The way forward was not clear. And it was acutely apparent to me that this reality was causing great consternation. Manifested in a myriad of ways, the assumed void of clarity precipitated no shortage of anxiety. The desire to fill the unknown as quickly as possible was palpable.
Uncertainty is often tumultuous water to navigate. Most of us appreciate a certain level of control and the land of unknowing is often perceived as a dangerous wasteland to travail with the greatest of haste.
And yet, if rather than run from we lean into the place of uncertainty with a spirit of openness and wonder, in time possibilities emerge. “Wonder requires a person not to forget themselves but to feel themselves so acutely that their connectedness to every created thing comes into focus. In sacred awe, we are a part of the story.” – Cole Arthur Riley
Author, Sue Monk Kidd offers these poignant, insightful words,
“What has happened to our ability to dwell in unknowing, to live inside a question and coexist with the tensions of uncertainty? Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? What has happened to patient unfolding, to endurance? These things are what form the ground of waiting. And if you look carefully, you’ll see that they’re also the seedbed of creativity and growth—what allows us to do the daring and to break through to newness. . . .Creativity flourishes not in certainty but in questions. Growth germinates not in tent dwelling but in upheaval.”
One of the questions I frequently pose to those I am privileged to walk with is, “What if you viewed uncertainty not as a threat but rather as an invitation to creativity? Ponder possibilities…”
Embracing this mindfulness is why I so appreciate the season of Advent – waiting, wondering, openness, hopefulness and faithfulness all held in a container of unknown, waiting for something incredible to be birthed.
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
BP