie Mills.

"Today, in common vernacular a Doubting Thomas is someone who will refuse to believe something without direct, physical, personal evidence; in other words, a skeptic.

Thomas has been given the blame and the burden for doubting what he did not see for himself.  He is criticized for not having “faith.”  And yet the other apostles were given the same proof that Thomas demanded—only after they were allowed to see did they rejoice that their teacher had returned to them.

Faith—blind faith—if it is not first passed through the shadow of doubt and the fire of thought, is weak and untempered.  For faith to have meaning, it must be grounded in reality.  We know this.  And Thomas knew this, too.

Because of his doubt, when his questions were answered—when he touched Jesus’s wounds with his own hands—his faith was strengthened.  Because of his doubts, he came to believe.

I wonder if Thomas, apostle though he was, was actually a Unitarian Universalist.  Like many of us, he questioned and asked for proof, rather than offering blind trust.  He searched for truth and meaning in the only way he knew how—demanding to touch with his hands and see with his eyes."

 

Sermon

I left the Catholic Church in my late teens with a lot of doubts and skepticism about organized religion.  I also left Catholicism with doubt that there was any kind of god or divinity.  Since then I have learned to value my doubts on this spiritual journey I am on.  Perhaps some of you at one time or another in your lives have experienced doubt or skepticism about religion in general or a specific religion or certain religious teachings, truths, beliefs, life-meanings or even your own personal truths, beliefs or meanings.  Have your doubts been something you wish you could have avoided or have they been something you’ve welcomed as

a useful tool on your spiritual journey. As I continue on my spiritual journey, particularly as we all emerge into a mostly post-pandemic world, I have started wondering more about doubt, certainty, faith, and how all these fit for me now.

            Like many Unitarian Universalists, I have explored a number of religious traditions and considered how they fit for me.  I have been a theist and an agnostic, but never wholly an atheist.  I guess atheism feels too absolute for me, sort of like I’ve put everything in a box and stored it on a shelf, offering me less opportunity and wondering during my spiritual exploration. But that’s just me, and I remain open to different perspectives on atheism that might help me explore it.  We have a number of atheists in the congregation and in Unitarian Universalism, and I can imagine that your/their understanding of atheism may be very different than mine; you/they might see atheism as spiritually, emotionally, ethically rich, full of awe and wonder.  And that is wonderful.  Unitarian Universalism offers us a community where we can coexist peacefully in these differences.  We’re able to share our perspectives with each other without judgment, and we learn/grow through our sharing.  We gather here as Unitarian Universalists, at least in part, to affirm that revelation is not sealed, and that what we understand as truth is fluid, ours is an active faith, always in process, always having the potential for change, as we experience life and as we share with our experiences, truths, beliefs, and meanings with one another. 

            I am frequently drawn to a song by Peter Mayer; he wrote a Unitarian Universalist hymn that many love to sing “Blue Boat Home”.  The song I am drawn to is called, “God is a River” Let me share a few lines:

