All of Our Beliefs

All beliefs fade and crack. Some dissolve completely. This doesn’t mean they’re unimportant, far from it. It’s just that we expect them to do more than they were designed for.

One Christmas Eve when I was young, but starting to doubt, I heard a scraping on the roof. There it was – undeniable proof that Saint Nicholas was real. I kept the magic alive for several more years.  

The small town Christian church where I was raised preached the gospel of a loving Christ, which I embraced. My belief was total, and the moral development it provided served me well, until the weight of dogma eroded my certainty.

As a young adult, I rejected my former beliefs and became a devout atheist. I believed the laws of nature explained the world without the superstitions of religion. This worldview was satisfying for a while, but a growing intuition would not let it rest. Something told me this was not the full picture, that consciousness and love were bigger than brain chemistry and social bonding.

And what of my current beliefs – that our basic nature is goodness, that consciousness and love are spread across the cosmos, that we are immersed in a field we can touch through spiritual practice, that our journey is leading somewhere – are these passing fancies that will fade and crack with time? These are as dear to me as the ones that came before. If we learn from our mistakes, I should have learned a lot by now. I like to think my failings have earned a little wisdom along the way.

With each significant learning, I’ve thought, “Aha. So that’s how it all works.” But swapping beliefs to be right was never the point. My need to be right was always coming from my human side, not my Divine side. My interpretations of the world change over time, but always in orbit around a core self; the beliefs shift, but the believer remains. I’ve come to believe (there’s that suspect word again) that our convictions serve a purpose in our growth, but not as final arbiters of reality. Beliefs are snapshots of our self-image more than pronouncements about a world based on evidence and logic. They reflect our sense of self, which is our primary vehicle for transformation, if we’re willing to refine and reshape beliefs to better integrate our understanding.

By nature, we proceed through life with a physical body in a material world, surrounded by others doing the same, all growing at different rates with their own goals and convictions. Mental constructs help us make sense of our experience. The more we experience, the more these constructs have to shed or expand to keep the ground beneath our feet. Beliefs carry our motivations and sense of self from stage to stage so we can handle what life throws at us. They fail us when we clutch our image of the world or ourselves too tightly. Held lightly, as a working draft, they foster the openness that allows for transformation.

What is the motivating force pulling this physical body through the material world along with everyone else? My current lightly held working draft is this:  we are here to expand awareness, embody love, and follow the spiritual impulse to connect with the Sacred. That’s what this self, this believer, is doing – living life and exploring ways of being that more fully integrate the joys, sorrows, and mysteries of existence at ever deeper levels.

I’m less concerned than I used to be about my changing beliefs. It’s not that earlier versions weren’t true. Truth has been sprinkled throughout. Even Santa Claus was not a lie, just a playful persona my parents used to teach love and generosity in a way a child could understand. And who knows, maybe there are times magic still carries more weight than fact. Divinity always has more in store for us. I just hope I’m open to it.

Aha. So I have picked up some wisdom along the way.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash