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I ended the last post in this series with a quote from Bill Chappelle:
Wow. ... That's a good question. ... Is `I don't know' an acceptable answer?”
Unfortunately, many of us...and that includes me...think that we do have the answer. THE answer. And "I don't know" is usually not it. Once we are sure we have THE answer, that's where learning and revelation stops,doesn't it?
annie and I have talked about the difference between knowers and seekers...We both have a sincere desire to be seekers, but in a way, we are all knowers. I guess part of the trick of being a seeker is holding our beliefs in outstretched hands...rather than clutching them tightly to our chest...and hanging on for dear life.
debra, from EU, has been sending devotionals written by Richard Rohr. The one she sent the other day was entitled "How Deep Is Your Desire to See?" He talks about this knower/seeker stuff.
We must never presume that we see. We must always be ready to see anew. But it's so hard to go back, to be vulnerable, and to say to your soul, "I don't know anything."
Try to say that: "I don't know anything."
So...then I don't know is an acceptable answer? According to Fr. Rohr it is. He goes on to say:
Maybe you could think of yourself as an erased blackboard, ready to be written on.
Well, there you go...not only will God write his laws on our heart, he will write his revelations on our blackboard..our erased blackboard.
For by and large, what blocks spiritual teaching is the assumption that we already know, or that we don't need to know.
How about a third thing that blocks spiritual teaching...things we don't want to know. Oh but sometimes that is because we are clutching our beliefs too tightly. We don't want to let go of what we already KNOW.
We have to pray for the grace of beginner's mind. We need to say with the blind man, "I want to see."
At one point in the Euthyphro, Socrates declares,
We must go back again, and start from the beginning to find out what holy is.
Sometimes, we do too.
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