In the ever-shifting water of the river of this life

I was swimming, seeking comfort; I was wrestling waves to find

A boulder I could cling to, a stone to hold me fast

Where I might let the fretful water of this river round me pass

And so I found an anchor, a blessed resting place

A trusty rock I called my savior, for there I would be safe

From the river and its dangers, and I proclaimed my rock divine

And I prayed to it protect me and the rock replied

God is a river, not just a stone

God is a wild, raging rapids

And a slow, meandering flow

God is a deep and narrow passage

And a peaceful, sandy shoal

God is the river, swimmer

So let go

            I am drawn to this song because, at least for me, it affirms letting go of absolute unchangeable truths, beliefs, or meanings.  It affirms letting what the universe, god, goddess, whatever it is beyond my narrow life, flow around and with me, perhaps influencing me or aiding me in coping with a complex world.  I also realize that some meanings, truths or beliefs may be transient, only useful at certain points in my life or in certain circumstances.   Some of you might have trouble with Mayer’s use of the word god, but here’s the thing: the words we use to attempt to describe truths, beliefs, and meanings are imperfect, words like spirit, soul, god, reverence, holy, sacred to name a few.  I have a tendency, like most of us do, to try to find something to hold onto—a truth, belief, meaning—that helps me cope.  A metaphorical rock in a river, but in reality, spirituality is like a river, we are all in process, as is everything around us.  And while I can feel the importance, the value, the usefulness of certain truths, beliefs and meanings as I flow along the sometimes wildly raging and sometimes slowly meandering river.  All of us are hampered by imperfect language as we share and listen to others. Even so imperfect as our language can be, there is something in the sharing that helps me find what I need to ground me in life, for a time or through an experience.

            What do you think doubting Thomas, the Jesus skeptic, the possible Unitarian Universalist, would think about the idea that beliefs, faith, and meanings ebb and flow, changing as we move through life, as we have mundane, profound, transformative experiences, as we explore wisdom from various religions, philosophies, and TED Talks?  Perhaps he would say that until he has proof that what he is hearing or reading is true, he will not believe it.  Perhaps he would say that if he can’t see, smell, taste, or touch something, it has no truth for him.  Perhaps he would say if a truth is “not first passed through the shadow of doubt and the fire of thought, [it] is weak and untempered.”  In other words, “for faith to have meaning, it must be grounded in reality.” 

            So, what’s your criteria for determining whether a belief, a truth, a certain meaning of a life experience works for you, will help ground you, will be useful to you?  Deep reflection?  Do you share it with others and listen to their thoughts?  Do you try it on—find out how it works in your life?  If that belief changes, do you hold it gently for a little while to see if it still resonates with you?  Do you accept it only if it is grounded in reality, science, makes rational sense, that is has “passed through the shadow of doubt and the fire of thought”?  If it isn’t rational, logical, reality based, thoroughly explored, do you consider the belief or truth weak or untempered?  

            There is a Buddhist story that goes like this:  a man was wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives wanted to provide him with a surgeon, but the man said, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He went on, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He also said, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' And so the man died and all those things remained unknown to him.  ("The Shorter Exhortation to Māluṅkya Cūḷa Māluṅkyovāda Sutta (MN 63)". Retrieved January 7, 2018). 

            This story is meant to illustrate the challenge of accepting a new truth or belief or meaning.  How much do we need to know, how fully do we need to understand, before we accept a truth into our lives? If you’ve been metaphorically struck by a shaft of new insight, pierced by a sudden recognition of a new truth, if that new truth is resonating deep within you, how do you respond?  I not recommending Blind Faith, accepting a truth, a belief, a meaning without any reflection. Reflection is important; it’s how we make meaning, but if I spend all my time in reflection, is that really helpful? To me? To the world?   At some point I need to decide if the truth, belief, meaning is worth acting upon, is worth bringing into the world to change it—and possibly myself—for the better.

            As we consider a truth, belief or meaning, we are tempted by two extremes. On the one hand, there is faith without doubt, a kind of faith so impatient with Thomas, for instance, that it would cast him out for asking impossible questions. On the other hand, there is only the world of sensation and science, thus creating doubt in the rather difficult acceptance of living a life with any faith. Thomas presents a different way. Thomas lives a critical faith. Thomas knows what it is to lose, to suffer, to find his hopes devastated — but he also knows what he really wants. He doesn't deny his doubts or his faith.  And I, too, want both doubts and faith in my life.

            I think that doubt is useful, but not the end all of spiritual exploration.   We will never have all the information we need to know if a truth or belief or meaning is exactly what we need, when we need it, or how we need it.  I do believe some reflection and doubt is useful, but I also believe there is a limit to how far to explore a truth or belief or meaning if I think it might be useful to me. 

            And I have come to find that doubt has other, perhaps less pronounced, purposes on a spiritual journey.  (Adapted from: 3 Kinds of Self-Doubt That Are Actually Signs of Success: These kinds of self-doubt signal you're actually on the right path in life. By Jessica Stillman, Contributor, Inc.com)  Here are three of them.

