A Deep Unknowing

When the fog descends in a forest, the path ahead looks very unknown. Even if you know the forest path well, suddenly it’s unknowable. The stunning photo by Darla Young reminds me of a phrase I heard last week: “a deep unknowing.” I’m not sure what a derp unknowing is yet, but it seems to me to describe an inner state of being that actually frees you from indecision. With a deep unknowing, you move from your inner core into the “right” places. But let’s get away from deep unknowing for a minute.

A good friend gave me a wonderful birthday gift — a journal with a lovely decorative cover that says, “She believed she was loved, so it made her brave.” Knowing that you’re loved may well be the most important thing you’ll ever know. The kind of love we need knows no boundaries and loves us exactly as we are, unconditionally. That kind of love is not easy to find. There are no guarantees that we will enjoy the emotional benefits of unconditional love. But we can be watchful for it, patiently seeking it and knowing how and when to reject love that is not genuine.

An important way of living into love is to be contemplative enough to know who we are, to embrace our true self. No masks. No disguises. No attempts to please another person and, as a result, realize that we’re not being true to ourselves. Richard Rohr recently wrote about what he calls, “the True Self in God.” 

You are not your gender, your nationality, your ethnicity, your skin color, or your social class. These are not qualities of the True Self in God. Why, oh why, do Christians allow temporary costumes, or what Thomas Merton called the “false self,” to pass for the substantial self, which is always “hidden with Christ in God”

So when we embrace our true selves that are “hidden with Christ in God” we find that we live and breathe in a different way. We find ourselves suddenly loving ourselves, and loving others as we love ourselves. What a novel idea! It’s a timeless idea that is as ancient as the Christ who taught us about love long ago. It is a state of being that places us squarely in God’s law of love. In some ways, we are transformed as something deep inside gives itself over to pure love, for self and others. Cynthia Bourgeault explains the law of love that compels us through “a deep unknowing.” This is how she says it:

As a Christian, when confronted by a tension between a religious certainty which leads me to violate the law of love and a deep unknowing that still moves in the direction of “loving my neighbor as myself,” I am bound to choose the latter course.  — Cynthia Bourgeault

I am pondering the idea of “a deep unknowing that still moves in the direction of ‘loving my neighbor as myself.’” I think it must require engaging in frequent contemplation and spiritual discipline to discover within myself a deep unknowing that prompts me to follow Christ’s example . . . as opposed to a decision of my will that eventually wins out to achieve the same result.

Perhaps the spiritual discipline I undertake can identify all of the indecision, confusion, stubbornness, refusal of love toward others, and cover it with that deep unknowing that still leads me in the direction of eventually knowing my true self within the perfect will of God.

May God make it so.

On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant on November 15th. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contribution to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj