When in doubt, just take the next small step.

— Regina Brett
90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

I’ve just finished Called Out of Darkness – A Spiritual Confession by Ann Rice.  It is beautifully written with wonderful descriptions of New Orleans, Catholic liturgy and the Catholic Churches of the 1940s and ’50s.  It was amazing to me both how different from, and how similar to mine, were her experiences.

In the middle of my listening to her book, all of the hubbub about Rice leaving the Catholic Church AGAIN became the subject of much discussion both on talk shows and on the internet.  Listening to her describe her complete devotion to Christ and the Catholic Church at the end of the book and then reading her comments online made me feel very sad for her.  But more than anything else, it made me envious of her certitude.  I don’t know that I’ve ever been as certain as she is of all four stances that she took; first as a devoted Catholic, then as a certain atheist, then as an even more devoted Catholic and finally (at least for now) certain that she can no longer be a member of the church she has loved most of her life.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Setting aside the commentary about whether she is doing this for financial gain or not, her journey shows us that whether we want to or not, we often find it necessary to change.  You all know how I love to read and share my latest “finds” with you.  When I’m in need of inspiration I tend to return to the same old authors because I know that I can depend on them to turn a light on for me.  It seems especially appropriate after this brouhaha that I chose one of John Ortberg’s older works – Faith and Doubt – to listen to next.  As usual, he has shown amazing insight in his writing.

For those of you who don’t know, John Ortberg is a Christian pastor who in addition to leading various churches writes prolifically.  In Faith and Doubt, Ortberg admits that, for him, there is no faith without doubt and vice versa.  He would like to have “pure” faith; he knows what he wants to believe.  But because he sees horrible and sad things that can happen to good people, he often struggles to maintain his faith.  He is speaking of faith in God and doubt of God, but I would like to take his ideas back into secular life.

Head vs. Body

The thing that struck me as I was listening to him was that just like Ortberg, I find that I have both faith and doubt.  There are days when I truly believe in myself and there are days when I find it easier to believe in the Tooth Fairy than to believe in myself.  Somehow, I’ve made it all these (mumble mumble) years, somewhat successfully, and yet today, I’m not sure that I’ve ever accomplished anything of value.  Yes, I can “dispute” the idea that I’m incapable of doing whatever I must do, but as Ortberg points out, often our body tells us what we really believe while our head pretends to believe what we should believe.

For me, flying is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.  I’ve told you that flying isn’t my favorite thing to do.  If you’ve watched Whoopie go through her class on overcoming her fear of flying, you know there are lots of statistics that prove that flying is safer than:

• Walking
• Driving
• Riding a bicycle

And in my head, I get it.  But in my body, my pulse skyrockets, my blood pressure soars, sweat pours off of me and if I’m flying with someone I know, I grab them every time the plane does something I don’t expect. (Like they could save me if we go down… yeah, right!)

What is my body telling me?  It believes we’re going to crash!

Strengthening Our Faith in Ourselves

The same thing is true for lots of other things.  I believe (in my head) that I am a good driver, but when the cop pulls up behind me, my pulse skyrockets, my blood pressure soars and all the same stuff from the flying example happens.  When the cop turns while I go straight (without giving me a ticket), my “faith” returns.

We all have similar experiences.  For some of us our doubt is about how we look or whether we can write.  For others, it is about how well we do our jobs.  In today’s environment, it’s hard to not feel uncertain every time the supervisor wants to see us in their office.  We know that we’re doing a good job – but our pulse skyrockets, etc. (see previous paragraph).

But the revelation for me was that faith and doubt, side by side, are normal.  That whether it is about religious belief or self-confidence, we all vacillate from one side to the other.  By strengthening our beliefs in ourselves, we can reduce the amount of time we spend on the doubt side of the ledger.  We can choose to strengthen our faith in ourselves.  We were wondrously made and the more we understand about how we tick, the better we get at being who we were created to be.  We evolve, we change, we grow, and eventually – we really believe in ourselves.