1.         Being willing to doubt your truths, beliefs, meanings and hear alternative viewpoints and fresh ideas is a sign of a healthy spirituality. This sort of humility helps you to connect openly and honestly with others, and become more tolerant of difference. Not being sure what you believe at times can be uncomfortable but it is also a sign of a mature heart and mind.         

2.         If you worry a little about your truth, belief or meaning, that's actually a good indication you understand it well enough to see its full complexity but haven't yet settled into complacency. And your self-doubt is likely to spur you toward greater exploration.

3.         Don't be led astray by thinking that just because you have found a truth, belief or meaning that seems to work for you now that that is synonymous with a lack of doubt, just affirm that life will provide future opportunities for questioning and questing, and that you're probably doing pretty well.

We all have doubt and faith in varying degrees.  How we choose to work with them is up to each of us.  As I have opened up to both faith and doubt, at different points in my life, I have found that the path forward generally becomes clearer if I am ready and trusting that it will, and have people like you in my life.  As interfaith chaplain and college instructor in World Religions Fred Lamotte writes:

When times are dark

the way becomes clear.

Trust in your breath.

Rest in your heart.

Bow to the stranger.

This is the gospel of astonishment.

If we are completely lost

we come home

to each other.

So may it be.              

Positive Expectations and Positive Fantasies preached by Revered Tom Capo on 9/22/2019

Reading

This is from Roller Skating as a Spiritual Discipline by Reverend Christopher Buice:

“I have a theme song for roller-skating.  It is by the pop group Chumbawamba.  The words to the chorus are, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again.  You’re never going to keep me down.’  If you have ever seen me skate, you can appreciate why the song is so appropriate.

When I put on a pair of roller skates, I sometimes feel vulnerable.  I become aware that I might fall and hurt myself.  If I give into fear, I will never be able to experience the fun of flying around the rink…

Roller-skating is not the only activity during which I get knocked down.  I’ve been knocked down.  I’ve been knocked down on many occasions: by the death of friends and members of my family; by disappointed hopes, broken promises, and shattered dreams.  I think very few of us make it around the roller rink of life completely unscathed.  Many of us learned a lesson or two from the Theology of Hard Knocks.

One of the most significant decisions anyone can ever make is how to respond when hurt or injured by life.  When I am roller-skating, I realize that I have at least three choices.  One temptation is simply to remain sprawled out on the roller rink floor, wallowing in my misery, hoping for some pity.  Another choice is to crawl off the floor, get on the bench, nurse my wounds, and sit out the rest of the session.  Or I can get up again and say, ‘You’re never going to keep me down.’  In my life it has been important to make the decision to get up once more, brush myself off, and try one more time to make it around the rink.  This has not always been easy.  And on more than one occasion I’ve needed a helping hand to get me back on my feet again.  Yet I know I do not want to be a permanent spectator on the sidelines of existence.  In the fullness of time I want to be back in the flow of things, to re-enter and move with the rhythm of the circle of life.”

Sermon

I want to start by sharing a blog post by Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD.  He is the founder of PsyBlog: “Researchers wanted to see how people cope with four different challenges that life throws at us: getting a job, finding a partner, doing well on an exam and undergoing surgery (hopefully not all at the same time).

Across four studies the researchers examined how people thought about each of these challenges. They measured how much they fantasized about a positive outcome and how much they expected a positive outcome.

The difference might sound relatively trivial, but it’s not. Expectations are based on past experiences. You expect to do well on an exam because you’ve done well on previous exams, you expect to meet another partner because you managed to meet your last partner, [you expect to throw a baseball better because you have gotten better at it] and so on.

Fantasies, though, involve imagining something you hope will happen in the future, [as if it is happening] right now. This turns out to be problematic.  The researchers found that when trying to get a job, find a partner, pass an exam or get through surgery, those who spent more time entertaining positive fantasies did worse.

