Somewhere Between Certainty and Doubt

I have grown wary of people who are certain, and of people who have decided that certainty is the problem. Both positions are too tidy for the world I actually live in.

The world I live in is one where I hold convictions and questions at the same time - where I am sure enough to act and unsure enough to keep listening. It is a crowded, uncomfortable middle, and I think it is where most honest people actually dwell, before they dress their ambivalence up as something firmer.

Writing from this middle is harder than writing from a position. A position is a fort; the middle is open ground, exposed on both sides. You can be attacked by those who want you to commit and by those who want you to stay quiet.

But the questions that matter - about meaning, about God, about how to live - do not dissolve into neat answers. They ask to be carried. I would rather carry them honestly in both hands than pretend to have put them down.