Take those looking for a job. Those who spent more time dreaming about getting a job, performed worse. Two years after leaving college the dreamers had applied for fewer jobs, unsurprisingly had been offered fewer jobs, and, if they were [working], had lower salaries…

        Although positive fantasies were associated with failure, positive expectations were associated with success. People who had positive expectations about finding a partner, recovering quickly from surgery and passing an exam, did better than those whose expectations were negative.”

           

When you were meditating earlier about improving something in your life, how did you imagine it?  What attitude did you have—did you think of it as something that you expect that you can accomplish, with work, effort, time?  Or did you imagine improvement as if it had already happened—Shazam!—with no effort on your part…a fantasy?  Neither fantasies nor expectations are bad or destructive per se.  But, according to Dr. Dean, you are more likely to find success if your attitude is more one of expectation than of fantasy. 

            And what did you think about the wise person you talked to about improving something in your life in the meditation.  What did they say to you?  Was it helpful? Did they reveal some of the ways you might sabotage yourself, or did they point out obstacles you might face, or suggest how to manage whatever obstacles you do face?  Perhaps the wise person suggested that you were capable of achieving your goal, or told you that what you hope to change was not really possible, and that you needed to accept it.  Or perhaps nothing at all happened for you during the meditation.  It’s like that sometimes, and that’s okay.

            I have been to many workshops that included meditations not unlike the one I offered you today.  I remember the first time I experienced a meditation like this.  I was attending Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, a Catholic High School.  Each year our class was expected to attend a retreat.  I was a sophomore at the time and very involved in my home Catholic Church.  At the retreat, the visualization they suggested focused on how we could improve our faith.  I was young, so my attitude going in was that what I visualized was actually going happen, simply because I was able to see it in my mind.  What did I see? 

I saw a flaming heart.  I later was told this was the Flaming Heart of Jesus and that the image was very special. 

            I was on top of the world.  I felt more connected to my faith than I ever had been.  But still my Jesuit teachers trained me to look deeply into concepts and ideas even beliefs, and to not to accept ideas, concepts, or beliefs without comprehending them.  So after my visualization, I dug deep into Catholicism and I tried to live that faith to the core of my being.  As it turned out, digging in deep and trying to live that faith, well, it eventually led me away from Catholicism.  And I realized that the flaming heart I imagined didn’t belong to Jesus, it belonged to me.

I continued to study Catholicism, and I began to explore how people around me lived their Catholic faith.  I started with my parents.  My mother used birth control pills, which the church taught were sinful.  My mother never really talked about her beliefs, but she lived them in her life.  My father was an alcoholic and a rager, yet talked about his beliefs frequently.  I was confused.   The deeper I went into the teachings of the church, the more confused I became.  What I saw being practiced by some people was not what I understood as the Catholicism taught by the priests.

        So I started attending to what my flaming heart and intellectual curiosity told me was right for me on my faith journey.  The journey still held many aspects of Catholicism, but there were some significant exceptions. 

Perhaps due to the influence of my mother, I decided that it was a woman’s right to choose whether to have a child or not.  It shouldn’t be up to the church to guilt a woman into having children when they did not want to, regardless of the reason.

This particular issue, Women’s Reproductive Choice, came to a head for me when a priest at my high school asked me to march in a Pro-Life rally.  I knew I was not anti-abortion, but felt pressured because many of my classmates and teachers were attending.  I struggled with this for some time, and finally decided that I was no longer a Catholic because there were beliefs and ideas within that religion that I just didn’t believe, and I could no longer practice a faith that was inconsistent with what my heart and mind believed to be true.

I tell you this story because I had based my deepening connection with my religion on a fantasy, not on an expectation.  The Jesuits had drilled into me to “heed the guidance of reason and the results of science” and follow the teachings of your heart.  When I tried to do that with a fantasy that I had imagined as a grounding for the religion, a religion that I had loved, my connection to that religion dissolved and I was left depressed and disconnected, knocked to my knees.  I had choices then.  To just stay down, wallow in my pity and sorrow.  To crawl to the side and just be a spectator of life, not being involved in any religion or spirituality.  Or to get back up again.  I decided I had to get back up; I wasn’t going to let this new revelation keep me down.

Building my own theology in terms of positive expectations and reconciling some to the aspects of my childhood faith would come later in my life when I found Unitarian Universalism.  But for years, I tussled with how my faith would be expressed.  What were its tenets?  What would make it strong, yet tensile?  I thought about it, visualized it, read about different religions.  I held on to the idea, foundational to all the major religions, of treating others as I would like to be treated, and I held that love, the connection I felt for others and that they expressed to me, was what I expected in a religion, remembering what Jesus was reported to have said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater”.  But what about the concept of deity?  At that time in my life, the concept of a god didn’t seem to connect with me, perhaps because of my disappointment in Catholicism.

A positive expectation has its grounding in being reality-based; in having been experienced in some way previously; in being possible to achieve; and in being something the person feels should be achieved—for whatever reason. 

A positive expectation isn’t an instant fantasy.  Positive expectations have infrastructures.  They take effort, time, patience, resources, and often emotional resilience.  I didn’t realize this until after I had struggled with my own faith and my own beliefs about how to live my life with meaning and purpose.  Today, one of the foundational components of my positive expectation about my faith is that it is not static, that my faith will continue to change as I have experiences, as I learn, as I look within and reflect on my life and the lives of others who I connect with; and that’s very much in line with Unitarian Universalism.  You see Unitarian Universalists believe that revelation is not sealed.  In Unitarian Universalism “faith” is a verb.  

Today I describe myself as a humanist, panentheist, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist holding some affection for aspects of my past Catholicism.  Let me define these terms.  Please keep in mind these are my definitions and how I live these definitions.  They are not common definitions and I am not sharing them as such.  They’re personal, as I believe all faith definitions are especially personal for people who call themselves Unitarian Universalists.  Humanism for me is a belief in living in loving connection with creation.  Humanism also calls me to minster to and protect all creatures and this planet. Panentheism is a belief that there is a spark of the divine in all things and I must respect all of creation as expressions of the divine.   Buddhism is a belief in non-attachment, neither grasping nor rejecting my experiences, instead being open to and exploring experiences to determine their meaning and purpose in my life.  In addition, I affirm the value of meditation from a Zen Buddhist perspective.  And I think of Unitarian Universalism as the container for me to safely explore who I am, what I believe, and how to live my life with meaning and purpose, within a loving community.  Perhaps that is what Unitarian Universalism can be for you as well.  A place to safely explore who you are, what you believe, and how to live your life with meaning and purpose.

I want to share something else Dr. Dean wrote in his blog: “…Expectations are built on solid foundations while positive fantasies are often built on thin air…The problem with positive fantasies is that they allow us to anticipate success in the here and now. However they don’t …[take into account] the problems we are likely to face …[as we seek to bring an expectation to life,] and can leave us with less motivation—after all it feels like we’ve already reached our goal.”  He goes on to say, “It’s one way in which our mind’s own brilliance, lets us down. Because… [our minds are] so amazing at simulating our achievement of future events[, a fantasy]…they can actually undermine our attempts to achieve those goals in reality.”

            What positive expectations do you have about your faith? What are the foundations you build your faith on?  What are its cornerstones?  Where do you hope your faith journey will take you?  When you look deeply within and around you with your heart and soul, as you consider your beliefs with the guidance of reason and the results of science, as you reflect on your direct experiences and learn from the world religions and earth-centered teachings, what do you see?  What takes shape in your mind’s eye? What will you discard?  What will you take with you as you journey through this life?  Will your experiences be positive or negative?  “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”  Either way, there is still a journey waiting to be experienced, a life to be explored.  May your expectations be positive, may the odds be ever in your favor, and may you journey well.